Worship Is As Worship Does - Worship Leading
31 03 2008
I know I promised part 1 would be about Relationship, but this topic has really been rising to the surface recently.
The music part of worship leading, when it all comes down to it, is very minimal. I’ve known this and I’ve said this, but I think I’m beginning to KNOW this. I feel like I’ve developed a new understanding in this recently.
Don’t get me wrong. When we all gather together and sing in one voice, that is one way that we can all collectively worship God in the same way at the same time. I think there really is something special about that, and I will always hold this time dear and fight for this time. But that being said, it’s not about the actual music.
I think the sooner a worship leader recognizes that the music is just a tool to help accomplish the worship of God, the better off you will be. And like Jeff has been preaching lately, that same worship should lead to other things. Worship inside the church should spill out into ministry. Worshiping God with song is one way (and a great way) to worship, but how better when that spirit of worship continues in our daily lives. Better yet, it is at its best coming into a mission of social justice. Providing and looking after the poorest of the poor in their physical and spiritual needs.
I think this action and reaction of worshiping daily and engaging suffering feed off each other. I think great corporate worship will inspire great individual worship and great ministry which in turn will inspire great corporate worship again. Hopefully it is a cycle that goes on and on and on…
The hard question to ask worship leaders (and I’m extremely guilty in this) is are you as zealous for God when someone else is leading worship? Are you as zealous for God when His worship takes on a format that isn’t musical? Are you as zealous for God when your worship leading time gets cut short? Are you as zealous for God when you reach out to those in need? (No. Nicht. Nein. Nyet.)
I was recently convicted in this a couple weeks ago after
Vineyard has had a saying that ‘worship is our highest priority’. I think I always interpreted that to meaning “musical worship — congregational corporate worship”, but I think I’m understanding just how much that means everything we do as a church, and how that all ties in to worship. Paul mentions speaking with the tongues of men and angels, but it all being meaningless without love. I would say that same is true with worship. If we claim we love God with our mouths, but our actions do not come out of that love or work against what our mouths are speaking, then it truly is meaningless.
I love to see people worship God with everything in them. I love to hear all the church’s voices united as one. Here’s to the day when the mouth of the church lines up to the rest of the body and we are all in sync in our unabashed zeal and love for God.
Good thoughts, Michael.
That picture reminds me of my first visit to a charismatic church as a non-Christian. I thought everyone had gone mad, or had become a football referee; there were signals for touchdowns everywhere I looked. I was kindly escorted out of the proceedings because I kept calling out “Right through the uprights!” and “It’s good!!!”
did you seriously do that andy?
i’ll be changing up the pics a little for these as they go along. hands upraised isn’t the only image for worship…it’s a good reminder for me, because it’s easy to associate that image as being the one or the main one.
but yeah, i googled “worship” and this is one of the images that came up.
Yeah, I seriously did that. And I was seriously asked to leave. Which I was happy to do at the time. I was probably equally bemused and freaked out.
I’ll just say that for a guy who had last been in church for a very liturgical Catholic Mass, the sight of people rolling on the floor was a bit much.
yeah, not exactly ’seeker sensitive’