Worship Online Podcast (For Worship Leaders)
Aug 20, 2026 · 45 min · 12 segments
He gave the stage away on purpose. He still says it hurt more than he expected. **Heath Michael Bottomly** led worship for years before moving into senior leadership, and he is honest about what…
Keith ElginHost
Can you go back to that moment when you were, uh, kind of maybe handing off worship leading? Is that a ...
Was that tough, or did you always view it as just the expression that you were doing at the time?
And he was a, the worship pastor at a church called North Hills, and we did recording stuff together.
I'm like ... 'Cause he had told me his history with, you know, he went through all the, the worship wars, as they called them, you know-
And he looked at me, and he paused, and he said, "I fought so hard to own the stage, uh, during my ministry time and everything." He's like, "That when the next generation was coming up, I held on it, onto it really hard."
He's like, "Because i- i-," he was like, "The amount that I went through," and he's like, "Finally I could...
I stepped into it," and was like, "Now I can lead." And he said, "If I could do it again," he's like, "I would've handed off the stage a lot sooner." And that stuck with me.
Before I even wa- had the opportunity to jump into being a senior pastor position role, ministry role, I had already started in my 30s, um, had take, taken that to heart and had actually started handing off the platform to, to other people.
I'm gonna give them opportunities that I had, or oppor- even better opportunities than I had." But so much of my, quote-unquote, "success" in ministry, the things that, that people were calling me to talk about, or the conferences I was asked to speak at, or, you know, any of these things-
Can you go back to that moment when you were, uh, kind of maybe handing off worship leading? Is that a ...
Was that tough, or did you always view it as just the expression that you were doing at the time?
And he was a, the worship pastor at a church called North Hills, and we did recording stuff together.
I'm like ... 'Cause he had told me his history with, you know, he went through all the, the worship wars, as they called them, you know-
And he looked at me, and he paused, and he said, "I fought so hard to own the stage, uh, during my ministry time and everything." He's like, "That when the next generation was coming up, I held on it, onto it really hard."
He's like, "Because i- i-," he was like, "The amount that I went through," and he's like, "Finally I could...
I stepped into it," and was like, "Now I can lead." And he said, "If I could do it again," he's like, "I would've handed off the stage a lot sooner." And that stuck with me.
Before I even wa- had the opportunity to jump into being a senior pastor position role, ministry role, I had already started in my 30s, um, had take, taken that to heart and had actually started handing off the platform to, to other people.
I'm gonna give them opportunities that I had, or oppor- even better opportunities than I had." But so much of my, quote-unquote, "success" in ministry, the things that, that people were calling me to talk about, or the conferences I was asked to speak at, or, you know, any of these things-
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