Recently,
I was meditating on what I do – leading praise and worship and ministering to
the Lord (and His people) in song. As easy as this sounds, you may not
know how complex leading praise and worship can become. Learn these
words, know these vocal parts, don’t forget to move in sync with the rest of
the group, drop your jaw, vibrato…and on and on it goes. How did we make
such a simple act of love and adoration into such a performance-driven
act? That’s exactly what I was pondering. I guess, my background,
being so diverse, causes me to look at praise and worship, in church, a tad
differently from other people. See, I grew up in the Southern Baptist
denomination. “Praise and worship” was not a common term I remember in
those days. We had “hymns” and “song services”. Of course, there
was that seasoned soloist who would sing a “non-hymn” song (usually accompanied
by a performance track purchased at the local Bible Book Store) on a Sunday or
Wednesday night.
In my teens I started meeting Pentecostals. Now, they had “expressions of praise” I had never heard or seen before, like lifting up their hands and actually clapping their hands. Every once in a while one of them would get to dancing or “doing the Holy Ghost hop” as they affectionately called it. The only expressions of praise I had known before that was standing and sitting. There wasn’t too much in between.
My freshman year of college I found myself in a predominately black church and learning about the “shout” and “the praise break”. Being one of the few Caucasians in the bunch, I found myself clapping my hands or jumping up and down during those times. The Holy Ghost never “took hold of my feet”, so I just learned after serving there for a few years how to “get in where you fit in.”
The last church I served in before coming to Jacksonville in 2009 was a small church of about 75 people. The interesting thing about this church is that 90 percent of the congregation was from Zimbabwe. The pastor was American, but the church was started by a Bishop in Zimbabwe. Their expressions of praise and worship were not what I saw in any other churches I had served in because it wasn’t really a “performance-style” of praise and worship. They didn’t like using microphones. They didn’t know anything about singing Soprano, Alto or Tenor parts, they just sang what they heard or felt in their spirit. They didn’t lift their hands much in worship either. If the Spirit of God was dealing with them they would just lay prostrate on the floor. Their vocal and musical ability wasn’t much to be desired, from a natural stand point, either but their focus and their heart beat was to connect with God in praise and worship. They sought the power of God to show up in the service with signs and wonders and praise and worship was a starting point to get to that end. Nothing else mattered to them. They expected to see God’s Hand move upon the congregation and on themselves and everything else was secondary.
So, here we go, back to my original thought. I was meditating on what we do. Is what we do mere performance? Are we just repeating what we’ve seen in the past? Past churches? Past concerts? Are we trying to mimic what we’ve seen at a concert, on a TV show or on the internet? Are we putting on a show for the people to be entertained? Or are we seeking God and allowing the congregation to become involved?
As I was pondering these things, I received an email from Integrity Music with an article by Paul Baloche. He is a well-known and well-regarded singer-songwriter and praise and worship leader. And his article was dealing with the very thing I was pondering. Let me share a little of what he wrote in his article:
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come back from a conference pumped and instead of letting that encounter pace itself over time from the inside out, I end up trying to copy the experience. But I’ve come to realize that the concert experience doesn’t translate to most of our churches on Sunday morning. Sunday mornings are more of an ‘un-concert’.
Our role is to help others worship. Period. The people that attend my fellowship don’t want or need a performance. They need connection – with God and with one another. So, our job is to facilitate that as best we can. Let’s break down the invisible barrier between ‘the people on stage’ and ‘the audience’. This is not ‘American Idol’. This is God’s people singing their prayers to their Father, their Savior, and to the Holy Spirit.
At the end of the day, God is not calling us to perform on Sunday mornings, but rather calling us to become more authentic and more transparent in our times of worship.
There are many things that we can do to help us from being infected by our performance culture and as always we find timeless wisdom in the ancient text of scripture. There is a priestly model described in 1 Chronicles…as ‘ministry to the Lord.’ The Levites didn’t ‘lead people’ in worship but instead were charged with the task of ‘singing praise to God both day and night…in the temple.’ They sang to the Invisible God. An audience of One.
How often do we minister to God in private? Ideally, worship leading is publicly modeling what we have been doing privately.”
I believe that is what we should be pursuing – the Power of God working through us instead of performing for people’s applause. On stage (and off) we should be seeking God first and not seeking the approval of an “audience”. Now, understand, there is a balance to this because not only are we renewing our minds to this, but the congregation must go through a mind renewal as well. We are not here to put on “show” for them to watch and be entertained. They should be participating. So next month, I will share some things on how to get the congregation involved in corporate praise and worship.
In my teens I started meeting Pentecostals. Now, they had “expressions of praise” I had never heard or seen before, like lifting up their hands and actually clapping their hands. Every once in a while one of them would get to dancing or “doing the Holy Ghost hop” as they affectionately called it. The only expressions of praise I had known before that was standing and sitting. There wasn’t too much in between.
My freshman year of college I found myself in a predominately black church and learning about the “shout” and “the praise break”. Being one of the few Caucasians in the bunch, I found myself clapping my hands or jumping up and down during those times. The Holy Ghost never “took hold of my feet”, so I just learned after serving there for a few years how to “get in where you fit in.”
The last church I served in before coming to Jacksonville in 2009 was a small church of about 75 people. The interesting thing about this church is that 90 percent of the congregation was from Zimbabwe. The pastor was American, but the church was started by a Bishop in Zimbabwe. Their expressions of praise and worship were not what I saw in any other churches I had served in because it wasn’t really a “performance-style” of praise and worship. They didn’t like using microphones. They didn’t know anything about singing Soprano, Alto or Tenor parts, they just sang what they heard or felt in their spirit. They didn’t lift their hands much in worship either. If the Spirit of God was dealing with them they would just lay prostrate on the floor. Their vocal and musical ability wasn’t much to be desired, from a natural stand point, either but their focus and their heart beat was to connect with God in praise and worship. They sought the power of God to show up in the service with signs and wonders and praise and worship was a starting point to get to that end. Nothing else mattered to them. They expected to see God’s Hand move upon the congregation and on themselves and everything else was secondary.
So, here we go, back to my original thought. I was meditating on what we do. Is what we do mere performance? Are we just repeating what we’ve seen in the past? Past churches? Past concerts? Are we trying to mimic what we’ve seen at a concert, on a TV show or on the internet? Are we putting on a show for the people to be entertained? Or are we seeking God and allowing the congregation to become involved?
As I was pondering these things, I received an email from Integrity Music with an article by Paul Baloche. He is a well-known and well-regarded singer-songwriter and praise and worship leader. And his article was dealing with the very thing I was pondering. Let me share a little of what he wrote in his article:
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come back from a conference pumped and instead of letting that encounter pace itself over time from the inside out, I end up trying to copy the experience. But I’ve come to realize that the concert experience doesn’t translate to most of our churches on Sunday morning. Sunday mornings are more of an ‘un-concert’.
Our role is to help others worship. Period. The people that attend my fellowship don’t want or need a performance. They need connection – with God and with one another. So, our job is to facilitate that as best we can. Let’s break down the invisible barrier between ‘the people on stage’ and ‘the audience’. This is not ‘American Idol’. This is God’s people singing their prayers to their Father, their Savior, and to the Holy Spirit.
At the end of the day, God is not calling us to perform on Sunday mornings, but rather calling us to become more authentic and more transparent in our times of worship.
There are many things that we can do to help us from being infected by our performance culture and as always we find timeless wisdom in the ancient text of scripture. There is a priestly model described in 1 Chronicles…as ‘ministry to the Lord.’ The Levites didn’t ‘lead people’ in worship but instead were charged with the task of ‘singing praise to God both day and night…in the temple.’ They sang to the Invisible God. An audience of One.
How often do we minister to God in private? Ideally, worship leading is publicly modeling what we have been doing privately.”
I believe that is what we should be pursuing – the Power of God working through us instead of performing for people’s applause. On stage (and off) we should be seeking God first and not seeking the approval of an “audience”. Now, understand, there is a balance to this because not only are we renewing our minds to this, but the congregation must go through a mind renewal as well. We are not here to put on “show” for them to watch and be entertained. They should be participating. So next month, I will share some things on how to get the congregation involved in corporate praise and worship.
