Why Should We Shout?

Worship leader Darlene Zschech helps us understand the divine power behind loud praise. 

When I started leading worship years ago, I was inhibited to shout praise to God. Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I let my insecurities dictate my expression and response to Him. 

It wasn’t until a revelation of God’s worthiness grew inside of me that my inhibitions began to diminish, as God’s Word continued to teach me about how my response to His great love would never be found in a manual or textbook. Instead, my response would come out of my inner being as His love grew in me. 

Now I find it impossible to hold my praise inside. I love to shout praises to my God—and for many reasons. I love that the atmosphere, however heavy and dominating, must bow down to the praise of my God. I love that the shout often carries the seeds of prophetic insight, as we shout out what we see in the spiritual, regardless of circumstance or prevailing emotional strongholds. I love that the shout requires us to be confident in the reality of Christ, for the shout never goes unnoticed—on earth or in heaven. There is incredible victory in the shout of the redeemed!

Psalm 47—a psalm every worship leader should study—declares that “God has gone up with a shout” (v. 5). We know God inhabits the praises of His people (Ps. 22:3), yet when He shouts, all creation listens. Jesus entered earth’s domain surrounded by the greatest heavenly music, and He will return amid the great trumpet blast. This is the shout of triumph, the shout of victory, the shout of splendor and majesty. This is a shout like no other! Football stands full of raging fans have no idea how grand a shout can be compared to the shout that accompanies the praise of our heavenly Father.

God’s praise and our obedience are an incredible combination. Often, though, our obedience requires an element of faith, of seeing what has yet to appear. Faith hears the shout before it is even there! So let the sound arise, and let His enemies be scattered.