There’s a popular article floating around about the current state of modern worship.
Many of the points I would agree with. I’m thankful that Jamie is addressing these hard questions and fostering some great conversations.
But at the same time, I also want to present a perspective that I feel is missing.
None of this is new. None of these problems are new.
I don’t believe we are headed for a worship crash because these conversations and wars have been going on since the church has worshiped together in corporate fashion.
No, we are not headed for a crash. We are going to be OK.
But there is still a major problem.
The Real Problem
The problem with modern worship isn’t the lights.
The problem with modern worship isn’t the writing and singing of original music. Matter of fact, I believe we need more songwriters writing more songs…better songs.
The problem isn’t the dimly lit room.
The problem isn’t the big rock band and creative music.
For starters, let’s consider the alternative. We could install more bright, fluorescent lights in our churches. We could take away the band and have acapella worship or a simple piano.
We could even remove the stage, placing the musicians on the floor with the congregation. We could do away with all creativity in the gathered church.
This may help for a season, but the core issue would remain untouched, unexamined.
What’s the real problem?
Our hearts don’t know their need for Christ. We are not desperate. We are not broken. We don’t approach Sunday with expectant, faith-filled, repentant hearts. We aren’t hungry for Jesus.
I know these are general statements and don’t apply to everyone. But this is more of our problem than what types of tools we use in the worship of God.
I am too satisfied with this world. My eyes are filled with everything but Christ. My heart longs for influence, power, money, and earthly security more than the treasures of heaven. That is my problem. That is our problem.
Pastor Your Creative Expression
So rather than a bashing of the fog machine, let’s repent and look to Jesus. Let’s allow our eyes to be filled with His brightness, his beauty, His truth.
If anything, when done well, music, creativity, lighting, projection, and fog machines can help us visualize the glory of God in new ways. They can help us see what heaven may be like. Heaven will have sights and sounds that are unlike anything we’ve ever imagined.
It’s all how you use these tools, explain these tools, and pastor your creative expression.
Distraction in worship comes from a distracted heart, not from creative ideas. My distracted heart will always look for something or someone to blame rather than facing my own apathy. I see this in myself all the time.
Think about the most inspiring worshiper you know. Believe me, they will love Jesus no matter what form the expression takes.
Is Performance a Problem?
I’m not sure performancism is the problem either. When I go to church, I want to hear from a Pastor who has studied, rehearsed, prayed over, and developed his sermon. His excellent performance of the sermon will help its truth speak louder to all the worshipers.
Same with a worship leader. Sure, I don’t want a worship leader who just performs worship songs for his own glory. I think we can agree we’re not into that. But I do want a worship leader who is conscious of his excellent performance so the gathered church can worship the Savior without distraction.
I don’t think performance is such a bad word. It speaks to caring deeply, preparing fully, and loving your people. But make sure you focus your “preparation” and “performance” on getting people to engage and sing.
We don’t want a room of spectators, though that’s not always a a terrible sign. Spectators may be a sign that your church is reaching unchurched people, which is beautiful!
What’s Next?
Worship leaders, it’s about your downright desperation for Jesus and your pastoral care for people that matters.
You can do both of these things with progressive music, fog, lights, and air tight programming. You can also subtract these tools and sing “I Exalt Thee” every weekend and miss the point of loving Jesus and helping other do the same.
Maybe you want to simplify your services for a season, like Jaime suggests. But the most important action step is to fight hard to stay amazed by God. Humble yourself and you’ll be ready to worship come rock show or Bach invention.
It’s all for Him – from Him and to Him and for Him.
Worship Leader, I love you. I care about my church, your church, and the quality of our corporate worship experiences. Let’s continue to keep it real.
Question: What do you think about the current state of evangelical worship? Has our creativity gone too far? Or is it more of an inward problem? Let’s discuss. You can leave a comment by clicking here.
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
Well said man. I enjoy your blog very much.
Thanks Sean! Means a lot my friend.
I used to seek exactly what you sook, which isn’t a bad thing. The thing that God has brought to my attention isn’t that you need someone to prepare 20 hours before a sermon. You need someone spirit filled and read to take direction from God whenever he wants it to. We are stuck with so many programs these days that are “rehearsed” but in all honesty. Anyone can read a bible and at least a few can connect the dots, but only someone moved by God himself can preach the exact message with the exact words, can bring the necessary worship, can be used by God to truly bring HIS word and what HE wants to speak to us, not what we think is good.
The question was asked what is wrong with today’s contemporary worship. That is somewhat a loaded question but I will share my *opinion* on the subject. Keep in mind I am a musician (guitar) and have played in praise bands in the past but I now play solo. My views I am sure will get under people’s skin but I will try and stay respectful about it….. Here is the list from the blog page and I will provide my *opinion* which will be underlined:
The problem with modern worship isn’t the lights.- Unless the lights are there for show and are distracting from what the music is supposed to be about to begin with. Too many contemporary services have the atmosphere of a rock concert (complete with screaming and whistling etc…) The services seem more to entertain than provide worship to God The “party” atmosphere I have seen is disappointing & disturbing to say the least.
The problem isn’t the big rock band and creative music .The problem with modern worship isn’t the writing and singing of original music. Matter of fact, I believe we need more songwriters writing more songs…better songs. I can agree with this to some extent but the original hymns of the Church still have their place. When it comes to the manufactured “praise & worship” music I hear on the radio there is a lot of mediocre music out there. I also get the feeling that there are a lot of musicians out there who could not make in the secular world so they came over to the young church group. Solid non-compromising artists like Phil Keaggy, Bob Bennett, Twila Paris, Wes King, Michael Card… since they no longer fit the “profile” of being young and marketable they are no longer played on the radio and record companies will not touch them (not to mention their music was always straight forward and not composed for the sake of record sales).
What’s the real problem? The real problem is the Church is allowing the world to creep in little by little tearing away solid teachings (just take a look at how many churches are looking the other way or encouraging homosexual marriage). My next point is likely to raise some blood pressures but hear me out (I have my flame suit on so go for it). I personally have issue with the way worship leaders and praise teams present themselves before the church congregation and God. As musicians we need to realize who it is we are there to worship (and not there to entertain a congregation or ourselves). It is a HOLY God, the Creator of EVERYTHING.I am not saying that worship leaders/team members need to wear suits, but I have seen praise bands wearing torn old jeans, t-shirts with wording on them that is not fit to wear to church let alone lead worship. I was part of a praise team where most of the “musicians” never practiced except for the one night a week the band rehearsed and it showed. As Christians, WE need to be the ones setting the standards not trying to copy the world’s standards. The Church is not to be lowering its standard to meet the world but sadly that is what I have been seeing the past 10 years or so. That is just my opinion on how I see music in the Church these days.
I think everything you commented on is exactly the way I have felt about worship lately. The worship songs, the atmosphere, the church standards, all of it. My husband and I have been in a praise band for the last 13 years and we both see the decline. We love playing and singing but the songs are all so alike. we do play original songs and that is when we get the most feedback from the congregation. It is becoming so much harder to get people in a ‘worship’ mode. Church seems to have become so much more social as people don’t show up on time and talk during the music. What is happening?
A dearth of hunger for God could be the one thing that is eating up the expression of worship. Mediums may have no problem, but the source is critical if the flow of worship will be maintained. Just look at how many people pray and take time to relate with God as compared to previous generations. This is telling enough.
In total agreement with you Mike. God bless you.
Mike couldn’t have said it any better…something has come down on the Earth and it isn’t good..we are to be awake and sober and not be taken by the rule of this new world that we are living..I walk around with a sense of feeling that something’s very wrong, I don’t know if some of you are feeling this way, it’s almost like there’s no feeling of repentance of sin in the church, that if we just worship God it will go away.. No alter calls any more,maybe is just me guys that I was raised to traditional , please hear me out I don’t want to come across as self righteous or judgmental but something very strong is against us as a church and if we are not aware it will creep up into our church then our homes .. I’ll leave it with this..It’s almost like we are actually living the book of Frank Paretti “This Present Darkness” Blessings and Gods protection on everybody.. Stay strong that our redemption is very near
I agree completely with you Mike!
I have been a trumpet player in worship for 15 years. They no longer want brass . Also they go back and forth between three notes. There is no melody at all. Nothing that resonates in my soul after the service.
Mike got it (June 2, 2014 at 12:16 pm).
I am a musician, producer, technician and songwriter watching the christian music-scene since the mid 70’s.
I have playing in a christian heavy-rock band, played music in traditional church, choir, charismatic and several different denominations/ directions.
Lately I was listening one of these YT-channels on worship for hours.
Some of them when I see the shows it reminded me of the times in a rock band when we were harassed because people say this music is from the devil.
Now I see the performance’s and lightshows and have to think: not much difference to what I did in rock music (including all the stage settings etc.) – and now: worship… what an acceptance
Surely there are (more or less) people surely diving in the presence of Elohim.
But in my spirit I felt a lot of distraction of the lightshow and in many other details of the performance.
Also it felt to me that some worship bands bring the world into the church(es). May use the word “worldship band”?
And it appears to me that the presentation became important than the message.
Now, as said watching the past 36 years or so in worship (christian music in and outside church) I am wondering where it will go.
I feel somehow pitty with the development and see vulnerable movements – maybe I am getting too old 😉
Anyhow, many standards I see so much lowered and compromised during all the years – slowly but steady. Though the music itself became more professional, all the surroundings of the performance seem to be lifted up much higher than the genuine reason for worship.
However, I hope and pray it will turn the original as written: those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.
Not the show, the lights, the performance shall matter but the focus on Yeshua (Jesus) who is the only one who is worthy to receive all honor, worship and praise (not the bands or musicians).
There would be so much more to say but I guess you get what I want to emphasize.
You are exactly right. I’ve take. Video and pictures of crowd reactions to a secular concert and compared it to a “worship” event. Could not tell the difference. I also agree with the author that it’s a heart issue. We must get to our hearts to the Lord.
I agree with Mike.
I read these comments and I am comforted that many see the issues as I have seen them.
I have recently had to step away from being apart of the worship team.
I want to sing praise not say the word praise to a melody. I want to talk about the Savior that revealed my sins to me and rescued me from them! I don’t want to be in a mindless trance swaying to a melodic tone, but to be at awe of My God as I am reminded of His mercy & grace. Biblically sound praise and teaching.
Hi, i am Mtthew Lin Htun studying M.Div second years and i am doing thesis on the understanding of spiritual transformation and its implication to christian worship. Doing thesis is to to create an understanding on a resource which will serve the Kingdom of God by encouraging public and private worship that is transformational and advances the Great Commission for the glory of God. So here i want you to give some suggestion on the problems of worship that causes people not transform their lives through. Please do help me your suggestions whatever you want me to write even content so that i may have the idea to create more. Please do send to my email; matthewlinhtun@gmail.com.
thank you so much looking forward
thanks and Regards
Matthew Lin Htun
I’m happy that this style of worship is reaching those who need it. My question is, where do us older folks go (this is a conversation springing up with many of my friends) who long for a quiet reflective atmosphere where we can sing softer songs, yes the traditional ones we have known, along with some new and quiet. Just wondering if there is a place that realizes the current church is leaving a lot of us behind. I have no where to go (and have stopped attending a megachurch I have loved) without leaving the Word-based, Christ-relational theology the Evangelical church offers.
My mother (in her 60s, who grew up singing in church) has a modern solution to this modern problem: she goes to get her coffee from the coffee bar while the worship team performs, and will only enter the sanctuary when they’re finished. This always makes me so desperately sad, for her and for the Church in general.
I first learned to read music by using the church hymnals. The lyrics we sang actually meant something, often coming directly from the Bible. The congregation sang in 4-part harmony, joyously, to every song. The choir managed to be both blessed (with talented singers) and inclusive (with less-talented, but no less spirit-filled singers). Some of my favorite church memories are the “request nights” we had every so often, during which we would call out hymnal numbers and just sing together in praise of our Lord.
I am so thankful to have had that experience in my youth, but it does make me sad every Sunday to see what has happened. It makes me sad for my children. My 12-year-old son is uninspired by the music in his youth service. Neither of my children will have the opportunity to learn the vast majority of hymns the way I, and my mother, and generations of Christians before us have.
For a long time, I have tried my best to acclimate to this new normal. I remind myself that the music is meant to appeal to the broadest number of people in the congregation (which never fails to make me, in my late 30s, feel old). I tried to adopt an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” attitude, and auditioned for the worship team. After all, my B.A. is in music performance, and we’re supposed to use our gifts for the glorification of God. My worship leader’s response to my audition? My voice is too old-fashioned for contemporary worship music. O.o
I agree with Jaime Brown. This is a problem that must be acknowledged.
I too, am very saddened. I’m 52 and and cannot find a church that preaches and teaches the way I need to be fed, that also has a worship service where I can worshipfully join in on the singing. I found a church where the preaching is wonderful, but when I would go, I always went 45 minutes late on purpose to miss the fiercely loud noise that is their worship time. Seriously, it is so loud that at the back of the sanctuary a lady was trying to counsel with me and we were screaming at each other going, ” WHAT? I STILL CAN’T HEAR WHAT YOU’RE SAYING.”. When I would look around, it seemed like so many were just trying to sing (or shout) the song and keep up with the tempo. I could find churches around here all day long where I can have that same worship time like when I was growing up, but they don’t preach the truth of God’s Word. I could probably put up with the first church I mentioned, but the odd thing is that every time I tried to get really involved with a church group or bible study there, either the teacher was not teaching what the preacher was preaching or, in one instance, the married teacher came on to me! I haven’t been back.
Sometimes I do think our creativity has become a problem. I used to play electric guitar on a worship team and used to get so caught up in effects, amps, guitars and my tone. Then I wondered why people weren’t coming up to me after church complimenting my tone and my skills. Instead people complained about the music being too loud, too hard to sing, too much of a performance.
Now I lead with my acoustic, I try to do what Jamie said in his article by picking songs people know or can learn easily, and that are in comfortable keys. Now I receive feedback about how comfortable, relaxed & natural I seem to be when leading. People tell me it’s easy for them to worship. They tell me how much they appreciate my authenticity. I’m not sure if I’m really any more authentic than I used to be, but I try to focus more on the lyrics and whether people can sing rather than a cool guitar riff or arrangement of a song. Most of the time when I think I have done something really creative it seems to go unnoticed anyway.
Love your blog!
Great article David.
I agree very much with Sean. I prioritize more on the singability and simplicity of lyrics before I think about musicality. I’ve selected songs many times that are too complex musically or way to wordy to the point where it really does force most of the congregation to spectate. Even though the worship leader doesn’t intend it to be a performance that’s what it becomes. But as you say David, it really is a coaching issue concerning the heart of the leader and not necessarily being motivated by stardom.
Wonderful thoughts, guys. Things changed for me when I realized people weren’t coming to church to experience my creativity. They were coming to experience their God. That is a perfect filter for your creative decision making process 🙂
David, that comment is more thought provoking than you know. It puts into words what many people, including myself, have struggled with as a member of a worship team: getting out of the way between people and God. Well said.
Thanks Heath!
Your comments are right on point. My wife and I love to sing and worship. We don’t love to try to sing unsingable melodies, nor do we think God is so dense that we need to repeat the same seven words over 11 times. THAT is distracting!
I think modern worship bands have much to learn from the old hymns. I don’t mean that old hymns are all that should be sung, though many of them are beautiful and with a little modern instrumentation can still be very effective. I think the lesson is that the words were intelligent, not nearly as repetitive as they typical modern worship song, and the melodies can be learned (well, with the possible exception of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, LOL). I think your church must be blessed to have such a perceptive worship leader.
I don’t think creativity is the problem. It’s the heart. What was really in your heart when you were thinking about those effects, artsy artsy stuff? Because people can see the fruits. Were you out there to please yourself, the people, or your God? We don’t want to end up as “people pleasers”. Genuine worship unto God will have the anointing flow out of it without you even trying so hard.
Hats or headcoverings in worship, in church or especially on the worship team?
1Cor 11:7
I know I sound “legalistic” and “old school” but would like to hear what you think because for me that’s a distrction in worship. I know thats an issue in my heart and trust me I’m dealing with it but as a worship leader/pastor do you allow hats or headcoverings on your team and why?
Here’s a quote from an anonymous source….”you wear a hat to hide your skin from the sun but DON’T wear a hat to hide your sin from the Son”
I understand fashion changes and music styles change but should let this as well? The way we come before God in humility?
Your thoughts?
Wow, Dan. That quote! Haha.
We made a decision to not allow hats on stage simply to avoid a distracting appearance. I personally don’t mind either way. I think it’s just a matter of deciding what you want to do as a church and getting behind the vision.
Thought you’d get a kick outta that quote. Haha. We are talking circa 1980’s there. I don’t remember who said it, hence the anonymous thing.
Always grateful for your blog. Praying for wisdom as you continue providing these.
Hi, I am almost positive that I must be picturing something else when you say “hats” or “head-coverings” but thought that it was at least worth a mention. Again, I do not believe that you were speaking of women wearing their “Sunday hats” but some people might have been confused. On that note, I do wish we would see those “Sunday hats” again, and dressing in the most respectful clothing you own. I don’t have money to even buy a dress, however, I think if all you can afford is jeans and a t-shirt that you can still come to church looking like you respect the house of God. Please, if you don’t “hear” anything else I am saying, hear this: What we wear to church is not about trying to “look good” in front of others or prove ourselves “worthy” to be there, ABSOLUTELY NOT! Lest anyone think that I am also saying that a person should not enter church if you are not dressed neatly and clean, to that let me say that I was outraged and sorrowful when a church I was attending had already started and a young man on a motorcycle felt God speak to him about giving church another try so he walked in late. That is not the problem. The problem was that our pastor’s wife approached him as he was coming down the isle and she was going up the isle to “cut him off’. My seat was right where the two stopped. She proceeded to tell him that if he wanted to come to “God’s House” that he needn’t take one more step! She told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself coming in all greasy with torn jeans, etc. She went on to say that if he wanted to go home, shower, change, and come back then he would be welcomed! HOW AWFUL!!! So, to be clear, I am not taking that stance either. God knows our hearts, and I am tired of all the hypocrisy and fake answers when we ask each other “How are you doing?”. No-one really wants to know or, at least, you would be hard pressed to find someone who really cared about how you were doing. I guess to get back on point, let’s try to be respectful of the other people attending the service and, if we can help it, wear what you feel won’t be a hindrance to others worshiping, Frankly, I think a bigger problem is all the women that I see wearing tight, low cut, high slit clothing. They probably aren’t even aware of it. This is just “another persons opinion”…mine. The one thing I will say though, that I think we can all agree on, is that God does not tolerate us judging others! That goes for me as well! So let’s try to be gracious to those that may not “act” or “look” like we think they ought to. For if we are any other way, then why are we here? To save the saved? No, of course not.
I will end with this truth that God gave to me when I spent some time in a place for hurting people: People are the way they are for a reason! We don’t know their past or their pain. Let’s try to remember that each person we deal with was made in the image of our Loving Heavenly Father : )
Thanks for allowing me to comment,
Bonita Love
Hello Bonita, I am so sorry if my comment on David’s post caused you to think in a negative fashion and think ill of me or any other worshiper. This blog is written as encouragement for worship leaders. I was just asking David’s perspective about hats mainly with men on the worship team. Not passing judgement on anyone coming into the church. I ask yourself and God to forgive me if I led you to believe anything else for one second.
Jesus wants us to come as we are to Him. In all shapes and sizes Why should the church be different? Come with your coveralls and grease, come with your clothes tattered and torn, come with messy hair and dirty clothes or come with your “Sunday best” or your newest coach purse or D&B shoes. Jesus wants everyone. I’m sorry you had that experience with a pastors wife and probably some man who was hurting so deeply and needed surrounded with prayer so he came searching and her actions just litterally turned him away.
My comment was not meant as a teardown or rejection of Hats or headcoverings or loose or tight clothing for someone that is just coming in to church and does not know God yet. The post was not a condemnation of people in the church that do know God and His Word already. It was not a condemnation of anyone or anything, but was just an old school worship leader(me who was a worship leader for about 10 years about 10 years ago) asking a worship pastor his thoughts on his teams attire during ministry times in this day and age.
Bonita, I pray that this answers any questions that you had about my comment. Again I pray you forgive me for giving you any other idea to what my comment was about. I’m praying for you right now Bonita (not superficially but for real). God give you wisdom and develop the passion inside of you(it is a gift from God) to keep people like myself In check. That the Holy Spirit would guide you to scriptures to edify you and build you up. That God would surround you with Godly women in your life to bless you and pray over you. I’m certain He has already but we could all use more prayer and edification in Christ. Right? God bless and I hope the reply finds you in peace.
Hello….well I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from anyone about my comment 🙂 I’m afraid that I am the one that needs to ask for you to forgive me! You certainly did not say anything that needs forgiveness! I also want to apologize if this is just for worship-leaders… it showed up on my FB page and I thought this was all very interesting. So, first of all, please do forgive me if I came across with any anger or anything of the sort. Actually, I just now went back and read what I wrote and I see that it really did come across as though I was speaking right to you and almost attacking you for your question. I was really just addressing anyone who might have glanced at what I wrote…not directly to anyone. I am embarrassed to say this but I am not familiar with this blog or if it’s your blog or someone else’s , I just kind-of stumbled on it 🙂 Well now don’t I feel silly! I would like to get right to something that you said in response that meant the world to me. When you said that you were praying for me and praying that God would edify through His word and that I would have other women around me praying for me or with me also. What you couldn’t have known is that I have been a single mother for the better of 22 years and that I have been on disability for depression for almost 13 years. I almost ended my life last week. God made me the personality type that gets energized by being with other people. I am the type that “has never met a stranger” if you know what I mean. However, the enemy has been blatantly trying to destroy me through isolation for these 13 years. I used to have what I called “too many” friends and now I really don’t have anyone. I long for friendship with other women, and I long to be a part of my church and, well….just life itself! You can probably tell by now that my biggest problem has been self-righteousness. I never would have thought to call it that since I am always beating myself up and always asking God “What is wrong with me?!”. I have felt as though the promise He gave me when I was 12 about Him using me for a special ministry when I grew up had been surely ruined by my own mistakes in life. I just learned that whether a person thinks highly of themselves or is constantly thinking how worthless they are, they are both all about THEMSELVES (or in this case, myself) and not all about Jesus. I am hurting so badly inside and have just been “stuck” in this dark pit for a very, very long time. I want desperately to start living life! Honestly, I just don’t know how to get from here to there. I shy away from opening up to people anymore because I get raked over the coals and told all sorts of “works based” things that I ought to do if I was, after all, truly serious about wanting my life to change and to not be “punished” by God anymore. Well, I am sorry because this is not what this blog is for, but I thank you for letting me share a few things. I feel like all I ever do is cry over all the losses in my life, but I realized this week that that has been the only way I know to cry out for help. But what keeps smacking me in the face is that no-one cares. I know that now I am just sounding like “boo-hoo” for me..and you would be right. My life used to be so different….I used to be so different. I really am alone all the time just staring at the walls, as if I was waiting for the paint to dry. I keep trying to reach out, and I cry out to God almost constantly but every time I try to “start living” I get the rug pulled out from under me through the death of a family member, losing our house, putting our dog down, being threatened, facing foreclosure, my body racked in pain and on and on and on. Whew! No wonder no one wants to talk with me! I wouldn’t want to talk with me!LOL! Just so you know, I know that God is always here with me. But I told Him the other day that since it was my choice to stay single for a while after my divorce 13 years ago so that the Lord would become my All In All that it would be nice to have someone around with skin on them! Do you know what I mean?
Well you have been very gracious and kind to me and if you are so inclined, I would welcome your opinion on anything that I shared. I felt the Lord say to me that you are a very kind soul. BTW, I never knew who my biological father was until just about 4 years ago and sadly he had died 10 years earlier…but he was also the worship leader in his church so I have a new found respect for worship leaders. Thank you for lifting my name up to Jesus and please let me know how I might pray for you as well : )
Praying for you, Bonita. You have bared your soul and said many things with which I can identify. Through it all, I know that He has never left me nor forsaken me.
Now put on some praise music and lift up His name and worship!
Bonita, God loves who you are. You are His creation. I feel alone sometimes when it comes to church. Then I realize I am getting upset with people at church for not paying attention to me when I am only paying attention to me. Then I fix my eyes on being a servant and trying to bless people and I feel so full of the Joy of the Lord . I pray that God heals your lonley heart and again that God would surround you with Godly women but you would also seek out these women. If the church you are in now is not a place this can happen then maybe you need to look for a differant church you can serve and fellowship in. Me and my family are at this same crossroads now. In between churches. I don’t know where you live but Alison Park Church in Hampton Pa or APC Deer Lakes Campus are great places to start. God bless and I am praying for you. Dan
Bonita,
My heart goes out to you and you will be in my prayers from now on. I can honestly say I know how you feel. In August (2013) I had to leave my job of 16 years on disability. It had been a huge part of my identity. The end of August my dog passed away suddenly at only 3 years old. In September my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Two weeks later we learned we would lose the house in foreclosure. In November my dad died. Immediately after my mom stopped all her meds and waited for death. She knew she could not live without the meds. (Fortunately this has changed and she is doing better now). In February I was forced to move myself, my husband and 2 children in with my mother because my home was sold at auction. I also have a history of depression (bipolar) and anxiety. I say all this only to say I do understand your pain as it has been mine. I also thought about giving up and I know how painful that place is.
I want you to know that I care what your going through. God is faithful. I also isolated myself this past year instead of reaching out until last week (believe it or not) when God really convicted me about it, so I just started reaching out too. I know the church as a whole is typically not very supportive of the mentally ill. At least that has been my experience. I can’t tell you how many times I heard things like if your depressed your not fully trusting God or saved people should have mental problems as though just because some one is saved all medical issues go away. If you have been depressed 13 years I am under the impression this is not just depression due to circumstances but likely a chemical imbalance. I say all this to say depression does not make you less of a Christian. It does not mean God loves you less. It does not mean God is trying to punish you (unless you know of some sin in your life you haven’t repented of) it may just mean that you need a doctor to help you overcome this. I have just started going to a therapist again and find that helps a lot because I am also dealing with some issues from the past that caused PTSD and also because I need to learn to see myself as Jesus sees me and not the warped way I have been seeing myself all these years.
If your depression reached the point you wanted to die or if you are still feeling like hurting yourself please ask for help not just from other christians but also from a trained professional who can tell you if there is a medical issue causing your depression. Wouldn’t you get help if you were diabetic? This is no different. God doesn’t want you to suffer. He wants you to grow and become stronger through this. Pray for Him to help in your healing and show you what to do He will lead you just as He has for me. Don’t allow the enemy to isolate and shame you. I made that mistake. If you are not part of a church now please start looking for one and ask God to lead you to the right church. It is important to join with other believers.
I pray you find your answers and for God to clearly show you what to do. Just because you haven’t see the promise of ministry come true does not mean God has forgotten His promise. He is faithful. Perhaps you need to get you well first and the you will be strong enough for the next part of His plan. I will keep you in prayer. We’ve never met but I do care because I know how you feel. Don’t give up, God will use every tear you’ve shed somehow to His glory. Remember, Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose.
God never lies, He keeps His word and that promise was for you and me just like it is for all who love Him. He will one day use this for good. Don’t give up. Your life means something and God will glorify Himself through you. Draw close to Him and allow Him to be your comfort.
Your Sister in Christ,
Sherri
When I was a little girl, it was a big deal that everyone had to wear their “Sunday best” when coming into God’s House. We all grew up with our “play clothes,” our “school clothes/work clothes,” and our “Sunday best.” I pretty much grew out of that having been a teenager in the early 70’s. I started to realize that God loves us and wants us to come worship Him together as His Body and that what we were wearing didn’t mean a thing. It was like all those people who had to dress up to go meet God, what were they wearing the rest of the week, and were they meeting with God on their own the rest of the week? Did they dress up before they met God in prayer, etc? Now, today, and almost 60 years old, I think on how people still will make this big effort to get new clothes for Easter Sunday. I remember as a child having Easter Bonnets. How I loved those! But today I look upon it differently. To me, even back then as today, all those special clothes were deep down inside meant more to impress others at church than to actually impress God. If you like dressing up to go to church, fine. Enjoy it. There is nothing wrong with it. If you get complimented on how nice you look, enjoy that as well. But what we are wearing on the outside is not as important to our God as what we are on the inside. He wants our hearts, not our clothing. That poor young man you spoke of must have felt so humiliated! I hope he did not give up on God because of that woman. I know too many young people and people of all ages who will not go to church for that very reason. They know they will be looked down upon. One of the greatest things the church as a whole has done is to go casual because it keeps that image thing at bay. But as humans we still have that on our insides. What we need to clean up for time spent with God is our attitudes, our hearts, our minds, but not our clothing. What if Jesus decided to walk into one or more of our churches some Sunday dressed like that young man was? There is a story floating around the internet about a new pastor who came to his first Sunday service dressed as a homeless man so he could make a point to his congregation. He got the reaction you would expect. Out of the large congregation, only one person greeted him, and the ushers tried to make him sit in the back while he was walking up to the podium. What would any of us do if a real homeless man or woman dressed as they are on tv and movies do if they came into our churches?
Jesus checks the heart. You may not be wearing a hat but you’re out there judging someone who is wearing one… Don’t miss the point.
I very much agree with you, David. And when you pair a lukewarm heart for Jesus with a culture that says you can have what you want, when you want it, it’s worse. Then I think the final amplifier here is the constant battle of extremes… right vs. left, liberals vs. conservatives, etc. Healthy dialogue is scarce and judgment comes much more swiftly than grace.
When can we stop criticizing and finger-pointing, and begin embracing true worship of God by God’s followers in all of its different expressions? I believe that the conversation, and a fair balance, is important. But in the America we live in it is far too easy to resort to yelling, arguing, and tuning everyone else out.
I really appreciate your article, and especially the call for everyone, “traditionalists” and “post-moderns” and everyone in between, to focus our eyes on Jesus… beyond music style, or the kind of room we gather in. Thanks for your passion, continual encouragement, and ministry!
Love this, Eric! So well spoken – “healthy dialogue is scarce and judgment comes much more swiftly than grace.” Praying we can turn this around.
You hit the nail on the head with this one Dave! Much truth!
A great post. I believe this is a layered problem in worship today. I’ll never forget seeing HIllsong United for the first time back 2007 and I was blown away by the powerful experience and presence of God. They didn’t “work” the crowd or wow with an over the top stage show. They worshiped with humble hearts and excellence.
Then I have been in a mega church with excellent worship and felt nothing. It was well done with a great flow, but nothing. It was hard to explain but there was just subtle sense of performance in everything they did.
I believe the problem with today’s worship or pastors even is the cult of celebrity. If you believe your own hype or play to the crowd wanting their approval more than God’s its a problem.
It is one thing to craft a flow that will connect it is another to be totally self-indulgent and more into perfection then passion.
It all comes back to the heart…
Yep – we have to not only come prepared with our craft. We need to show up the most desperate for Jesus. That will change how we lead.
David, thank you. I think you really hit the nail on the head. I think we do need to be careful how we use the tools at our disposal, and how we use our gifted-ness (making sure that it is about and for Him, and drawing people to Him). But when I hear people complain about the lighting, or style of music, or whatever, I feel bad for them, in that they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) hear The Lord because they weren’t focused on Him. If I only knew how to draw their attention to our desperate need of Him. Thank you, David!
Matt,
Thanks, I hear you. I heard from someone recently, complaining about music, or lights, or something else. And I love them, but it also made me sad, because they were so focused on their taste and preferences that they couldn’t hear the Word and feel God in the room. Thanks!
While I agree with everything you have written. You are missing another variable – VOLUME! Cranking it to 11 doesn’t get you closer to God. Instead it drives people away from worship. I desperately want to sing and worship my God in a corporate setting, but the sound inside our sanctuary is so loud it vibrates my insides and makes me physically ill. I stay in the foyer for worship now. Even in the “Nursing Moms” room with my infant, the bass from the sanctuary vibrates the walls causing the pictures to shake. I am never alone in the foyer, more and more people are joining me in the foyer for their own benefit or for the benefit of their children’s hearing. Many have complained to the church leadership about the volume, but they assure us it is within acceptable limits. Whatever that means. Other churches we have visited are the same or worse. I love to “rock out” too, but you can turn it down a little and still rock!
I agree that the things you mentioned should not distract us from worship, but volume is an exception. The volume is inflicting physical pain on members of the congregation. That is distracting!
I agree about the volume. Those of us old folks who still have our hearing would soon lose it if we were often exposed to the sheer volume. But the megachurch I was visiting was obviously not evangelizing for us old folks—just the teenagers.
Kristin, I can totally agree with your point here. Churches need to find a sweet spot for their volume. I think it’s important for the music to be “felt” but it can’t reach a point where it’s painful for people. That does make it very hard to worship and connect with God. While it’s impossible to please everyone with the volume issue, we really do need to keep it a “non pain” level 🙂 Any thoughts on how to best do this?
Hey David!!! Very good article!!! As I have said to you personally in the past, I truly do appreciate you as our worship leader and thank God for you. As you apparently saw in my FB post, volume was one of my complaints, too, and sorry you didn’t like my crack about the fog machine, but really??? As for volume, I know nothing about volume control (except there is a low and high) and sound mixing but Helen and I visited James River Assembly last summer in Springfield, MO, which has a sanctuary at least 5 times larger than ours, and the volume of their worship band wasn’t nearly as loud as ours. Our volume never used to be as loud as it is now, also, so someone changed something. But I know you have a true heart for God and music and worship and performancism is not where your heart lies. (But you are probably right in your article about in my own desperation for God, and my need for brokenness, which is why I precluded my FB comments with ‘what do I know’. ).
Hi Harry, I appreciate your comment, encouragement, and heart for the Lord. I think these are great things to dialogue about and am always open to yours (and others) feedback about our worship. We’re here to serve and want to help lead a multi generational church as best we can. Thanks for being a part of what God is doing!
We own a video production business that has done lots of work with churches or other types of places to tune their sound systems correctly. It is so heartbreaking to hear of individuals who have to leave a service or event because their ears physically hurt because the sound was so poor. And it’s interesting because “bad sound” does not always mean “loud sound”. My job as a sound engineer is to have sound that people DON’T notice. Now our “sensitive ears” that sit in the services have smiles on their faces because their ears finally don’t hurt. That’s my job.
Excellent comment, Kirsten! Many years ago, I attended a Billy Graham Crusade where I noticed a sign at the sound technician’s booth that said, “The better I do my job, the less people notice.” It’s true. When distracted by issues with volume and clarity, or microphones activated after someone starts speaking, people can lose sight of the reason they are there – to worship.
Jim – love that sign! You guys make some great points. Kirsten, what are some ways you balance the sound so people don’t notice it being too loud or too soft?
The volume issue is a big one for me. I’ve been complaining about it for over a decade. Ironically, my words have always fallen on deaf ears. (No pun intended.)
How to solve it? This is cake. Here’s the formula. Note: I’m going to assume that the church is small-to-medium in size. If you have a church the size of Joel Osteen’s, this list will have to be modified. (I could do that in another post if it made sense.)
1.) Prohibit acoustic drums. Right. Go ahead, throw darts at me. No acoustic drums, not even with those absurd plexiglass cages. Replace acoustic drums with electronic drums. If the drummers all quit, let ’em go. There are others who will gladly play electronic drums.
2.) Remove all instrument amplifiers from stage. OK, a bass amp is “negotiable”; that one could possibly stay, but could also be removed. Tell every instrumentalist that they are “responsible” for creating the preamp-level signal for their instrument that they want to have come out of the PA system. They can use any special effects they want. They can have a 10 foot high rack of ’em. But in the final analysis, they only get to output a mere preamp-level signal, i.e. a “line” level signal.
3.) Ideally, remove all speaker-type monitors from the stage. This isn’t an absolute. But ideally, it should be done. Replace with so-called “in ear monitors”. This does *not* have to be an expensive “Aviom” system. That’s probably the best bet but there are definitely way-cheaper alternatives, albeit not as flexible. If the musicians balk at it (and some will), explain and demonstrate why it is the way to go. This takes a little time and effort. If they still complain, boot ’em out.
4.) Get a sound tech team that knows what they are doing. How do you do that? It’s easier than you think. Here’s how: you *pay them*. That’s right. Those folks get paid. (The musicians and singers, maybe yes, maybe no.) Is this fair? Absolutely *not*. But if you are “fair”, you won’t pull this thing off. It’s just like “business” – nothing more. Business doesn’t pretend to be “fair” to anyone. That’s not why the owner started the business. He/she started the business because they want to *make a profit*. They’re not looking to make their employees happy. (Well, that’s not why they put up with all the headache of running a business.) Same thing with a church’s sound techs. You simply will have a very difficult road if you are not willing to pay for sound techs. If you find some decent ones who’ll work for free …that’s awesome. But above all … *do not sacrifice quality in the “mixing” role just because it’s free.* This is the *worst possible thing you can do* (I think?) if you want good sound.
5.) Decide on what decibel level is acceptable at a specific point in the room (or multiple points). And have the sound tech and/or helpers monitor the dB’s. Then have the “mixer” turn up or down the volume accordingly. Note: the musicians will definitely complain. It’s not loud enough. I promise you they will complain. Give them a lecture as to why they need to accept it. If they balk, and if they won’t relent, then help them find a new ministry … perhaps working in the nursery.
This will work. There could be some tweaking. This is just a general outline. But it is “sound” so to speak and is a good starting point. This method will give you consistent results as your church expands. You start with 50 members, for example: this will do the trick. Years later, maybe your church has 1,000 members. This will still do the trick. The bigger the church is, however, the more “slop room” there is in this. The smaller the church, the less “slop room”; you have to be tight and dictatorial about running sound, or it’ll be a mess out where the people are.
As a drummer…ask the drummer to play quieter. You can actually play with intensity and still be quiet. I’ve heard electronic drums be just as distracting as acoustic drums. I’ve played both electric and acoustic drums in a variety of formats. I believe it should be chosen as an alternative sound not on volume. 🙂 Again, ask the drummer to play quiter and if he doesn’t. Politely ask him to come back when he can 🙂 better no drummer than a distracting drummer.
A good band will play to the room…and should work with FOH and consistently make the choice to proactively communicate with them in order to reach the best possible outcome.
Great thoughts, Matt. Very true about “playing to the room”. It takes a mature drummer to do that 🙂
Ps. I agree with everything else 🙂 that’s exactly how we operate. Knowing the decibels for the room is highly important even then..the team must work with the production team and the trust needs to be there. We are all one team all serving one purpose..to get out of the way so people can meet with Jesus. Peace. Matt
I’m a worship leader at a 400-500 size church. I get an equal number of complaints(and we get VERY few) that it’s too quiet. People who want to worship want it loud enough that they don’t feel like they’re singing a solo to the people around them.
As for the decibal level, I’ve found the mix is far more important than the exact db level. If most of your dbs are coming from the high end it will be intolerable.
I love you idea of paying people. I’ve been asking for that for awhile. No luck so far:(
As far as drums…. I’d rather put a drummer outside of the building and feed his acoustic drums into the house mix than use digital:) or just stop having music at church at all. BTW. We use in ear monitors, and they are definately the way to go!! You can now get the Behringer P16 system for around $2k and since they acquired Midas doesn’t seem to suck. We’ve had Avioms and now the P16 and it sounds much better than Avioms(believe it or not).
For me, I believe that part of the purpose of corporate worship is that it’s, well, corporate. There are things accomplished in the experience of God’s people worshiping Him together that do not happen when worshiping alone. One of the reasons we are worshiping together is so that we can encourage one another and build each other up. So my criteria for the sound techs has always been this – if I am standing in the congregation and cannot easily hear the people beside, behind and near me singing…the volume is too loud. When we can hear the beautiful expression of all our voices lifting in praise we are less likely to see those on stage as performing for us, and hopefully, more likely to see this as a corporate activity we do together as the body of Christ.
Also, in answer to your question about how far should creativity go – this is a hard question to answer. God has made us creative beings. He loves beauty (think about the splendor of the tabernacle and temple) and creative expression can honor Him. However, creativity can also become an idol and a distraction. I think a good standard is this: spend much time in prayer seeking God and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our creative expressions for corporate worship (what does God want His people to say/do in corporate worship this week?); define the purpose of a particular creative expression (is it just to be cool or contemporary, or does it serve to point to/demonstrate the glory of God?); and ask what difference is this making in peoples’ lives (are people growing in God and being built up through this expression of worship or did it do nothing to impact them?)
THANK YOU Kristin! Dear Worship Leader, when I complain about the volume it’s because I’m trying to approach the Throne of God and I’m jarred out of that conversation by the overpowering volume. If the congregation thinks it’s been a great worship experience because their head is throbbing at the end, I think think they have missed the point, not me. When I complain about the fog, because it tightens up the throat so it is difficult to sing; how are you leading me? When I can’t sing, because you never sing the same song the same way in honor of your creativity as a musician; how is that leading? Please don’t get me wrong. I LOVE to worship in song. I LOVE to hear the new music coming out from our amazing Christian bands. I would just love to have corporate worship lead in such a way that you can hear the congregation singing, not just the band. I would love to be able to see the congregation worshiping, not just smoke and lights. I would love to be able to sing along and not be startled by singing the wrong words because the leader decided some variation would be nice.
I also respectfully offer to the author that people may not be coming to worship with the seeking, worshipful attitude because of past performancism. They have come to expect to be entertained, so they come, expecting to be entertained.
Thanks for your thoughtful post! I wholeheartedly agree that the problem is not the elements in our worship but our hearts. A heart that is desiring to worship God in the beauty of His Holiness will not be distracted by lights, video, soloing, etc.
The problem has been and is a matter of the “self” desiring in worship what “it” wants and not for what God wants and the splendor of His majesty and presence.
When we come to worship with genuine hearts, whatever the worship environment, God will be praised. Good job bringing this out in your post!
this is good, so good…. and how refreshing that this wasn’t titled “the 5 problems of the church”, haha! My head spins with all the numeric list formulas. Very well done. I agree wholeheartedly.
Thank you, Fred! Appreciate and respect your thoughts. Anytime I’m tempted to write a “problem with the church” post, I’m reminded to look inside and realize there’s no finger to point except at myself 🙂
I totally agree. The problem is in our hearts. Here’s another post about criticism of worship. http://www.twentyshekels.com/christian-living/lets-cool-it-on-the-criticism/
“But the most important action step is to fight hard to stay amazed by God. Humble yourself and you’ll be ready to worship come rock show or Bach invention.”
That is totally it and you have a great post.
I would add we need to be honest with ourselves on how much of our leadership and “creativity” is really rooted in fear. Many of us have heard stories of the church down the road that fired their worship pastor and brought in a contract band, with haze, because they thought that would help their declining numbers.
There are obvious examples like the one above, but I believe everyday we are tempted to make “artistic” decisions based on what we believe are other’s expectations of us – be it our peers, congregation, or supervisor.
I agree with David, performance is not a bad word. We need to be prepared and perform well. I know I personally have to check myself, and pray for the humility to perform out of love for our Father and the audience he has given us to lead, and not love for the insecure artist within.
Totally – I’m a firm believer that all generations (young and old) want the real thing. No matter your style, if you can create a genuine, honest, real worship experience, people will connect.
Good thoughts David.
I really agree about the “Spectators may be a sign that your church is reaching unchurched people, which is beautiful” part. As a pastor (not a worship leader) I would honestly have a room full of ENGAGED/INTERESTED spectators, who don’t necessarily get what’s happening in the time of worship but are drawn toward what is happening in the overall atmosphere of the church…than have DETACHED worshippers who seem mostly driven to “reach a place of emotional worship,” or who will look very passionate but may have no actual connection to what is happening in the service.
Again as a pastor (not a worship leader) I think a huge thing that is missed by a lot of worship leaders is that simple word “engaged.” I feel like I see far too many worship leaders who, even if they wouldn’t say it out loud, have created a dichotomy in a church service, that worship is their part of a service and the preaching is someone else’s part. In the HEALTHIEST churches I’ve seen…it all works together, flows together, and is working toward a similar goal.
I think a really good question that should come out of all of these articles, is : does the individual church’s worship ministry really align with the heartbeat of its church, and pastor and move people toward the mission of the individual local church? Because to me, I want our worship ministry to flow really well as PART OF our church, not as simply something that happens IN the church. Hope that makes some sense.
Chris, this is totally brilliant. You should guest post for me sometime 🙂 I’ll often say from the stage, “If you’re new here, it’s totally OK if you simply stand there and read the lyrics.” Because that’s where they are. I’d rather have them listen to solid theology, experience the presence of God, and come closer to Jesus than have a room full of staunch, judgmental “Christians”. Know what I mean? Thank you for giving us the refreshing perspective of a pastor who loves people. So good.
Anytime David! Hope life and leadership is great for you out in PA!
A lot of what was said in both articles resonates with me. The building frustration I have been feeling comes not from worship leaders “on the ground,” but with the songs available. There was a sort of “golden age” when Chris Tomlin was at the height of his popularity and there were so many accessible worship songs being put out by Tomlin, Matt Redman, Hillsongs, etc… But people have gotten tired of the I V vi IV chord progression (or I IV V), and songs have gotten more complicated, more drawn out, more obscure, and all around less accessible to the average (in my mind) congregation. Over the last couple of months I have listened to over 20 full albums specifically aimed at congregational worship and have found maybe 4 or 5 songs that were both congregationally singable and theologically profound. (To give a more full account of my particular context and thoughts would require a book full of explanations and caveats, so I’ll stop here). I agree that there is not an impending worship-industry crash, but sometimes it’s incredibly hard to fight that feeling.
Totally, Joe. I think that’s why I so resonate with what Paul Baloche does. He’s refreshingly plain and simple. No massive production. No crazy vocal ranges. He writes songs people easily sing and he’s done this for decades. We writers for corporate worship have a lot to learn from him.
Joe, very great point you touch on. Now, i don’t know exactly what our background and experience with “music” is, however, if we speak in only the sense of music in general (christian, mainstream, secular, etc.. ) there are many categories of songs. There are Commercial type songs which are only really made to listen and jam to, there are songs that are made to just reflect on (past experience), there are some that make you just move and dance around, and the list goes on and on (Keep in mind I’m not speaking in the sense of genre). The key thing comes in KNOWING your audience and knowing what type of songs work and don’t work. Yes, i agree many christian songs are more for commercial and radio plays, however, take the time to KNOW your audience and select songs the will create a “moment”. I suggest looking up Tom Jackson, and take the time to invest in your knowledge on taking the stage. Also about the song progression and cords, bring your creativity out and change the song but think simple not “this songs cool”
So much truth here. I too have found many of the new songs to be far to complex for congregational singing. We used to have performance pieces in services, we called it special music and often it was special in the way it drew us closer to God and helped us worship. Outside of concerts we seem to have moved away from this approach and instead of the music group, or a soloist, presenting a complex piece as a performance piece we try to get the whole congregation to sing something that is challenging for trained professionals. Lets bring back “special music” and keep the congregational music more singable.
Robert – in your mind, what is so complex about worship songs today? The lyrics? The melody? The arrangement?
Great article. I think the key is the worship pastor. If he, she, they have a heart after real worship and leading others to experience God then all of the other stuff doesn’t matter as much. A pastor has to guide the church and the members of the band. You’re going to have guys and gals on stage who are more about playing than praying. The challenge is to incorporate their gifting and lead them in worship without…as someone said…the single minded focus on reverb, effects, pedals, performance, etc.
I think we, the non musical, need to appreciate that at the end of the day we are responsible for how we worship God. There can be things we don’t necessarily like stylistically but if we really reach out to God with our hearts He will find us.
I’ve been a sound guy for a long time and the best worship services were often when everything went wrong. God doesn’t care about all of that…just our hearts.
Great stuff, Chris. Having a pastoral heart for your people is so important.
Brilliantly said. Thank you David.
As always I appreciate your desire to address tough questions.
Creativity has not gone too far, if creativity is a reflection of God’s image & his attributes then it can’t go “too far”. I think you hit the nail on the head – we must hunger for Jesus. Saturate our worship rehearsal with the Word and the wonder of who God is! I get distracted daily by being enthralled with this world.. it’s a daily thing. Thanks for the post, David.
How about expanding our definition of worship?
It’s NOT music. It’s NOT singing when the church gathers.
It’s so much more. So. Much. More.
It’s the content and nature of our lives, lived under the reign of Christ and in the image of the God who made us for his joy and glory.
I fear we are aiming too low when we teach our people that worship = singing. I also fear that it allows us to compartmentalize our lives, keeping the majority of it from being penetrated by our God.
Bingo, Rob. So good! How do you think we can practically do that? I remember hearing Tim Keller say that music is such a prominent creative expression for corporate worship because it’s the easiest thing for a large group of people to do together. Imagine if we all painted together on Sunday! 😉
In all seriousness, how can we broaden this beyond music? If worship is so much more, what does that look like in how we lead the church?
The current state of evangelical worship seems to be very man-centered. To ask “Has our creativity gone too far?” reveals much of the man-centeredness. God has called us to be faithful and righteous, not creative and relevant. God has not given us liberty to be and do whatever we want; He has given us liberty in Christ. But all this goes more to the last question; that is, yes, it is more of an inward problem. It has always been an “inward” problem, called sin. The reason it’s so hard for “evangelical worshippers” to “stay amazed” at God is because they are quite simply not worshipping God. The “inward problem” is that they must first be born again. Jesus told Nicodemus that unless men are first born again, they cannot even see the Kingdom of God, let alone worship God. If you have to “create a genuine, honest, real worship experience,” then you have a genuine, honest, real idol. Jesus Christ is the One Who creates all things, and He has told us in His Word not to be conformed to this world (imitating it in all its so-called relevant fashions and styles, etc.). Why is it that so-called “worship leaders” simply copy not what other Christians have “created,” but instead borrow, copy, and steal what unregenerate men have “created” in their styles, forms, and patterns of their own idol-worship of the creature? Our minds are to be renewed by the washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. If Jesus Christ, Who is the express image of the glory of God, presented to you in His Word, does not cause you to “stay amazed” at God, then all your so-called created experiences of worship will never satisfy you. And if Jesus Christ does not satisfy you and cause you to “stay amazed” at God, then maybe it’s because you do not know Him. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt 7:21-23).
Thank you, Tom! You are spot on and I am saddened that the author of this blog has not engaged with your Biblicaly grounded argument. One of the problems I see in this article and many responses is the positions are based in a faulty starting point. Humanism has flooded into the church and has fostered the idea that we must “create” experiences in the church in order to satisfy and inspire. Essentially the church is following the world in it’s humanist belief that our needs are of first importance. The culture in which we live is propelled by the idea that the satisfaction of man is the ultimate goal of life, therefore, man must meet all of his needs.The key difference between Christianity and humanism arises with the question of whether human beings are alone in the universe. “In Christianity we are not. We look beyond ourselves to the creator. Humanism claims we are alone in the universe and grossly restricts our horizons and our experience by focusing on human beings and their needs. That is the new religion, meeting needs, and an extreme importance put on experience. This is what we see happening in these worship debates. Man is at the center of worship, and therefore we must create experiences that feed man. When in fact, God is at the center of worship, and it is He who, by the Holy Spirit, creates in us the desire to and the satisfaction from worship.
As you rightly pointed out, we are not free to create our own version of worship! If we are to be a people who worship in “spirit and truth,” our worship therefore must be grounded in the Scriptures. Which means we are motivated and moved in worship by truth about God, by the glory of the Gospel, and by the greatness of His grace in saving us, NOT by smoke machines, lights, or fancy chord progressions. If we find ourselves needing those things in order to “experience” powerful worship, we are not in fact worshiping God, but worshiping ourselves.
Good post, Scott. Lots to ponder. I wonder if this might resonate with you.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-fellowship-of-the-lamb/why-should-the-church-meet-to-edify-or-worship/590422557668987
Good read, thanks for the link!
I agree !
I agree !
Lots of opinions and too little Scripture. Where does the NT ever instruct the church to gather for a ‘worship service’ — either formal or informal? More thoughts here: http://lambblood.com/gathering-as-christs-ekklesia.html
In I Corinthians 14 Paul is speaking to the “church”. In verse 26 Paul writes, “What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together (church implied) everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.” (NIV)
Hey Donna,
The verse you quoted is more about mutual edification — or “strengthening of the church” (as the NIV reads) — not a ‘worship service,’ as most churches typically think of this.
God’s design is for each believer to use his or her God-given gifts in face-to-face, interactive, participatory fellowship with the brethren in love when the church is gathered as a unified body (as Paul outlines in 1 Cor. 12-14).
I would recommend you read Rick’s article — “Gathering As Christ’s Ekklesia” — which he linked in his post. It seems to do a pretty good job of explaining this in greater detail.
I’ve seen several of these articles going around now and I am convinced that the difference in whether a worship time is felt as a performance versus a communal time of celebration and worship is how the worship team engages with the congregation. The worship team is often far ahead of the congregation because they know the songs inside and out and they’ve known what the sermon topic was all week (at least). The trick is bringing the congregation to where we are and not racing out in front if them. You can say that the congregation should be ready for worship when they come into the sanctuary (and some are), but often they aren’t and it’s our job to help them get there. I personally am much more comfortable just playing the music and singing, so I really have to work at trying to engage the congregation.
Good points, Mark. Being an engaging leader is really important. What are some ways you try to engage the congregation? I always like to learn what others are doing 🙂
What worship to me is a lifestyle..from the heart. Regardless of musical “style”, whether loud, lights, smog etc..or soft hymns, it begins with the heart….can I still hear the still small voice in my heart? and that is a place in the heart..If a person is distracted with much or a place in the heart where they need change…most will find fault with everything until they deal with the issues in the heart…
Some may really dislike loud, smoke filled, etc. because they have been raised in different musical style and can’t feel they can connect with God. It doesn’t make the “style” right or wrong.
My only other point is…does it glorify God? does it point to Jesus?
And that too is a place in the heart where in our own personal worship …does it glorify God…does it point to Jesus? or are we looking for God to give us something rather than to pour our love on Him? In worship I believe whatever style it comes in..it should respectfully worship Him for He is worthy of Glory. If people are continually offended then it’s time to look at what is going on…I don’t believe any come to Christ but through the Holy Spirit not what kind of music is played or how loud or soft…I have heard people who are not very talented musically or vocally but the presence of God is so strong…because it’s about the heart…
Jan – that is such a great starting point – asking, “Does it glorify God?” It’s funny how we can leave that out of the equation.
Being a good steward also includes how you treat your body and others. Hearing loss begins at 75-85 db. So fifteen minutes of that constant noise causes hearing loss. Both spiritually and physically I’m sure. That is why so many young people are hard of hearing in this day. Loud drowns out thoughts in your head and hearing the Spirit. Loud emotionally causes one to be hyper sensitive. Loud is not worship. It is in fact a distraction from what true worship is, especially if you cannot hear what the Spirit has to say to you because of the ringing in your ears. The lyrics and musical arrangement may be great, but if you can’t hear it how is that glorifying God. How is that worship? That is just another self-promoting concert of noise with a hypnotic pounding of the drums. We believe in healing. Can we ask God to heal the damage we do in the name of worship? Is that being a good steward of your talents that God has given you?
I couldn’t agree more !
Great read.
I think my church plans to perform, resulting in entertainment. It feels they need an audience.
You’re on to something here, David. What you describe as being “desperate” or “hungry” for Jesus is, I agree, the heart of the matter. I would also say that what addresses these orientations is way more than what happens on Saturday night or Sunday morning at a worship service. It’s about a 24/7, daily relationship with Jesus (what we call “discipleship”); seeking, praying, listening, responding throughout each day, realizing He is with us wherever we are and that we are re-presenting Him to the world around us. When our daily, regular, on-going relationship with Jesus is alive, active, vibrant, engaging, and very consciously “present,” we are ready to enter into worship at a Sunday service, no matter what is offered, because the outer forms and expressions of worship are secondary to that “hunger” and “desperation” we come with from our ongoing, daily, moment-to-moment walk with Jesus.
Amen! Powerful truths here, Daniel.
I agree with you on this. I believe that this current ‘war’ is just blame shifting within the body. The connection to Christ isn’t as strong and we are more connected to ourselves. As a result we are fighting about lights and original songs and that the stage is too high. We need to get back to searching hard for God and past owing our people.
Well said, Harry.
One of the things that jumps out to me is your defense for the busyness of it all. The statement “Distraction in worship comes from a distracted heart, not from creative ideas” is like saying the kid with ADD is not distracted by the laser show his teacher has running in the corner, but because he doesn’t control his brain enough. While both are probably factual statements, we can’t live out our calling by ignoring that there tangible things we can be doing to direct attention back toward worship of the Creator instead of awe of the craft. I think there is a fine line between legalism and spiritual freedom in corporate worship, but that we are called to walk that thin line because that is where the deepest true worship tends to happen.
awesome point about distraction !
Sometimes I wonder – has a cultural shift away from live music in our everyday lives decreased congregational singing? I like to watch old movies with my wife. Often times there are scenes where you find families and friends gathered around the piano singing – even in non-musicals. I know that these are Hollywood movies, but people used to actually do that. They didn’t have earbuds and personal music players. Even when radio and records began to spread, everyone listened to the same songs and they did it together. Music today has become highly individualized.
Furthermore, music education has seen great decreases over the last 20 years. About 9 years ago someone donated a box of old Baptism Hymnals to our church. The music was written with shaped-notes. I had never seen shaped-notes before. As I researched, I learned that the majority of congregants would have known how to read these hymnals even to the point where they could sing harmonies. This hymnal was published in the late 50’s – relatively not that long ago. How many people do you know that are not part of your worship ministry who can sing in harmony or read simple music?
Now, I am not saying iPods and an unlimited selection of music is a bad thing. I am not giving mine up. I am saying that our culture has shifted. At one time, I thought that shift was from old music (hymns) to contemporary music (praise choruses) to modern music. I think that shift was much bigger. Music for the majority of people in modern society (not just modern music, most music) is about enjoying other peoples performances. As a church, we have to educate people on why we sing corporately.
With that said, I think we have a lot of unrealistic expectations. We have set the measuring stick for how successful a corporate worship gathering is by how loud people sing, how many lifted their hands and other postures that we have deemed to be worshipful. But only God knows.
One of the most frustrating examples in my congregation was several times when I did a random Facebook post asking the congregation to give song suggestions for the upcoming week. Hands down the most requested song – ‘The Stand.’ At the time it was a band favorite. The formula should have been simple: band favorite + congregation favorite = awesome, transcendent, open-heaven worship moment. The equation actually equaled a room full of people whose physical actions were diametrically opposed to the words which they were singing. I swear, if I had not asked them to stand up, they may have just sat there. I wish this was a fluke, but this happened three times (with the same song) before I decided to give up any hopes of crowdsourcing the worship set ever again.
So, did the song fail to connect. I don’t know, they kept asking for more. Was God not worshiped? I believe He was. Who are we to judge what is an acceptable offering of worship? I know the hearts (as best a human can) of many people in our congregation; whether they sing loudly or not – I know them to be worshippers of God.
We should not expect every group, every gathering, even every time we sing the same song to be the same. Should we work towards seeing people engaged? Absolutely, it is our job as worship leaders. Knowing whether people were truly engaged often times happens after our worship gathering. It is the conversation in the lobby, email/message during the week, the run-in at the grocery store that will truly help a leader to know how people were affected.
Unfortunately, the crash many are actually headed toward will be caused by basing our worth on our perception of the congregation’s affection toward us. We risk falling into performance-based behavior when we seek acceptance by using the loudness of congregational singing as an applause-meter. This is why I think we have so many articles about what’s wrong with modern worship and so many worship leaders who are at risk of burning-out. I know, I have been there.
Great article! Thank you!
Church was originally meeting in people’s homes filled with discussion. Today, we keep Christ and worship confined to a certain set time and place. To stay amazed and humble in God, we need to continually expand and spread the worship to outside of church. I think keeping the sermons fresh or even adopting a forumesque/conference style format where the congregation can ask questions or participate would keep the conversation going. Another part of worship is *applying* the scripture and lessons to daily life. When messages relate to modern life (which isn’t so different from Biblical times), there’s a sense of involvement.
From personal experience, I didn’t realize how hungry for Jesus I was either, but I’m so full now “my cup runneth over” daily. Sometimes “intimidation” and fear dissuade me from speaking about Spiritual matters to people I don’t know well, simply because it doesn’t feel like the right time or right place- and that is simply untrue. “We are here for you” is our mission, and we need to remember that no matter what.
Thanks for saying this, David! Jesus always focused on the heart of the people because people tend to get hung up on the outward things.
May the Church grow truly hungry for encounters with the One who paid the highest price for Her!!
SWISH!
Nothing but net.
Corporate worship + corporate fellowship in the same meeting. Exploring Christ’s New Covenant model. http://smyrnachristian.org/model.html
Hi David,
Good thoughts here, and I appreciate you expanding this conversation even further. Two quick things:
First, yes, we’re all performers. But “perform” can mean two things. It mean “do a job” or “put on a show”. It’s the second meaning of the word that we need to resist. I wrote more on this today expanding on the distinction we have to make. We’ll know which kind of “performing” we’re doing by the long-term fruit of our ministry. God only waters the first kind of fruit.
Second, I totally agree that we need to acknowledge and express our desperation for Jesus. Many times, dead worship exists because we don’t know our need for a Savior. I’m right with you.
But is the solution to sing more songs about desperation? Is the solution to people’s lack of awareness of their desperation to engage their senses, turn the lights down, turn the stage lights up, or sing newer songs? No. The answer to desperation is not more desperation. The answer to desperation is exaltation. We exalt Christ. Clearly, loudly, boldly, and sweetly. Our job is to exalt Jesus. And when he is lifted up, he does the drawing people to himself. And then people are satisfied.
So, thanks again for this good conversation. I do think many circles in evangelical worship are headed for a crash. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.
Jamie
Hey Jamie – thanks for starting the convo! Thanks for the distinction on performance. I’d be interested to know how many worship leaders are more interested in “putting on a show”. It seems like that’s more of an idea we impose on worship leaders and musicians simply because of the nature of being an artist. We’re oftentimes judged before we attempt!
I agree with the need for exalting Christ. But I also don’t think our forms of worship are necessarily opposed to the idea of exalting Christ. I think the tools can definitely serve that end!
It’s easy for us to impose that idea of them “putting on a show” but as you say we are quick to judge without even talking or getting to know the worship leader. But why do we have to copy what the culture does in “concert halls” what “mainstream” artists do in their shows.
How is it that lights and being on the center stage help bring glory to God? We communicate indirectly with so much stuff that is just easy to justify ourselves by saying “You don’t know my heart motivation”, “I’m not doing this to show off”, etc. and it could be true but why can’t we reflect this by changing the position of the worship band, by not using colorfull lights like if we are on a disco, by not projecting our faces on the big screen, by not being noticed… etc.
I’m all for trying simple things like this, Andres. But I also wonder if we did that – removed fancy lights, creative music, and other elements, would that improve our worship? Or would we be even more distracted because our hearts are far from God? Would the simplicity of a bright room and quiet music solve the issue? That’s what I’m being challenged by, you know?
Yes I agree with you and it’s great for you to be challenged that way. I believe everyone needs to check their heart motivation for doing this or that and depending on how the congregation understands their role we should make changes on our “style”. I do think there should be some key elements that differentiate a worship service from a concert or show by giving specific tasks and uses to the technology keeping in mind that their use is not for entertaining purposes or just to be “cool” or because it attracts people.
Let’s assume that God doesn’t care what kind of music we put in our churches and how. BIBLICALLY what should be the MOTIVATION for a believer to go to church? I would submit to you that BIBLICALLY even if music and expression were “neutral” and God could use ANY of it, a church’s ability and willingness to do creative/artistic music should NOT BE motivation for a believer to attend. You will never see the apostles for example, committing themselves to “church worship” or to “music” etc. You will find that the key commitment and the motivating factor for believers to gather in the NT was for 1. THE WORD (to preach and to learn) 2. TO BREAK BREAD (communion) 3. FELLOWSHIP with other believers 4. PRAYER . It never mentions music. That’s not to say we shouldn’t sing– we are admonished to do so in Ephesians ! But it wasn’t their priority, was it? It wasn’t what drew them together, was it? I believe, as I understand it, that there is something very special about these: Word, the Sacraments, Fellowship, Prayer– that God has ordained that these especially be a FOUNDATIONAL MEANS of grace, meaning God has ordained that ESPECIALLY through these [not limited to these] He grow and build up the believers/the church. And of all things, we love our MUSIC, we put so much emphasis and so much money and so much energy into making creative worship and artistic music, etc and how much of a Sunday meeting is actually devoted to PRAYER??? 5 SECONDS??? REALLY?? AND WE DON’T SEE A PROBLEM WITH THAT? So back to my original question. The PRIMARY MOTIVATION for a believer to go to church should be the Word, Prayer, the Sacraments, the Fellowship.. Those alone should be enough to motivate a believer to go to church even if it cost him any expense, any hardship! The bible puts so much importance on these that to me, for a believer to not be drawn to a church that does this and nothing else but would rather go to the church across the street that adds to these OTHER UNNECESSARY EXTERNALS that simply cost a lot of money and time, tells me that there are probably heart issues with that person and there is a POSSIBILITY that that heart is unregenerate. It is not natural for a believer to not be drawn to these things without other additional props. I gave as example christians in other parts of the world not to make comparison of cultural styles of music but to show that they have no other motivation to go to church. simple praying and reading / preaching the word is enough. IN CONTRAST TO HERE where it’s not… if that is all you did in church, it would be considered “dead” by some people. And that is very sad. If that is all a church would be doing, not many people would go — look at our nation? What are the most popular, most people filled “churches” look like? There’s no getting around the fact that if we did take out the fancy lights and fog machines, ect we would lose the crowds. PERIOD. The worship leaders are not to blame, what I’m saying is that the problem is that we are trying to attract unregenerate people to church. If they are unregenerate, we SHOULDN’T be surprised that they are not hungering for God and don’t want to come to church. The lost simply aren’t . It’s normal for them. It’s not normal for the saved to not be drawn to the Word and to Prayer and Fellowship even at the exclusion of any other external fancy colorful lights. We are essentially WASTING money, time, energy, emphasis on something God never promised to bless or use for edification (even though He could) and we ignore or give so little importance to the very things that God did promise and ordain for the church’s edification! Even to the point where we dare to say that churches with fancy lights FEEL MORE ALIVE than the ones that simply stick to what God ordained especially for the church’s growth. Might as well slap God in the face. What we’re saying is that what He’s ordained is not enough. We need to add to it; because if we don’t, the “unchurched” won’t come! I can’t imagine a more ridiculous thought than that. Drop the lights, the fog machines and all the jazz that go with that, and you will filter out the people who truly want to be there for the right reasons. And if you want to minister to the lost, do it with a Biblical Gospel, not with a concert on Sunday morning. (ps. I’m not trying to yell– sorry if the caps make it sound that way– I want to emphasize some things and don’t have the bold or italics feature )
I see many good points in both the article as well as the comments. However there is an element consistently left out of such articles: the spiritual condition of the congregation. Certainly its important that we as worship leaders do all that we can musically, environmentally, sound, etc. to “get it right”. But there are circumstances where no matter how well you do, the congregation as a whole will not engage. I served both as a worship team member an later as worship leader for such a congregation. The breakthrough came only after an extended period of hard-core intercession over a period of months. I would “sneak” in to the church (I had a key – it was legit) when nobody was around, late at night, early morning, etc. praying, weeping, breaking demonic strongholds. And things changed! The band, sound, lighting wasn’t suddenly better. No, the congregation became free and engaged! If prayer isn’t your thing, find the intercessors in your congregation and engage their help! PRAY over the sound booth, every station on the stage, the team members, walk sanctuary praying for release of the congregation – and not just one time. Spiritual warfare is real, and as worship leaders we are on the front lines. The enemy is engaging you and the congregation. You must in turn engage the enemy!
Love this emphasis on prayer. Prayer is the most important worship leader prep, but is so often glossed over.
I haven’t read all the other comments. Quite simply I wanted to say, well said. We can debate the nuances of worship until Jesus comes. There will always be different view points. The bottom line to me is this, it comes down to a heart issue with the individual. When I come to church, I’m coming with the express goal of worshiping God and feeding His people (I’m the lead pastor). My directive to our worship team is to 1. Pray over what you are going to sing. 2. Lead us into His presence by not only singing, but worshiping. 3. Flow in His Spirit. I also give this directive to my congregation: As much as we appreciate and honor the gifts of those leading us in worship, we are responsible to come prepared to worship God. We are responsible to lead from the pew or chairs as we worship God.
My heart breaks for worship leaders as it seems that right now, it is extremely popular to blame them for the lack of worship in the church, when we all know that worship is not a service or an event, but a lifestyle. When we worship outside the church, we will worship with greater depth inside the church.
As I read these comments about worship, one thought keeps going through my mind: different people worship in different ways. That doesn’t make their worship wrong, it just makes it different. A wise worship leader will try to incorporate different elements into the worship service – contemporary praise, vocal praise, instrumental praise, sometimes even dance or visual arts, hymns. All are valid, as long as whatever the form is used to guide the congregation into worship. I am an older Christian who still appreciates the words and music of hymns, many of which were memorized long ago. When we sing hymns in corporate worship, I focus not on unfamiliar music or words, but on God, because I’m not worried about getting the notes wrong. I also like contemporary praise songs, because I see our younger members experience worship with their familiar music. I sing in the choir, the “performance” anthems of all music styles that communicate worship as well. Sometimes, if the anthem is sung often enough, the congregation joins in; I’ve been in churches where the anthem scores were passed out to the congregation for them to sing along with the choir. We have a church orchestra that leads beautifully with worship songs with no words. We have a praise team that also leads in worship. In short, several different worship opportunities that speak to different people where they are, and lead them to worship in new ways as well.
Worship leaders must have sensitivity to the needs of their congregation, to meet them where they are, to help them worship in their different styles. The worship leader at our church feels a great sensitivity and offers a broad menu; the result is a vibrant worship program that meets several needs. The last church I was at had one worship style, and when I attempted to speak to the worship leader about my unmet needs was brushed off. To recognize that different people have different worship styles is a great gift; to actually attempt to meet those needs is truly remarkable.
I’m a worship leader at a local church. I agree that it doesn’t matter what type of songs we sing as much as laying our life down and actually loving this One we sing to. The organized church has sadly sometimes created groups of people who don’t carry their own atmosphere of God(walking with Him in intimacy all week). They come to check church off their list instead of personally experiencing Jesus and following Him. I believe even by the number of people beginning to talk about this topic, God is up to change. 🙂 Exciting!!:) Thanks for the article!!
Good article, but I would say that the glory of God does not need any more expression for fresh and new ways of experience other than the finished work of Jesus as displayed in His gracious gospel. If you want to see heart transformation, give them Jesus. And this is really a false dichotomy at any rate. When we are commanded to sing songs and spirituals songs to one another, it was always in the prepping of the heart towards the proclaimed word of God which, when empowered by Holy Spirit, is the only thing that can change the heart and offer a new affection. Worship will not happen until the Gospel is preached and the Holy Spirit regenerates a heart. Worship is a life set ablaze when changed by the scandalous grace offered in the finish work of Jesus which we find in Scriptures. A man would little die for a song… a heart transformed by the proclamation of this Jesus, now that is a different story. That is worship. False dichotomies between the proclamation of the Word and the singing as worship needs to change.
Th
I agree with you, Scott. I think that’s what we need to praying for as worship leaders – that the Spirit of God would awaken hearts to His glory. That they would see Jesus and respond to Him. Our song choice and preparation is essential but nothing truly spiritual can happen without the moving of the Holy Spirit. Thanks for sharing!
Another great post, David. The Bible is so very clear about God’s purposes for us as His worshipers if people will just seek to know and understand what He’s laid out for us there. (And if churches will teach about it more!) True worship starts with a heart positioned to be fixed on and bowed before God. So yes, a worship leader’s goal is to lead people to the throne, but they can’t make anyone go there!
It seems God is placing the same things on our hearts. My last couple of posts on my worship blog have been on this same topic. When you get the chance, come check them out: 4 Keys to Intimate Sunday Morning Worship – http://pamelahaddix.com/2014/05/12/4-keys-to-intimate-sunday-morning-worship/ and Why the Church Still Needs NEW Songs – http://pamelahaddix.com/2014/05/25/why-the-church-still-needs-new-songs/ .
Thanks so much for your ministry. I love finding people fighting in the same trench as me! (I believe I sent you the eBook of my worship Bible study previously. Let me know if I’m mistaken – or if you’d like it in another form – or even a real one.)
” So yes, a worship leader’s goal is to lead people to the throne…”
I’m genuinely curious if you can show any Biblical justification for this remark? How do we lead another to the “throne?” Is it even possible for us to do that? By what power do we lead people to the “throne?”
Please read my questions with a gentle tone, I am not seeking a battle, but I am concerned with the possible end results of such beliefs.
Scott –
There really isn’t much chronicled about the structure of worship in the Old and New Testaments. However, what texts we do have are pretty clear as to what happened when people worshiped. God’s presence inhabited. One in particular comes to mind is in 2 Chronicles 5
12 Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)
13 It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord;
14 So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.
So how would one attempt to apply the instructions for worship being led by the Levitical priesthood to the gathering of saints in the N.T. church?
Please forgive my poor punctuation, my keyboard is giving me fits.
Scott, are you asking how a worship leader leads someone to the throne, or are you asking for Biblical justification for having a worship leader at all? Just want clarification.
If your question is the former, a worship leader can’t TAKE someone to the throne. They lead them – meaning they go there themselves – and model and encourage others to follow. If you struggle with the “throne” part of my comment, that comes from several passages talking about “entering the courts” or even one of the most common Greek words for worship is “proskuneo” which means “to bow and kiss” in humble adoration. I’d say that’s about as close to the throne as you can get. So through the Holy Spirit’s empowering and guidance (hopefully), the worship leader worships by humbly glorifying, exalting, and adoring his/her God and inviting others to join along. Leading.
I’m not sure if that answers your question, and there could be a much longer answer to that, of course. Sorry I didn’t reply earlier, too – I never got notification that there was a reply to my comment. I just happened to be reading back through all of them and saw it. Blessings!
It isn’t the lights. It isn’t the highly sophisticated special effects that Hollywood would envy. It isn’t even the fact that some churches have virtually become recording studios and services have been timed to the nanosecond.
Pogo said it. We have met the enemy and he is us.
Some who perform in today’s worship services think it’s all about them. Some Christian celebrities charge fortunes to appear onstage for a worship service. Some of their demands are unbelievable.
On top of all the problems you mentioned, try this one on for size: copyright.
Nowadays we have to be sure everything is licensed and proper “royalties” are paid to songwriters and composers.
There’s now a policing agency, CCLI, or Christian Copyright Licensing International, whose license fees are based on how many people attend your services.
That’s right. Before you or I can sing ONE SYLLABLE of a praise song, we have to insure that the composers and artists receive their proper “royalties”. Churches have been fined over this issue.
In other words, follow the money.
The last time I checked, the Church has only ONE royalty. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Period.
How did we get so off base as this?
By believing that the service is about us. From our taste in music, dancing, drama and other forms of entertainment, right down to the chairs we sit in and the creature comforts afforded by the auditorium (that used to be called sanctuary).
Christian worship is big business folks. Even Vacation Bible School material is professionally manufactured and sold at high price to churches Ill able to afford it.
Worship, or making a buck? You tell me.
And we wonder why our country is going to hell in a handbasket. Does God hear our worship, or has He gotten disgusted by the whole thing? Maybe all these high falootin hi jinks have become a stench in His nostrils. Who are we trying to impress?
God help us. God, give us the thirst of preachers of old for Your truth and purity of heart. Purify our hearts and let us see what is really important. Amen.
I like how you said it!
Where I’ve been I think about bringing the world into the church. I’ve heard a leader of a Praise and Worship Team speak about liking and playing BonJovi on a Sunday afternoon with a secular band. I’ve also heard the Pastor say he liked BonJovi. With mind sets like this how can they be leading a church of people in the right direction?
Thank you for your words! Means alot.
Worship is not.about me. Its about God and my brothers and sisters. Its a time for us to sing to one another songs to teach and admonish and encourage. Also to sing praise to God. I believe that is lost when instruments are added to the simpleworship depicted in the first century. Voices of the saints. Thats it. Thats all you need. Any thing more and we begin to lose truth in our worship and are just focusing on aural aesthetics.
The underlying problems this author exhibit for us do also have the opportunityto take root in vocal worship too.
Remember. Worship His way. And worship in spirit and truth.
This is GREAT stuff David – thank you… it’s a balanced perspective… and in my opinion, really healthy. I’m remembering today there’s only one thing that creates an environment of worship… It is to see God clearly… Jesus is most easily worshiped when He is most easily seen… Everything else… dancers, drums, snake handlers, choir robes, lights, dry ice, banners, piano, pipe organ, elec guitar, accapella and even silence is ALL a matter of culture, personal preference and resources… It is true in the US, in Uganda and also in the underground church in North Korea. I loved what you said in your final paragraph: “What’s next?” It is about Pastoral care for the flock… stewarding the message… we are made in God’s image… of course we should create, when we do, we are using the God stuff planted inside of us!!! Yet, whatever we create should always point back to a crystal clear message about the greatness of Christ, His cross, His empty grave and His glorious return… if the message is ever compromised or obscured, then we have to evaluate what we’re doing… the message has to always trump the method… and I agree with you… we can (and should) have BOTH, yet I’ve seen (and contributed to) the temptation to get caught up in spinning our wheels in the rat race of production with Martha (a good thing) but then fail to choose “the better thing” of sitting near Jesus with Mary. Last thought (maybe)… you’ve got to lead the folks who attend your local flock… not the ones you wish would attend… ultimately the shepherds have to know the DNA of their local congregation… they have to know what methods will throw the largest possible net for the message… for some gatherings it is fog… for others it is a hymnal… I love the diversity of the body of Christ and as far as I can tell, there is a congregation for every type of sinner.
…While we await Christ’s return we are in the disciple making business, and as we pursue Him with worship in spirit & truth, we’ve got to regularly ask ourselves as leaders, “are we catching more or less fish for Christ today?”
Peace bro – and thanks again for your thoughtfulness!
So good. Thanks Casey!
Thanks, David. Great perspectives. It reminds me that God does not really need worship leaders to sing or lead well, but to be just worshipers of God who tremble at His Word. Micah 6:8 helps me to stay in focus what really pleases God. Sometimes it is just to get out there and serve among the broken and the desperate.
I was asked this question recently so i thought I’d pass it along! “If you knew you were going to hell, would you love Him anyway?”
As a member of the praise and worship team of my church for many years I felt it was always important to have true leaders in the praise team. If we as worship leaders – all of us – aren’t spiritually ready, we are going to miss what God has for the entire congregation. I do think that people’s ego’s get in the way – including my own. I used to get very upset when we had a visiting pastor and we put on a “show” rather than lead the congregation into the presence of the almighty God. I will say, however, that there were also many, many times that we paid attention and followed the leading of the Holy Spirit. The problem, no two people like the same kind of music! We just need to remember why we are worshiping and who we are worshiping. I really think that people should leave a church if they are that dissatisfied. It’s really such a small percentage but it can cause a huge rift in the congregation. I have had members of the congregation come up to me before the service and tell me that “if the pastor doesn’t turn that music down, I am going to leave!” Well, I say leave.
“I’m not sure performancism is the problem either. When I go to church, I want to hear from a Pastor who has studied, rehearsed, prayed over, and developed his sermon. His excellent performance of the sermon will help its truth speak louder to all the worshipers.”
The definition of performance is “an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment.”
The problem is you want to be entertained. Serving Jesus is about entertaining–see John 13:5 and find out what serving Jesus should look like.
Why do we have to like the judges of some american reality series? Why do we have to dumb-down the Kingdom and the power of God. Why does my opinion matter to you. Thank God He meets us where we are. I am 40 something and can’t wait to see how creative our worship team gets. Let’s not ruin it for our Savior. Why do you ask Jesus what He thinks. Isn’t He the one that really matters?
Where is the Biblical precedent for the modern worship leader or worship service? Jesus didn’t travel with a praise band…one of his disciples wasn’t the minister of music…the early church didn’t include either the music pastor or the worship service as we see it today. So if that is the case, what is the Biblical precedent for what we see today? in your Biblical opinion, what paved the way for what the church has evolved into? Biblically speaking, why does the modern church require more entertainment and higher quality style of production? Is it because the generation we are trying to reach demands we meet them with the same type of entertainment they are used to? If so, isn’t this the same argument the early church had when Constantine declared Christianity was the state religion. This declaration caused the church to be flooded with non believers who required much of the pagan rituals they were used to in their previously pagan worship without the heart changing first?
I think much of what we have done in the church in recent years is because we see the problem as “declining numbers”. The problem is not “declining numbers” of church goers, it is a declining numbers of believers and a growing number of churches.. As a result, the church has to become an attractive place for the limited numbers of believers in an area and we are forced to compete with all the other churches in the area for the church goers. So we develop a dynamic youth program, or a singles ministry, or a college ministry, or paint classes, or seniors programs, or kid programs, or a modern worship experience…then, because the job is too much for one pastor, the church has to hire a pastor for those specific areas. Are the programs for the unsaved in the area? No…while we would never turn away the unsaved from those programs, those programs are almost 100% filled with church folks looking to get involved in their local church and not for the purpose of evangelizing unsaved people. You can look at our church budget (though we are not unusual, I would imagine) and see that most of the resources that come into our church, stay at our church. They are not meant to bring the unsaved in as much as keep the saved in our midst more comfortable which should, by extension, become an attractive option for other churched people in the area to change from their church who cannot or is not offering those programs.
The same question I asked of you is the same one we should be asking of everything the church is doing. Is what we are doing following a Biblical precedent, a historical precedent or is it a response to the culture? If it is not following the Biblical example of what the church was or obeying the direct commandment from God to the church (the Great Commission), than we should seriously be reconsidering the priorities that demanded the course of action we are following. If a church is having more church memberships of outside families than Baptisms of outsiders, than it is probably a good sign that somewhere, the message of, go and tell people the Gospel and THAN bring them with you to church (evangelism and discipleship) is not making itself very clear to the people.
That is not a condemnation of the worship ministry. As your article talks about (or it was in the comments), as the church has declined, that is the one area that has shouldered the blame more than any other in the church. Because everything else in the church has not brought in the people with the right heart, the music ministry has to provide the worship experience for people who are not naturally prepared to experience it on their own. I know for me, the Sundays where I get nothing out of the service have nothing to do with the music, or the preaching, or how many mistakes were made by the media team…it is because I was not prepared when I came to church to worship God.
One last thing…I am not for turning services back to the traditional. I enjoy have musicians and pastors who are practicing their craft during the week. I just think we need to be spiritually honest and make church services what they were intended for…a gathering of believers who come together for fellowship and the preaching of God word that is intended to have those same believers go out of the church and make more believers. If we do that, we can lose a lot of the comfort and entertainment angle of the church because those who come on Sunday are believers (or those being discipled to do so) who understand the purpose of the Sunday worship, and not unbelievers (or weak Christians) who are just looking for another avenue of entertainment. Look at Jesus’ life for the best example of this. His sermons were meant for those believers who would commit themselves to following Him and would devote themselves to understanding His hidden meanings. His sermons turned people away because of their depth or because He discouraged the casual follower. On the flip side, His daily, walking around ministry, was person-to-person communicating God’s love and showing people that what they were living for was not as God intended.
Andy, I’m thankful for your passion for Biblical, authentic worship. We need reminders like this so we keep worship real and not just a routine, cultural habit.
Thank you for this, David! Out of all the articles I’ve seen written recently about worship and why people aren’t singing, this is the first one that hasn’t made me frustrated. I love how you closed this article too, encouraging us all as worship leaders. Glad I came across your blog. I think this is an important conversation and a hard one to keep our own preferences out of the way in so that we can get at the heart of the issue.
Thanks James!
Hi Dan,
I found your article today that someone I know posted on their Facebook page. Maybe I am missing the point here and maybe you or someone to clarify this for me, because I am newbie Christian and all this religion concept is still new to me. You stated in this article that here the real problem as stated:
“Our hearts don’t know their need for Christ. We are not desperate. We are not broken. We don’t approach Sunday with expectant, faith-filled, repentant hearts. We aren’t hungry for Jesus.”
How can you measure or gauge the congregation’s experience and expectations that you lead in worship in every Sunday morning by this comment you stated in your article? Are you expecting people to come after or in the middle of service wanted to know God and Jesus more and in full repentance of their sins in front of everyone? I have reread your article couple of times trying to understanding the argument here.
I know being lead in worship is about glorifying God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and using your talents to get the congregation to focus on the Trinity and not on the performance. Whatever tools you use to get people focus and entrench in God and Jesus from traditional hymnals, contemporary Christian music, fog machines, electric vs acoustic instruments, current pop culture movies, etc.
I have seen a lot of church’s worship teams on the internet during service is more of rock concert atmosphere with dim lights, lasers, delay pedals trying to paint a supernatural experience for the flock. The extreme there are teams so ridged and lack any feel. I am waiting for your anyone comments to a newbie Christian.
Hi Ira, thanks so much for your comment. It’s refreshing and exciting to hear from a “newbie” Christian! Like I mentioned in the post, that was a general statement that doesn’t apply to everyone. I made the statement based on my own life. I know I often come to church (and even lead worship) with a distant heart. My problem is that I don’t treasure Christ as I should and it’s my daily prayer to do just that. Does that make sense?
Hi David,
Thank you for your clarifying what you mean! I think you are taking this way too serious and being to hard on yourself. I been to church services over the years and I felt that I am not feeling or getting whatever everybody else is feeling when the worship band is on. I don’t want to fake it because everyone is doing it just to fit in. There is a lot of shelf impose pressure that is not necessary. I think I understand where you are coming from wondering if you are having any impact on the people’s lives during church service. Am I right? My heart is telling me to say here that we are planting the seeds during service hoping it will take root in the people to have them focus their attention from material living toward God and Jesus. For the many of us we may or may not see the fruits of our labor yet.
There is a lot of pressure here NOT to act like entertainers on Sunday mornings that our attention is strictly on glorifying God. I usually visualized God sitting on the His throne watching and listening to every service withing the world. During one of the multiple services if one worship team wants to be different for a Sunday or two to spice things up a bit so be it as long it is done in good taste I believed God is find with it. That is my visualization of what God like or dislike. Thank you for writing back. 🙂
I am sorry I mean David not Dan in my last post.
Many issues related to the question of the problem with “evangelical worship” might be cleared up if we realized that what we call worship isn’t worship. Biblically worship means to bow down, surrender/submit, lay prostrate. It is an outward manifestation of inward surrender. What we call worship is actually musical praise, thanksgiving and celebration. They are good and right but they are not the same thing as worship. There’s a good reason scripture has different words for worship and praise, because they’re not the same thing. Of course there is some crossover between them… We’ll be thankful and praise Jesus while laying on our faces, and there are times when praising God that we’ll be overwhelmed and driven to our knees, but worship is not a party, it is a deep and heavy face to face time with God Himself. When we apply the label “worship” to what we do once or twice a week corporately, we cheapen true worship and rob ourselves of the fuller and richer experience with God.
People who aren’t desperate don’t worship, nor praise, nor express thankfulness. When we aren’t desperate our “praise” becomes how it makes us feel rather than an offering to the One Who deserves our adoration. When we are desperate, we are then willing to bow down, cry out, whatever we can to express our brokenness and surrender to our only Hope. Just look at Israel’s pattern. It is the same for us today. If you go to most any nation in the majority world where following Jesus costs something, you’ll find people who’s praises are married closely with prostrate worship. They understand desperation and they hearts lead them from that place. We are not desperate, nor are we overwhelmed by Jesus. As things get worse in our nation, our desperation will increase as many fall away and then we’ll better understand the difference between praise and worship. Matt 24 and John 16 is coming. I hope and pray we’ll wake up before it becomes too bad.
Guy, this is awesome! so stoked to see another that has had a true revelation of what worship is. so encouraged but what you wrote here. I think youd really appreciate the book my dad wrote ( its in the link attached to my name)
If you read the comments following this blog, it is obvious people are adamant about their style preferences. There seems to be two camps. Those who appreciate modern technology in worship and use high energy stage presence and those who think using modern technology makes the worship/praise music a show or performance. I’m sure I will get comments just for using the phrase ‘stage presence’. First, I don’t know any Worship Pastor who is trying to make Sunday morning their own little concert performance. You may judge that because you see lights and haze, but that doesn’t make it the so. Moving lights and haze does not equal a stage show, and likewise, singing hymns with a piano does not equal worship. It’s only worship if its done in spirit and truth. You cannot judge worship by which tools were used to offer spirit and truth.
The book of revelation gives us a glimpse of what an actual worship service in heaven looks like, which is nothing like what many picture church worship should be. Picture this service: Revelation tells us that all the colors of the rainbow encircle His throne and fill His temple. It tells us that flashes of lightning and thunder roared from His throne. This sounds like a celebration to me. Compared to this, moving lights and rock music seem pretty tame.
As a Worship Pastor, I teach my tech teams to use their creativity and gifts in technology to worship the One true living God through their art and use technology to help engage others to worship. I would ask the next time you see a moving colorful light in worship, don’t see it as a distraction, see it as a hand raised to God by the technician operating the lights. See the colors of the rainbow encircling His throne. See the church celebrating the God who raised up from death to life and is deserving of all the technology we have being used to celebrate eternal life with the one who has redeemed us so we can celebrate Him.
ON A SIDE NOTE: I currently live in Anderson, SC, a small southern town. In this small town I have the option of going to a very traditional Baptist church, one of the largest modern churches in the country with high energy modern music styles, southern gospel flavored churches, Catholic churches and everything else in between. My point in saying this, is I believe most people in most towns have these options as well. No church can be all things to all people. We can’t even agree on the temperature in the room much less the sound volume. Why criticize the styles of different churches. If you don’t like the style of your church, pick a church that you most agree with and worship there with all your heart. If the church you have grown up with has changed styles and you can’t worship there any longer, find one you can worship in, but don’t criticize the church you left for changing. Life is too short. There is only one way to worship God, that is in spirit and in truth. You can do that with or without lights, loud or soft, cold or hot, screaming guitars or pipe organs, with or without music. Worship God with all of your heart and with all of your life.
Worship Pastors, continue on doing what God has called you to do with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Engage your church in worship whatever that may look and sound like.
I would suggest a ‘third camp,’ if you will, that goes well beyond how the ‘up-front’ activities in a church meeting are conducted (even though this is an important area too). There is a growing number of brethren (including myself) who are concerned that three-forths of what Christ gave us through his apostles to follow as HIS tradition is being left out of our so-called ‘worship services.’
If we are as God-seeking and Christ-loving as we claim to be, shouldn’t this concern us? Shouldn’t we be looking closely at the New Testament to discern HIS agenda for HIS church?
Corporate worship + corporate fellowship in the same meeting = Christ’s New Covenant model. More thoughts here: http://smyrnachristian.org/model.html
Get em Lane–This is beautiful!
O Man… before we release all of these blogs on “worship” people need to start actually study what the Biblical meaning of the word worship is and stop trying to make there points over other bloggers. This is the true problem with the lack of worship in the church; no one knows what it means anymore, It has been watered down and tossed around. We need to come back to the act of worship, bowing face down before our Creator. Being so taking away by the love of Jesus we cant speak a word and just find ourselves on our knees as low to the ground as we can possible get.
Evangelism, preaching, singing, playing instruments, lights, small group these things have nothing to do with the act of worship, but there will be an erruption of these things when we start to truly worship. We will start to see an amazing refreshing river of passion for the lost, joy and unity in our churches when the revelation hits that worship in fact is not “everything”. When the pastor is preaching we aren’t calling it prayer right? in the same fashion it is not worship. There are hundreds of verses on the fact that singing is praise to the Lord and it is a sweet fragrance to Him when we do it. Even the singing it is a specific act of praise to Jesus. Worship in the Old and New testament is spoken about as a specific act, to bow down in homage before God. We never see David calling prayer worship or singing worship, or even when the thousands of musicians were playing in one accord do we see them call it worship. But, what happens after they play in one accord and the presence of God falls on them, then we see them fall to their knees and worship God. there are story on story that you see this pattern and you see it even in Heaven it self and the pictures in Revelations. You see a pattern of the singing and the praise, the laying down of crowns, then if you read closes it will speak of how they bowed and worship Jesus.
In Short, I think we need to stop the watering down of Worship and call it what it is, the sacred and intimate act of being so overwhelmed with who God is we can do nothing but fall to our faces and wait at His feet just as Mary waited at the feet of Jesus.
The essence of worship is submission and service to God, which includes caring for and serving Christ’s brethren too. But consider, first, what the New Testament does NOT say about why we should meet together each week (from “Gathering As Christ’s Ekklesia”).
The New Testament never states that the reason a church meets is to have a traditional worship service as we usually conceive of this and practice it in the modern church. This is not to deny that Christians should worship God in various ways when they come together. How can Jesus’ disciples help but honor and glorify God as they consider the amazing truths of Scripture together, sing His praises, fellowship in His Spirit, share the Lord’s table, encourage and exhort one another, and pray? Such collective activities clearly constitute meaningful spiritual sacrifices or expressions of worship (i.e., service and devotion) to God. God-centered service and devotion should be the overarching purpose and outcome of all we do in the Christian life (Rom. 12:1), including when we assemble as Christ’s church.
My point here is that the New Testament never states that a worship service (whether we conceive of this as an orthodox, traditional or contemporary service) is the reason for Christ’s brethren gathering as His church. As Daniel Thompson has written,
“There are few doctrines in the New Testament that give us as much surprise as the doctrine of worship. One might even say we are stunned. Although there are references to worship in the Gospels, the book of Acts and Revelation, the New Testament Epistles — the doctrinal/ explanatory part of the New Testament — is completely silent as to worship. This is all the more incredible when we consider: First, 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14 is an extensive treatment of church life and interaction with no mention of worship. Second, 1 Timothy was an epistle written to make known ‘how thou [Timothy] might behave thyself in the house of God.’ Surely one would expect a reference to worship here, yet there is none. Third, our Lord tells the Samaritan woman that ‘the hour is coming … and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him’ (Jn 4:21-23). With such a definitive statement of future devotion, it is inconceivable that worship would be passed over completely in the instructional part of the New Covenant, the Epistles, yet this is exactly what we find.”
More thoughts here: http://www.lambblood.com/gathering-as-christs-ekklesia.html.
This is true the essence of worship is submission and service to God, but in the same respect not all serves is worship to God. Old or New Testament, many ways the believers served christ were not called worship. but our modern language for everything in the church today is “worship”. This also is why you do not see it in the NT being called a “Worship Service” is exactly my point there isn’t such a thing, yet some how we find ourselves calling it that week by week. In your comment you quote David Thompson who said this; “First, 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14 is an extensive treatment of church life and interaction with no mention of worship.” I would like to address this:
if you look at 1 Corinthians 14:25. 1 Cor 14:24-25 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. 25 And thus[c] the secrets of his heart are revealed; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you.
The word here for worship is the greek word proskyneo( G4352 in Thayer’s Lexicon Greek Concordance) – To kiss the hand towards one in token of reverence, by kneeling or prostration to do homage(to one). It is the same word that is used 72 times in 54 separate verses in the New testament to describe true worship. It is the word that Jesus Himself speaks 8 times( one is actually worshippers which is the word, proskynetes) in possible one of the most famous verses used when teaching about worship, John 4. Verse 23 ” for the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. Verse 24 – God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” if you were to start reading from verse 21 you would see all 8.
these above examples are only 9 of the times out of the 72 that the word worship is expressed and mentioned in the New testament, and every time they mean to do the same thing, to bow before jesus in reverence.
Now I am not saying that the other acts of service are to be disregarded. there is a desperate need for those to increase, I myself am I song leader at my church in California and I have also spent the last 9 years serving in international and national missions a like. or service to the Lord is to be done whole heartedly and full of love and compassion, but this does not mean we call it all worship. gathering together and using or gifts to reach the lost is mandatory to see the gospel and Kingdom of God advance 100%. but the problem with Evangelical Worship is calling it it worship in the first place. It does not devalue it at all if we take the word worship off the end. Worship is the response to the out come of evangelism. There was a great speaker in YWAM who said, missions exist because worship doesn’t.
Another addition for corporate gatherings:
If we’d just start calling it what it is then maybe we’d see individuals getting to a state of worship in a corporate setting. O good illustration of this is seen in Exodus 33:9-10 “When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord[a] would speak with Moses. 10 And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door”.
Now the word in this passage for worship is the hebrew word Shachah ( Strongs Number 7812) this is used 220 times in 165 verses through out the old testament to define worship. Its also interesting that it means the same thing as the proskyneo, meaning the definition of worship never changed. thus it shouldn’t now.
this is a corporate setting if you will, as all the people would rase and worship each at his tent door. This is imagery for us today, that they were in unity as a nation but each individual had to take the responsibility to stand up walk to the door of their tent and then proceed to worship the glory of God. this was in fact an instinct with in them that took over because the pillar of cloud was so overwhelming, could you imagine! wow it gets me so excited to think of that magnificent feeling they must have had. it does not say they prayed, or sang, or clapped, or danced, or even spoke for that matter, It says they worshipped.
this is just brief and barely scratches the surface to what the Bible and God himself has to say about worship in the NT and the OT. we must remember that both books are here and we must learn and take in both books not isolating one or the other to get our points a crossed.
Hey Matt, thanks for sharing you heart, man. Challenging stuff. I think these are great conversations to have on blogs. Blogs are a great way to have conversations, share ideas, and speak from where you are. Blogs should never become anyone’s Gospel or Scripture but they can be a great place to talk through issues like this. And I’m with you – let’s get back to the heart of what worship really is!
yeah and I full agree, we need to ask the Lord for a new hunger and desperation for his presence and intimacy, and not be so concerned with what is happening on the outside but what is being stirred up, or not stirred up for that matter in our hearts! so good definitely got me thinking about our churches here and the one I am on staff with!
This is my very point Matt. When a person states something that goes against or challenges the current status quo, people are too often strangely compelled to hear the statement as an “either/or” and receive the correction as saying that the current/old way is bad or to be done away with. Sometimes this is true as we are fooling ourselves in the western/modern church if we believe we’re not susceptible to collective deceit just as Israel was. In regards to singing praises “vs” worship it’s not an either/or. They are certainly not mutually exclusive but we destroy the power and value of both when we miss-label them, or exclude one of them all together by calling the other.
There is plenty of “gettin’ our worship on” in terms of singing songs that make us feel good, but in reality, there is very little to no true worship happening in corporate gatherings. If there were, I’d be surprised if anyone were to use the phrase “gettin’ our worship on”… Real worship is simply not included as a valuable corporate expression with no time allowed for the Holy Spirit to move in the hearts of the people towards it freely. The “liturgical” folks do a much better job by allowing moments of silence (heaven forbid…) and corporate reading or response of scripture.
I’m not at all at odds with styles. I do find a lack of biblical examples for anyone being an official member of a church staff who is meant to “lead us to the throne”, and can’t find anything in scripture that says it’s normative to have a section of a gathering devoted to singing. (Side note, if we need someone to “lead us to the throne” something is wrong… and when people do get near the throne, they’re mostly on their knees…) However, the styles aren’t the issue. It’s that we’ve become consumers in the evangelical church and just like the world’s system of supply and demand, the people demand things that make us feel good as consumers so that is what gets supplied.
There are a couple of places where we see into the nature of gatherings in the early church. A key one is in 1 Cor 14:26-33. This section is buried within the tongues section and often gets lost as a unique glimpse into what Paul seems to indicate is a normative gathering of a church.
“26 What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28 If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God. 29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30 And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31 For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32 The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.”
This description seems incredibly fluid and unstructured. This in our estimation would appear to be disorder but Paul states otherwise. How can this be? Because what Paul is describing here is a gathering of saints who are collectively being led by God’s Spirit and not by an expected programatic schedule. When someone stands up in our model of church meeting and shares what God’s Spirit is telling them to say right then, they aren’t looked upon too kindly, trust me I know… (if you’re mental response to this is “God’s Spirit would never lead anyone to interrupt a sermon in progress” then you’re proving my point that we’ve put God’s Spirit in a box and set Him outside) But I’ve been in gatherings led by God’s Spirit and to stand up and share what the Spirit is saying, or sing a song, or express a prayer is perfectly normal and fostered.
So see, now I’ve gotten to the real, bottom line issue in our evangelical gatherings… and probably our lives in general. They are not Spirit led. They are tradition led and schedule/agenda led. Want some evidence? We love to preach about how Jesus spit, made mud and touched various people’s eyes to heal them. We make much of the fact that He didn’t do it the same way. We love to talk about how the Spirit is like the wind and He blows here and there as He wishes and that God works in mysterious ways. If God is genuinely like this, then what are the odds that week after week after week after week He would have His Spirit guide church gatherings to magically fit into the incredibly similar format, within the same incredibly unchanging timeframe? We’ve pushed God out of His own gatherings and pretend that things are just great and that we’re alive… Reread Jesus’ rebuke of the churches in Asia in Rev… Are we immune to falling away? If we think so then we’ve probably already done so.
So what do we do about this as members of the Body of Christ (people and leaders alike)? Stop the shows, stop the preaching, stop the teaching, stop the music. Collectively assume the posture before God that makes us most useful to Him, that is on our knees in prayer and cry out to Him until He moved us. The first response will be confession of sin, both personal and corporate. Expect a purging. Then repentance will follow. Then you will have a Body postured to listen to God’s Spirit and allow Him to lead rather than man. No human was ever damaged by not hearing a sermon, or not singing a song but rather spending time in prayer for a full Sunday gathering time. Try it. I dare you.
People should come ready to meet and worship–prepare their hearts. Come expecting to meet Jesus and feel his presence. Worship teams cannot do it all. The prayers prior to service is to serve by the worship team and prepare the hearts of those whom attend. Blessings!!
To me this article did not address the real problem. I have visited numerous churches and no matter where I go I usually try my best to engage in worship regardless of the quality of the leaders etc.. My parents haven’t enjoyed a worship service for the last 15-20 years. (that bothers me- why is it okay to just leave our seniors out because their ‘old fashioned’) I’m all for being ‘up with the times’ but I rarely enjoy the ‘worship’ part of church service. One time I felt really worshipful was at a christian concert that had all the trimmings of a nightclub atmosphere etc..- I can’t say that about many church services. The current church I attend I can’t stand the music, I go for the community and the teaching and beliefs, but it would be nice if the music was enjoyable and led a more worshipful experience. I think churches need to get off the ‘entertainment’ band wagon and go to a simpler form where the lyrics are meaningful.
Maybe you need to seek online or elsewhere where people are bringing themselves to worship the King in his splendor and in awe. There is so much beautiful worship going on everywhere. Yes we could use some better lyrics in many of our songs based on truth and not an incorrect human perspective.But when you combine truth in lyrics and the Holy Spirit… BAM! my worship experience is never a limited to just church, its pretty much everywhere I go He goes with me, in my secret place especially, and throughout the day. Jesus is amazing!
his beauty!!
Hey April – I’m sorry you feel that way about your church worship team. Your preference would be for a quieter, simpler worship band? That would help you worship better?
Your comment, “Our hearts don’t know their need for Christ. We are not desperate. We are not broken. We don’t approach Sunday with expectant, faith-filled, repentant hearts. We aren’t hungry for Jesus.”
Sounds more like someone who has not been born again?
Maybe that’s our problem, we’re trying to incorporate Christ into our life so things go better “for us.” In other words what do “I” get out of it. Maybe that’s why there were so many Christians who are living a defeated lifestyle and always in need rather then burning with a 24/7 passion for Jesus and to see others set free.
We think we say a “sinners prayer” and then we go on to live life just like before but now we’re “forgiven.” Btw Jesus never said to say a prayer to go to Heaven. Our prayer should be to have Heaven come into us and transform us completely, it’s a total surrender. And in doing so He will make everything new, the old man and his sin nature is GONE buried forever in baptism and we put on robes of righteousness that through his blood He paid the highest price for us to wear.
Here’s one thing Jesus told us to do, recorded 19 times in the four Gospels and that is to “deny ourselves” and follow Him. It’s called selfless love for God and one another…it’s called being transformed by the renewing of our minds. It’s what sets me free from me so I can love you, thus experiencing the joy of my salvation every single day. And then when we gather to worship an explosion from my heart in thankfulness from the goodness of God that Jesus has demonstrated to me and through me every day that week. Now that’s an amazing worship service!!
Truth is an amazing thing and its the only thing that sets us completely free!!!
“Sounds more like someone who has not been born again?”
I agree completely, Dan. This also points to another issue which is the practice of designing the worship “experience” with the non believer or “seeker” (something the Scriptures know nothing about) in mind. The N.T. church gathering is not for the non believer, it is for those who have been born again into Christ by grace through faith. One cannot worship a God they do not believe in. The purpose of the church gathering is to worship, edify, and instruct the saints in holy living and Gospel proclamation. We do not see the idea of Christians inviting their non believing friends to church in order to hear the pastor preach and be saved. What we see is Christians carrying the Gospel outside and witnessing God using it to save sinners and add them to the church. This is why theology and doctrine truly do matter, they are of great importance for without sound doctrine, we have no true worship, evangelism, discipleship, or church.
The church and worship isn’t for the unsaved. That’s like saying Jesus’ work was for the clean. Buses did no work for the poor in spirit just the ones who deserved it? Wow. I hope I read that wrong.
“Worship is not for the unsaved”
It’s really not difficult to understand, and what is strange is that you would equate it with the atoning work of Christ on the cross for dead sinners. To keep it simple, I’ll explain again, One cannot and does not worship a God they do not know or believe in. Nowhere in the Scriptures do we find any such idea. Man is dead in sin and by very nature children of wrath, willingly following the enemy (Ephesians 2).We cannot worship in that state, but must be saved by grace through faith and made a new creation. Before being made new, one has no spiritual eyes to see nor ears to hear the glory and greatness of God. My friend, worship is the natural outflow from the life of a sinner that has been sought by God and saved from the depth of their depravity and despair. I say again, worship is not for the non believer.
As far as the church? The church is obviously not made up of non believers! The church is the body of Christ, not the body of the world, Again, nowhere in Scripture do be see the idea that Sunday “church” was to be designed with the attempt to draw the unsaved. No, what we see is the regenerate believer (the church) coming together to worship, instruct, encourage each other unto holy living and gospel proclamation.
“nowhere in Scripture do be see the idea that Sunday “church” was to be designed with the attempt to draw the unsaved”
.Amen! Amen! Amen!
Hey Dan, thanks for your thoughts. Lot of truth to what you said – matter of fact, there ARE a lot of unsaved people in our churches who fit in the category of what I described above. We need to teach them and bring them along in worship. But I believe even we believers can lose our way. We lose the wonder, the awe, the true meaning of worship. It doesn’t mean we’re not born again it just means our eyes are set on the wrong things and we need to be reminded what it is we do. Does that make sense?
true believers who have gotten off track need more Gospel, more of the preaching of the Word and more prayer to revive them and get them back, not more fancy colorful lights and loud music and fog machines.
~Your comment, “Our hearts don’t know their need for Christ. We are not desperate. We are not broken. We don’t approach Sunday with expectant, faith-filled, repentant hearts. We aren’t hungry for Jesus.”
Sounds more like someone who has not been born again?~
EXACTLY !!!
Mr. Santistevan, with all gentleness I ask why you refuse to engage with the Biblical arguments proposed in the comment section? I assume you agree that the Scriptures must govern and not our feelings or what we think is right and helpful. It is not divisive to discuss the Scriptures, it is however dangerous when we refuse to do so and continue to base our positions outside of them. Please read this with a gentle tone, I do not seek to argue or to condemn, but to seek the truth together.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
Hey Scott, thanks for your concern and commitment to the Bible. I’m with you! My lack of engagement in the comments has simply been a time issue. We’ve had a conference at our church this week and I’m doing some traveling this weekend. I’ll get around to engaging as soon as I possibly can! There are a lot of comments to respond to and I appreciate you patience 🙂
Thank you and point taken. Just for clarity, I am not attempting to derail your discussion or be argumentative, I just believe the issue is deeper than proposed here.
And also, not just the Bible because it is possible for two people to look at the same verses and see completely different things. When it comes to that, church history makes a great litmus test. So , does the way you’re interpreting the Bible regarding music and worship and church fit with the way the true church has viewed those things for 2000 years? Because if not, it’s probably the wrong interpretation. And you know what? The church has had the psalms all along, and yet they didn’t feel it necessary to fill the church with claping and danding and noise, did they? Historically, the church has thought if FAR MORE important to actually simply SING the psalms, rather than bring in every clinging cymbal of the day into the church just bc the psalms say to use instruments. I wonder why?
I have been in both traditional and contemporary church worship settings. One question I have asked myself is what does the dimly lit, misty smoke machine filled atmosphere add to the service? It only seems to try to immolate a rock concert type setting. We like to worship as a family and it just doesn’t seem to create a setting for that. The new style of contemporary atmosphere might be “cool” to some but seems to have no other purpose than for effect. I don’t expect my 99 year old grandmother to go snowboarding because my teenager thinks it cool. God is the God of light and unity. Satan is the god of darkness and confusion. All I know is some churches are appearing more like a rock concert hall that makes people pat themselves on the back because they “went to church”. The “come as you are” philosophy. We are suppose to come as we are, but leave different and keep conforming to the image of our Lord. It may be considered “not cool”, but I would rather sit in a well lit, bible preaching church that sings amazing graze and There is power in the blood, where young and old can understand and sing together and focus on walking away from our old sinful nature and teaches and encourages to walk toward righteousness. I know the bible teaches that in the last days there will be a falling away and good will be called evil and evil called good. We are encouraged not to remove the ancient landmarks of the past, so it is my hope and prayer that our local churches will not “toss out the things of the past” just because they are old, but to hold fast to those things that over the centuries have proven to be of godly value from the Lord.
I have to admit that I’m not a fan of smoke machines, but dimming the lights helps me focus – both on God, & what’s going on center stage (which, in the best of circumstances, should be pointing me to God), & helps – for many individuals – diminish the fear of singing/participating in worship, because you don’t feel your under a spotlight for everyone to see & hear.
Amen! I agree completely !
Is anyone else beat boxing to “I Exalt Thee”?
I beat box to everything 😉
This post really set me to thinking. Recently I entered into a similar discussion with another lady as we were planning the music for a women’s gathering. We just couldn’t agree on music! She is a talented singer and musician, and I am an average singer without particular talent in music. But both of us have a huge passion for the part music plays in worship, and the feelings it evokes. Our biggest divide came because she was committed to the idea of beautiful music, that the lyrics are less important than the music as music will create a feeling and allow people to “personalize” the message, while the lyrics can narrow the message. I feel exactly the opposite! For me, a simple tune that allows the lyrics to teach and pierce the heart is preferable.
I’m not trying to say who of us is right, but I thought it interesting that the two of us, with the same goal of worshiping through song, and helping to inspire devotion and worship in the hearts of our attendees, had such opposite ideas of how that is accomplished. I come down on the side of simplifying, because my heart is more easily touched by a soft message. But there may certainly be those who feel closer to God when the music is overwhelming and encompassing. Thank you for a thoughtful article.
Interesting. Last year I began attending a church with a more contemporary worship service (lots of loud, very loud music…took to wearing earplugs) and noticed something about the music. It all sounded the same. Few words (not necessarily Biblical) repeated endlessly…but the music (I’m a musician) all sounded similar.
Do notice you don’t hear many modern worship songs in 3/4 or 6/8 time, either. Not sure why…perhaps because it’s a bit hard to bang out a 4/4 rock beat? Don’t know.
Now, one thing I am going to say about a trend in contemporary music that I find abhorrent is the romanticizing of the love relationship with the Lord. Perfect example, one Sunday they sang a new song that started with “You ravish me with your love”, on the next lyrics screen it said something like “draw me deep into you.”
I was stunned and angry. Here’s why (and I did go and do the research) the word “ravish”…even in the Bible, with the exception of one verse in Song of Solomon, means “rape”.
And as someone who had spent many hours in her younger days reading historical romances the words “ravish” and “draw me deep into you” paint a word picture that should never be associate with Jesus. Not only that, but it didn’t become clear until the last word of the song was sung (“Lord”) who was singing. Was the song US singing to the Lord or expressing the Lord’s love for us. It wasn’t clear and thus even more disturbing.
I’m happy to say that after the second time it was performed in church I finally said something to the pastor (whose son is the P&W leader/keyboardist) what I thought about the “rape song”. We haven’t done it since.
Very encouraging article! What are your thoughts on imag in worship?
Hey Scott, what do you mean exactly?
David – the article you responded to – that author wrote a subsequent article that was against using imag during the singing portion of worship services. We’re talking about adding imag to our church services and I was curious what your perspective is. You can find that article here: http://worthilymagnify.com/2014/05/21/oh-magnify-my-face-with-me/
http://worthilymagnify.com/2014/05/21/oh-magnify-my-face-with-me/
Strange David, it works fine for me.
Great thoughts David! Lots to consider!
I love this quote; “Our hearts don’t know their need for Christ. We are not desperate. We are not broken. We don’t approach Sunday with expectant, faith-filled, repentant hearts. We aren’t hungry for Jesus.”
I think my blog answers this problem: we need to be TAUGHT, Biblically (truth spoken, applied, walked out, etc) about Who God is, who we are, what Worship IS, how to do it, & TAUGHT even TO DO IT… with that in place, our hearts WILL hunger more for Jesus, & we WILL respond…
Here’s are some of my thoughts…
http://saintlewismusic.com/blog/theology/the-real-reason-we-do-not-sing/2014/05/30/the-real-reason-we-do-not-sing
Hey Shannon, really enjoyed your post. And I agree – I think worship leaders need to get better as teachers. We have people in our churches who don’t know what’s going on and need some clarity. Over time, they will learn if we lead with a teaching, pastoral heart. Thanks man!
Thank you for your thoughtful article. I think you are right when you say that people miss the point about what the problem is in much of our worship. I think at least a big part is worship has lost its focus. I just wrote an article about this myself. If you have a chance, check it out: http://364daysofthanksgiving.com/isnt/
I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
Article link is broken.
Just now worked for me
You hit it on the head. Our church works so hard to keep everyone happy… Those desiring contemporary and those who want it traditional (Note… today’s traditional was someone’s past contemporary), that the true act of worship is lost for both groups. The “bringing into a state of worship” through praising God in song is lost for many (from both schools of thought). We linger between and listen to the grumbling from many… when the focus of both are taken off the one deserving. Shame on us… Shame on me!
The comments about worship have gone on too long. Now I am seeing comments about headwear. Honestly? If you dont want to deepen your faith all things are a distraction if you let them. Why are we so shallow and judgmental about things we have little or no control over? Nobody knows your heart better than He. Are we Pharisee s or working parts of the Body of Christ? God bless you all.
I will say this. I think that to some extent, you and what that other guy who wrote the article about performancism, are talking about 2 different issues that may have some overlap but are still distinct. I think both articles made some good points and do not necessarily contradict each other in tone or message. I think one 1 hand, the problem is that some church leadership do try to “show off” a bit to get attendance up, spread word of mouth, and entertain at the same time. Some church members, at the same time, erroneously come to church wanting to just sit back and be entertained, hear something new they never heard before like a new “insight” or clever interpretation they can claim as their “Word”, and want to leave church feeling emotionally-full, confusing that with being spiritually-full. With all that said, both sides are wrong. But then, I think in many other cases, the problem is not about churches trying to show off or act with alterior motives besides loving Jesus, but that in trying to create the right celebratory atmosphere of praise & worship, I think some churches do tend cross the line inadvertently and not realize how sensationalized things may have become.
Some of this other “stuff” can be used in the right amount to help enhance the worship experience. But, when things such as louder volume, flashing lights, fog or mist, etc. are overused or used in the wrong way, they can actually overload a person’s 7 senses and serve as a distraction as people start to do things like disengage their minds & shut down socially, get overly excited, find it hard to focus, tenses up & become anxious, or get fatiqued, etc. For example, the human ears can only take so many decibel levels for so long before sensitivity gets lost immediately or over time. The human eye can only take so many visual stimuli coming at them all at once before dizziness or migranes occurs or convulsing. Too much sensory overload can even lead to apathy. I know I myself have experienced this over the years visiting different churches. Of course, I am not saying this always will happen or that it is responsibility of the church to make people happy. But, it can and does happen to some people and psychology really does play a big part in a person’s overall experience and perceptions, with even extroverts and introverts reacting differently to different stimuli.
Again, the problem does not solely lie with the church leadership or worship team since a christian should be able to shut out everything else and focus solely on lifting up Jesus. However, I do think a good type of social awareness is needed on both sides to make sure nothing serves as a stumbling block for someone else.
Psychologically-speaking, humans learn to automatically associate things together. Just like Pavlov’s dog that was behaviorally conditioned to drool at the sound of a bell, I think many in the church unwittingly associate things such as loud music, flashing lights, fog or mist, and people dancing with good worship & the “annointing”. I am not saying worship must be devoid of any dancing, lights, or any of that other stuff. But, rather, over time people start to get into the bad habit of associating everything together and thinking they “need” all that other stuff to worship and “feel” like they touched God’s heart. Obviously, we do not nor should not need all that stuff to worship and we can boldly enter God’s throne of grace at anytime anywhere. But, we are emotional creatures after all and tend to think we need to make ourselves “feel” the right way first before we can say we worshipped. I would care to argue a big reason so many young adults leave christianity when they go to college is because christianity to them has been based so much on nothing more than emotions and momentary experiences framed by good feelings they had while in church services rather than based on sound truth and an inner knowing that worship and intimacy with God is not self-created by having the right external stimuli as they had while in their youth at church services. Then, this leads to to frustration and apathy when a young adult tries to replicate these same momentary experiences.
Christians need to learn external stimuli are not needed to worship. But, I also think this has to also be taught while in church and even during worship services as part of the equipping of the saints. External stimuli can be good in limited amounts. But, too much of anything can be a bad thing and can teach people bad habits of thinking they are a necessity.
Lastly, I get it that people leading worship are using their talents to glorify God and that usually manifests in pouring your heart out in the instruments played and lyrics being sung loudly with passion. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that and as stated above, in the right amounts can even help enhance the worship experience for others. In fact, I find pleasure in seeing others express their own pleasure in worshipping with all their might.
However, I think it does have to be kept in mind that those leading worship are not worshipping alone but rather are also helping lead others into worship. That means they may have to curtail certain things normally done if they were worshipping alone in order to help lead others. For example, sometimes passions may need to be held back so that vocals are not so defeaning when amplified through the microphone or playing your heart out on an instrument to glorify God may need to be lessened so that vocals are not drowned out so much.
Psychology plays a huge part in the human experience and church is no exception. It is not about going to 1 extreme or the other in which only a piano is used to lead worship or a whole orchestra is used or whether a church makes full use of all their technologies or stays primitive. Rather, it is understanding that even when people gather together with no other alterior motive other than the sole purpose of honoring and glorifying Jesus, certain realities must still be kept in mind in just how that is done to give the right balance in drawing people closer to God and equipping the saints without inadvertently serving as a distraction and stumbling block or creating just a good emotional experience based solely on external stimuli (even if Jesus is still being lifted up), but rather engaging the heart, mind, and will together.
What I meant by “both sides are wrong”, was that the church leadership trying to “show off” to get attendance up and spread word of mouth AND the church member or attendee who wants to be entertained and hear a new, clever interpretation. I did not mean that both authors are wrong.
David, I do honestly believe that you have a true heart for God. I love seeing you (and others at our church and others I have visited) pouring out their hearts to God in the songs they sing and the instruments you play. My brother played in the church youth band and I love seeing that in whatever people do, they do for the glory of God with passion. It is obvious when someone fakes it. As stated above, both you and the other author made good points and neither necessarily contradicts the other. Zeal for God and a passion for worship as is passion and zeal for anything else must also be tempered with knowledge and wisdom, as the proverbs say, especially when the church corporately gets together and is made up of many varieties in age, personality, etc.
Some people will always complain and just want to cause trouble and force others to do things their own way and will never be happy. You cannot do anything about that. But, I also think our zeal can sometimes become a stumbling block for ourselves and others and it takes wisdom to know how to create good balance. I believe that even with the best intentions at heart and the most love we can express and have for Christ, being distracted does not always come from a distracted heart. Also, spectators may be a good thing for it can mean the unchurched are noticing. Those spectators could like what they see or be turned off by what they see. I, for one, do not want the unchurched getting the wrong idea about the idea of worship or being attracted to a church because the singing is “cool” and loud in the same way I, personally, do not like the notion of a person being scared into heaven. To me, it all seems a bit like false advertising in a way, if you know what I mean and sort of suckering people into church and enticing them the wrong way. However, I do like destroying the unchurched’s notion of what they think church is or how it should be. Either way, I love your heart and keep up the great work.
My church has all the shiny lights and the fog machine and the full band and choir on top of the altar, the dim atmosphere, but the thing is our worship pastor and choir director, they have poured into us the essence of worship, and the desperation and passion is on point. All those aforementioned aesthetic things we do, it’s all for the glory of God. He’s giving us talents and we are multiplying them, like the man in the parable.
Most excellent article David! You bring the “essence” of worship to the subject of worship and that IMO is so key to worshipping Jesus! I.
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26).
How many times have we found this to be true for us as well? Instead of staying away from corporate worship when we sense ourselves to be spiritually lethargic, precisely what we need more than ever is the awakening of worship. When our hearts feel it least is when we need most to remind our souls, “For me it is good to be near God” (Psalm 73:28
Sanctification can happen “on the spot” as we engage in corporate worship. There are times — (and may God make many more !)— when the Holy Spirit takes our spontaneous “new song” and presses it right to the point of our need and heals us in that moment?
God loves not only to change our minds, but irrevocably change our hearts “on the spot.”
Our own awe is accentuated, our own adoration increased, our own joy doubled and
our delight in Jesus then goes off the scale as we magnify Him together with others.
My take is that the secret of joy in corporate worship is the preoccupation with Jesus and His glory!
I still have problems with all the stuff going on in worship. Yes, the lights and fog and rock style approach to worship etc. I believe that they play a major part in our mind set. We are fooling ourselves if we think that our circumstances,i.e. things around us, do not affect our attitude and heart for worship. Perhaps we should be beyond this, but unfortunately most are not and because of this we must have places of worship that draw us to Jesus in attitudes of worship.
Saw a different take on this topic here:
http://bit.ly/1rBvwVh
Good thoughts!
Hi David,
I wrote about this exact same thing here: https://williambingaman.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/the-modernization-of-worship-services/
I have no problem with people using the technology, but what do you do if the power goes out? Can you still worship? That happened to us last weekend. We lost power in the building and we had worship with a single acoustic guitar and it was great. This week, a lot of our youth and leaders were at Royal Ranger Pow-wow. We had a drummer (who isn’t really a drummer yet), a bass guitar, me on acoustic and 3 other vocalists. It was a great service and a great response, not because of anything that “I” did, but because it was all about God and all about what He was doing in people’s lives.
I think the nail on the head is that we can’t forget the world once we walk thru those doors or as David described in Ps 122:1, he was always exceedingly happy to be privileged to worship our Lord. Unfortunately we don’t see it that way, we can’t seem to give 20 minutes on Sunday to worship our creator. The one who has given us life, mercy, grace, hope & redemption. Ps 103:1-5 tells us to Bless The Lord for all these benefits. If the Lord were to open your heart & lay it before you would He be pleased or would you be ashamed? Open heart surgery done by a surgeon with nail scarred hands!
I believe it is a great heart condition. I’ve been in all kinds of worship services. Some with all the extras and some with only a keyboard and a praise team leader, either or, I go in with a mind to worship; with a mind to communicate with my God. So that’s all that matters, having a hunger & thirst for Him!!!!!
I think when music is done well, it becomes less distracting. Personally, as a musician and a sound engineer, the things that distract me are the mistakes – the feedback, the bad mix, the glaring flat notes, the out-of-tune instrument. When the mix is good, we don’t notice it at all (which can be hard for the sound operators!). So I don’t think excellence is a distraction to worship. Having said that, a part of excellence involves an excellent attitude. Pop-star worship leader is an oxymoron. We the leaders of corporate worship need to be as invisible as the mix – by playing really well as a team, by singing in tune, and by mixing well so that none of us sticks out like a sore thumb and takes the allegiance/glory/attention that it is our job to direct to Jesus.
That’s really true.
The problem is that we’re easily distracted from the main reason we worship. We have to always focus on what it is we’re doing, why we’re doing it and for whom. To focus on this point will lead us to really worship Jesus. I must say it’s a little bit harder to do when you have all the glamour and glitter on stage…it can distract sometimes. It’s a constant struggle in your mind to not look at lights and performance when it literally hits you in the face.
I think we need a season of everything simple….a season of ‘when the music fades’….if we’re still worshipping Jesus with everything and anything then we know…we we’re focused…if it hinders/disturbs us then we know it was only lights and glam we were focusing on.
Thank you all for all the insights!
Special thanks to David!
God bless;-)
I solved the “music problem” when I started looking at the rest of the “church” out there. Discovered that there were Eastern Orthodox churches where half their membership has become folks who were former Evangelicals, who became tired of the efforts to use music to energize the folks in the pews. I found that I didn’t need drums and lights to move my heart to deeper worship. So now am a contemplative Orthodox but I do miss the conflict of the worship wars sometimes!
Hey Brad, this is really interesting. I’m glad you chimed in. What does worship look like for you as an Eastern Orthodox? Are there really no wars at all in that space?
No matter what we change about HOW we do worship in our services, the real issue will always be WHY we do worship in our churches.
I’ve seen lights, shows, bands and stage presence with DEEP passion for the Lord.
I’ve also seen liturgy, choirs and DEEP theology in lyrics with NO passion for the Lord.
I’ve seen both the other way around as well.
The issue is almost never one of process, but almost always one of heart.
If you can have all those things and still keep Jesus the main thing…then LIGHT UP the stage.
If you can’t…then strip it down and focus on why you are there.
But let’s not get into the business of trying to make our preferences and opinions someone else’s doctrine and convictions.
Hi Josh,
Thanks for your insight.
I do production for entertainers as well as management and Audio visual services for a living and as a ministry. I have done this for over 30 years now. How I wish I could say that preferences and opinions were the end-all. Where I come from, the real issue is immature leadership–those who open the flood gates to starving egos who have
nowhere else to go to find an audience. (professional and pop world)
Techno has become De facto. Retail Jesus has a strangle hold on the church because it is very good at advertising and we are very good at loving toys and gimmicks.
Music and style of music aside, the Pastors role includes wisdom and discernment that goes beyond merely filling the pews and padding the pockets of the budget.
How right you are that Pastors have “hired” music people who have no calling but that of fame, glory, very difficult music or very pop music for music sake.
We don’t have a music problem in our churches and worship is not up for judgment. We have real leadership issues–too many copy-cats, fat-cats, retail Jesus Giants, Image makers, Rock and Roll want to be’s, Empire builders and Showmen. They call people of like mind to work beside or under them. This is why this thread exists.
Just like in my industry—follow the money.
By the way, I find much more maturity and abandoned egos in the professional world than in the church. Sometimes I wish that we would just decide to worship together without any music. You know, just like in much of our private worship. Show me a congregation that has private–daily worshipers who live in God’s word and I will show you a congregation who is clueless about what we are discussing here.
Real worship produces disciples who have more of the mind of Christ. More of the mind of Christ means that so much of what we love about this passing world–we call it what it is, love it less and abhor it more. We pray for leaders who not only know how to live in the world, but also how to keep it out of the church. Why are such leaders vanishing? Because they love this world and they feel that it is their only hope for “success” and big crowds. They fear being unpopular, having small crowds and sometimes being fired. That can be rough on the old ego and what else is God up to but reducing our egos in exchange for Christ-like humility. Now THAT will light up the stage ole boy.
Yes, my day job has influenced me. I see far too many similarities.
“Performance” is a problem. As someone who has taught and preached, I can say that I don’t prepare in order to “perform” better. I prepare in order to bless those who hear the message and help them to know God better. Likewise, corporate worship is not the performance of the people on stage. It should be the coming together of Christ’ body in a location to worship him, and if you are “performing” a song you like and I don’t know and you are not teaching me, I can’t join you in that worship. So, I see the point in Jamie’s article, and I think you have missed it when it comes to performance. Performance says look at me. Worship says look at Christ.
Amen couldn’t have said it better myself, all week thats my prayer, that come Sunday they don’t see me they see Jesus!!!
What God saves by His power, God keeps by His power. If people are
brought to church by the power of God they will remain in church by
the power of God. We have to use carnal means to draw and keep carnal
“Christians” in the church and wonder why they’re not hungry for God?
We wonder why they don’t come zealously seeking Him? It doesn’t bother
modern day “worship” leaders that the majority of evangelicals in
America simply will not attend churches unless they look like
nightclubs while everywhere else in the world Christians eagerly risk
their lives and pack their churches for a simple prayer meeting ? It
doesn’t bother anyone that we need to spend millions of dollars on
fancy lights and fog and “artistic” projections to keep people coming
while in other parts of the world (and even here sometimes) faithful
pastors need to work 2-3 jobs to feed their families; and Christians
in other places would die to even have ONE Bible… that no one sends
them because we are busy making “worship” “creative” ??? No, the
lights are not the problem — they are the EVIDENCE that our churches
are packed with lost unregenerate carnal self-professing “Christians”
who want to be entertained and are comfortable with a watered down
gospel. MY SHEEP WILL HEAR MY VOICE! You won’t have to use pretty
colors flashy lights and creative artistic ANYTHING to draw people to
God.The Bible is clear about that!
and this??…”music, creativity, lighting, projection, and fog
machines can help us visualize the glory of God in new ways. They can
help us see what heaven may be like. Heaven will have sights and
sounds that are unlike anything we’ve ever imagined.”.. . is the
biggest bogus almost blasphemic hogwash I’ve heard in a long time.
Whoever thinks this gets their theology from “90 Minutes in Heaven”
and “Heaven is for Real” and such “Christian fantasy” ; certainly NOT
from the Bible… and has a VERY VERY VERY LOW view of Heaven and the glory of God .
and no, I don’t believe everyone going to CIRCUS churches are lost,
but the few saved ones who do attend them are probably frustrated to
no end and longing for a Biblical church that teaches a Biblical
gospel. They are definitely not comfortable to sit there for too long.
“Is Performance a Problem?”
— it is when it is at the cost of time for prayer and other important things–do worship leaders spend nearly as much time on their knees praying, interceding, and studying God’s word and evangelizing the lost as they do to practice and prepare for the show?
“We don’t want a room of spectators, though that’s not always a a terrible sign. Spectators may be a sign that your church is reaching unchurched people, which is beautiful!”
— I’d say run from a church where sinners can remain comfortably unchanged, unconvicted for long periods of time.
God never once encouraged people in the bible to worship him whatever way they wanted to. In fact, He hates it when we do that. The bible simply does not leave room for creativity and artistry unless it is specifically ordered by him.
And as far as distractions are concerned , Jesus said if your hand is causing you to sin cut it off and if your eye, pluck it out.
The REAL problem with modern evangelical worship?
1. for us personally, we don’t want to admit that we are just not drawn to the real God of the Bible and need props to attend church and worldly gimmicks to get us interested in spiritual matters, and potentially we ourselves are not even saved– and rather than labouring in seeking the REAL God to regenrate our hearts, we bought the easy-believism lie !
2. for church leaders, they don’t want to admit that the shallow gospel they preach has no power to draw sinners to Christ, and rather than labouring faithfully in preaching the OFFENSIVE gospel and rely ONLY on the POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT to draw sinners to Himself, popularity is actually more important.
by the way, I’m not opposed to Christian contemporary music as long as
the junk is filtered out and kept Gospel centered in church. And I’m
not opposed to drums, electric quitars, bass, etc. I have seen it done
well– modern, but SIMPLE and with GOOD TASTE and done with
DISCERNMENT –it is possible to use modern instrumentation and still
be Christ centered and Biblical. But when music is created to mimick a
sinners most comfortable pasttime place– the bar and nightclub —
there’s a big problem. We won’t win the world by being just like the
world; we will win them by being RADICALLY DIFFERENT. And if we
ourselves secretly envy sinners and wish we had what they had and
could be doing and enjoying life like they do, we should be seriously
concerned–there’s a chance we’re as lost as they are!!
Noka,
How I pray your words are read by all church leaders. Beautiful and spot on. Thank you.
Keep up the prophetic truth.
you would probably like all my other comments in this thread:
https://www.facebook.com/noemi.kalath/posts/670991249640203?comment_id=671411739598154&offset=0&total_comments=36¬if_t=share_comment
🙂
Noka–
I am curious to know how old you are.
I understand if you do not want to say.
Thanks,
For me, a senior, it IS about all the hoopla and hype. I would rather stay home than put up with that. And, I just don’t enjoy seeing words without music blasted on mega screens. I’m getting used to the percussion, but I still want to hear the music that our forefathers worshiped with. Maybe include a little more traditional music. If the young people can learn the choruses then they can learn the traditional hymns/songs. We used mostly traditional music last Sunday evening and it was a blessing.
We should NOT be going to church to be “entertained.” We should be going to worship God/Jesus/Holy Spirit. Anymore it seems that church is just a social event and I don’t think most of the people in the churches would recognize God if He sat among them. (Sorry, I tend to say what I think and I KNOW I’m in the minority.) I’ll still give my monetary offerings, but it’s just not the same anymore.
Don’t get me wrong – God is a HUGE part of my life. He and I (and I did say “He”) talk regularly. The Bible says “Pray without ceasing!” You do not have to be in your prayer closet to pray. I pray at work, when I’m driving, at home when I’m working. Yes, He talks to me. You can’t hear what he tells me but I hear, and that’s the important part.
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We and many like us cannot worship in a performance-hall style sanctuary with lights and noise and speakers aimed everywhere with decibels turned high. Nor can we even sing with our voices and blend in with the melody and with other worshipers. Not a one can hear the congregation sing, just the noise, noise, noise. We end up with ear and headaches in situations such as is taking place in our former “house of worship” and turn to staying home and listening to a sermon on the radio or television and sending our tithes elsewhere.
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The real problem might be the belief that loving Jesus and loving your neighbor are 2 different things.
To “love Jesus” has no meaning because how does that look like? Jesus is more like a concept than a real person, put a human face to Jesus, like the face of your neighbor, the face of the hungry, the face of the one that is suffering, probably you won’t sing songs of love, but songs from love.
Perhaps your worship will change.
I do believe all of the concepts you have offered on your post.
They’re really convincing and will definitely work.
Nonetheless, the posts are very short for newbies. Could you please lengthen them a little from subsequent time?
Thanks for the post.
I’ll start my comments by saying I am 74 and, perhaps, that is the crux of my problem with the worship in today’s church. Our church now looks more like a movie theater than a church . The organ, piano, pulpit, pews have all been replaced with theater style chairs, guitars, drums and keyboards. Many of the choruses we sing are quite simple in nature, some of which do not even mention the Lord,etc. They tend to be repeated 8-10 times as if to arouse the emotions of the congregation. The hymns I was raised on are all gone. The goal seems to be entertainment more than the sincere worship of the Lord. I have now seriously considered not going to church at all and getting my messages from the TV preachers. Now the fog machines have come out and I consider them the last straw. It seems to me the visible presence of God is being copied by these machines. I am coming to my wit’s end.
Hi Richard, thanks for the input. You are right about the emotional response issue, it just satisfies the “old man” sadly it is the message being taught today that self is the important factor in body of Christ. Please avoid the temptation to not attend a local body but if the true Gospel is not being taught where you are, find a place where it is. Honestly, it’s hard to find. I lead the song worship at a small congregation in the city I live. we are small because we don’t put up big signs or have fancy buildings that cost millions to maintain and honestly don’t want it anyway. The message being taught is solid which is probably another reason we are small. I pray that you are able to find a place that leads you deeper and closer to Christ
The evangelical free church I go to has a concert-style set up.
My church and every other evangelical church I have visited, I have to sit outside the auditorium during all the songs because they are too loud for my baby, too loud for my older mother, and too loud for me. There is always a group of moms outside holding their infants.
Even before I had a child, I was saddened that I cannot hear myself sing or the people around me, only the worship leaders. I desire to worship God through music, but I can’t do this at evangelical churches. Even when I was pregnant, the music would bother my child in the womb.
If I go to an episcopal or orthodox church, I find beautiful sanctuaries where all of my family can sing to God. Acapella choirs or the body of Christ singing from a hymnal is music that actually draws my babys attention rather than scaring him.
So my question is, if Jesus wanted us to suffer the children to come to Him, why are we making evangelical music that they can’t handle?
Interesting… Every website I go to on this subject is filled with posts of people expressing their preferences as if that’s the gospel truth for the body of Christ. “I think having the notes are helpful, therefore EVERYONE should have written music.” “I think its too loud, therefore EVERY church needs to tone it down.” “I like litergy – EVERYBODY needs more.” “I like kneeling – why can’t we ALL kneel.” “Bright lights give my kids migraines – EVERY church should go to soft lighting.” “Whatever happened to saw dust floors – they were so much more condusive to good preaching.” OK, maybe that’s over the top. Just saying, if you can site Scripture for your preference, you got me. Otherwise, find a church that meet’s your preferences and needs and rejoice that you live in a country with countles opportunities and styles for meaningful worship.
I feel your response Steve. You are correct in that we all can hopefully find a community of believers (family) in which we can worship with music and liturgy that is thus conducive.
However, I notice that many, but not all, are reflecting what I see and hear so often. New leadership came in and did a wholesale conversion to yet a new way of expressing worship. Many people have invested their entire lives in this same congregation, only to have it hi-jacked before their eyes. They try to accept the changes but at some point, it is just too drastic. Many times, these are the very people who gave, built and maintained the facility. Their sense of community is strong. While they must not hold the church hostage to their preferences for these facts (they do not own the church), they still deserve much respect and consideration.
Like you, I see many web sites/blogs, etc. reflecting these forms of discontent.
The “contemporary, blended and traditional” movement has realized that these politically charged words only serve to divide the congregation further.
For many churches, starting a mission church has been a strong and positive biblical solution. New beginnings with new people who are ready for change establishes the mission as more flexible to the culture and neighborhood.
The downside to this is that:
Multi-generational family is abandoned. (age prejudice)
Church becomes even more about style of music, etc. (music prejudice)
Missions continues to slant towards single ethnicity (race-color prejudice).
It takes a strong, biblical leader to lead a church today where everyone’s preference can be more about self than others. St. Paul says it best.
“My friends, when you meet to worship, you must do everything for the good of everyone there.” I Corinthians 14:26
A little respect for others goes a long way.
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This is a really great discussion, I mean in its content and the attitude of all involved, thanks. As I have contemplated the issue of worship in the body/with the body there have been several things that have come up. During our Sunday times together worship is often spoken of as a time when we all sing songs together about God. There are kind of 3 separate parts to services. We worship (sing), then we listen to someone talk about the bible, then we have some prayer. Yet in the reality of our faith in Christ it is all worship. Think about it, we gather to worship Him (music), then we listen to a teaching about the bible. Is not the learning of the Scriptures worship? Is not our prayer worship? Not to be picky bit it does reveal the heart. “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”, what we say even how we say it reveals what is truly in our hearts. Our worship is the response to His revelation. Do we come to gather as the body so we can get feel good songs for our own needs? Do we like to hang out and drink coffee and talk about the Sunday games or…? After a service do we continue and wrestle with our hearts together, or just…”well that’s done, now I gotta think about real life”. I am not one for the big bands and lights and fog machines and what not because it really started with the idea to get people in to church, to relate to them, to attract them. Sorry to say but, when has the Gospel ever been attractive to the unbeliever? No wonder we have churches full of immature believers who couldn’t tell you why they believe what they believe. Did we forget that our worship in song, word, prayer should be attractive to God? What pleases God? Faith Faith comes from a right understanding of who we are and who Christ is. John 2:23-24 Many believed in Him but He was not entrusting Himself to them because He knew the heart of man. (paraphrased) read it. Our worship to Him is a direct correlation of who we know Him to be. A little Proverbs says “As a man thinks, so is he” We need to grow up, stop thinking that all we know is true, and start learning who He is as God’s Word reveals. I am humbled constantly by my own arrogance and selfishness.. Thank you all again for such a rich and important conversation.
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So many fantastic and heartfelt comments on what was a truly heartfelt original post. The modern church does have issues. From my perspective (45 years of serving in “church music”) I have sadly seen worship become a “commodity” – a “thing” or an “event” – rather than an encounter with the life-changing, living God through Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. We say things like “my worship” or “they DO worship in such-n-such a way.” This is just so contrary to the truth (the heart) of authentic worship. And, in reading through many of comments, it’s reassuring (though quite sad) to realize I am not alone in my thinking. I don’t think the problem is modern worship, per se. I think it is a simple shift of focus. Many churches seem to have shifted their attention to the HOW of worship, rather than the WHO of worship. We seem to be driven to feed the flesh (please man) rather than feed the Spirit (please God) and the results are beginning to speak for themselves – again, as seen in so many of the comments. I do have hope for a solution – but it won’t be easy. We who lead must help our pastors see the problem and then offer ways to help our churches seek first HIS (God’s) Kingdom rather than our own agendas. Far easier said than done – but, like most things in life, it begins – – – with ME!
My question to all Evangelicals…if you people claim to be Christian how can you support and defend Donald trump knowing he has committed adultery many times , he has assaulted many women by his own admission , he is a proven liar, he is a racist and a white supremacist [ in my opinion he is a Nazi and he has Nazi’s in his administration]…you may disagree with a few of these but there is enough to doubt is so called Christian faith …my question is why do you support him and make a mockery of your Christian belief? I would hope someone in your faith group will have the decency to answer my question .
Hello Henry,
Good questions. Fine Questions. Commonly asked Questions.
But not the right blog.
There are many blogs out there who are discussing your thoughts and assertions.
This one is not.
All the best.