The more you lead worship, the better you get at creating emotional experiences.

You become skilled at choosing songs that flow well together and evoke a certain response from people.

Raised hands, loud shouts, resounding claps, unison voices.

You become less concerned with pleasing the heart of God and more preoccupied with what will garner the greatest response.

But I’m wondering today:

• Is our corporate worship in danger?
• Have we become too dependent on songs, sounds, and stages?
• Is our worship simply psychological manipulation?
• How can we be sure our worship is pleasing to God?
• Is a fragrance is rising from the hearts of God’s surrendered, desperate people?

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Most of us spend our time organizing weekend worship services.

Typically that involves a time frame of 15-20 minutes. This is great for a weekend, but I also believe it’s great in the life a church to schedule a night of worship every so often.

This is great on a number of levels:

• Refreshing – There’s nothing God’s people need more than His presence. And to spend uninterrupted time with Him can bring much needed refreshment.
• Challenging – Worship Nights can be a great way to challenge your volunteers on the technical side. Push your musicians to another level. Challenge your tech team to try new things with videos, lighting, and stage design.

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To the frustrated worship leader…

Thank you for serving the people of God week in and week out.

Thank you for choosing songs carefully and for singing your guts out.

Thank you for the hours invested in making your band sound great.

Thank you for caring about the local church – loving what God loves and prioritizing His priorities.

I know you may not feel appreciated.

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There isn’t a soul among us who wishes that musicians would stop showing up at our church.

Nobody longs for the day when high quality, skilled, volunteers would just find somewhere else to go. No one.

If you and I could have coffee right now, I’m sure we could talk for hours about the volunteer positions we need filled – about the amazing crop of musicians we just lost to the impending fall semester.

We all need more musicians.

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The line between rockstar and worship leader seems to be getting closer and closer in our culture.

We consumers travel from concert to concert, album to album in search of the latest greatest talent.

Because of this, we can almost equate worship ministry as a talent show. Whoever has the greatest, most crowd-pleasing talent leads the best worship.

Today, we’re going to strip it all away and look at worship ministry at its foundation. What if worship ministry was more of a local, pastoral calling than it was a platform for your gifting?

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