Love to lead congregation as in the past (2,3)
I believe the answer is:
of old
'in the past' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'love to lead congregation' is the wordplay.
'love' becomes 'o' (In tennis, 'love' means 'zero').
'to lead' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'congregation' becomes 'fold' ('fold' can be a synonym of 'congregation').
'o'+'fold'='OF OLD'
'as' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for of old that I've seen before include "Long ago" , "Formerly" , "belonging to the past" , "these days? No!" , "In or from former times" .)