Worship: Reflection of the Church

I probably already got some of your attention with the title, am I correct?

I have been having some floating thoughts about worship lately and I wanted to try to sort of “reign them in” so to speak and put them out there for other people to comment on as well.

I believe that worship is one of the most important, but also the most controversial topic in churches these days..ask any worship pastor in any church in any area of the country and they will probably agree. I feel like I have a bit of a “backstage pass” if you will when it comes to church worship. I have a brother-in-law who is a worship leader, a sister-in-law who sings on the worship team in her church, a father-in-law who is a volunteer musician for several different churches, not to mention I have more friends than I want to count right now that sing on worship teams. Plus our years of traveling with Rescue and going to countless churches across the country have to count for something, right? I am going to try very hard to write this post without naming names or churches, because that’s not really what it’s about…it’s really about my own feelings and observations about the subject.

First of all, I love to sing. I sang in choir when I was in high school. I sing songs constantly to the girls as well as to the boys all day long, every day. My dad is a fantastic singer and all my siblings are not necessarily “gifted” when it comes to being able to sing, but we all can carry a tune and are not terrible to listen to. One of my dreams it to be able to take voice lessons to improve my voice so I will be able to sing more and better and maybe even in front of people some day. Josh and I have been “church hopping” a bit since the time the girls have been born. Well, maybe a bit more in the recent months. The idea of changing churches is floating around our house, but it’s an extremely difficult one because there is absolutely nothing that we don’t like about our church. It’s just more from a convenience standpoint as well as fitting our needs as a family right now. All this to say, I think I have learned somethings about myself and how I view worship from our journey.

In my opinion there are three main areas that make worship good or bad. The first and most important, I feel is emotion..or the heart of the worship leaders and the congregation. The church that we are thinking about changing to has so much emotion during their worship. I am so glad that I’m not a worship pastor, because I have no idea how you put that in. It has a lot to do with the way the people respond to the music. This particular church that we’ve visited is more on the charismatic side and watching the people respond to the music and the words is half the fun. You feel freer to express yourself and worship the way you want to. It also feels very vulnerable to me..like you are seeing people’s true hearts..at the core of who they are. I’ve also found that in this type of church where the worship is like this..this is how the people are. More real, more genuine. Honest and open and not afraid to share when times are hard. This is so refreshing to me! I need to be careful here, because I understand that it is not the job of the worship leaders to make me feel something. Let me repeat that…”it is not the job of the worship leader to make me feel close to God.” It is solely my responsibility and I know that. It has a lot to do with my attitude, the circumstances I’m facing at that moment and my perspective. However, I think there is something to be said for a worship experience that is so full of raw emotion and the longing for God that it is able to envelop me and sweep me into it. But I still have to be willing to be swept.

The second thing that I believe is essential is quality. Quality meaning the musicians, the singers, the sound system, the way the worship set flows and is put together. This I believe is what our current church is lacking in. We don’t have a consistant worship pastor so we have different people who rotate every week so while they do a great job, it isn’t like having a full time worship pastor. So I’m not blaming anyone, nobody is bad…it just is what it is and they do the best they can. The majority of time, the worship is fine. But on occassion there is an “off week” where things don’t flow well or don’t sound as good as they could and that makes it hard to get into it. I think it also has to do with the horrible sound system they are trying to work with. However with that being said, our church does have heart and emotion and I would choose that over quality if I had to choose one. The church we were at today was professionally put together, sounded great..great singers, great musicians, great sound system..everything was perfect, but to me it “felt” dead and lifeless and bland. Again, just my opinion.

The third thing I hesitate to even mention, but I will…song choice. I know there is a lot of selfish people out there who think that they need to complain every time that not every song that was sung at church that day was their favorite. That’s right..selfish. I understand that other people have different tastes and that not every song can be one of my personal favorites and that’s fine. The world doesn’t revolve around me! I used to hate to sing hymns because they were old and boring. But now, they are, I think some of the most meaningful of all the songs. So that is why I hesitate to even bring up song selection. However, I have to say it because at the church we were at today, the one that was dead but beautifully put together, they did sing a song that is very meaningful to me and I was able to “feel” something just based on the fact that it was so pretty.

So there you go. My personal view of worship. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the worship kind of reflects the people in the church. As I mentioned earlier, the church that has the more open and honest type of reaction to the worship, I’ve also found that the people are also more open and honest with other people. And the opposite is true as well. The more closed and stiff people are in their worship, the more often that’s how they seem to relate to other people as well. Just an interesting observation. I know it’s generalizing a bit probably, but it’s worth noting, I think.

Well, I don’t have any conclusion really. Just some opinions I’ve formed over the years and some observations I’ve made. I would love to hear other people’s take and opinions about the subject!

*See? I’ve gotten myself in trouble. Anyone who talks about worship gets in trouble. I am editing this later to point out that I know that there are a lot of people who love God and are open and honest and friendly and don’t move while they sing. And I’m sure there are a lot of people who sing and dance and do cartwheels in the aisles who are mean and don’t have an authentic relationship with God. I know there are probably a lot of exceptions to my rules…But my observations are just that..general observations in my limited experience of different churches. I don’t think anyone is a lesser person because they don’t put their hands up during worship.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.