Worship: reTHUNK

I have to admit that I first made this post about 7 months ago on my old blog! But being that I was given the opportunity to teach from Hebrews 13 – specifically on the topic of Passionately Worshiping God” – I decided to pull this post back out, with a few updated edits of course!

The Law of Unintended Consequences

My longtime colleague Larry Bach talks frequently of something he calls The Law of Unintended Consequences (I am not sure whether or not it is original to him but I am grateful to him for helping me understand it nonetheless). Simply stated: For every good and timely decision there are a whole list of potential downsides that tag along as perhaps unforeseen, certainly unintended results.

While the quality of the music has improved, as demanded by the market, perhaps the quality/sincerity of the heart has been somewhat compromised by the bandwagon jumpers intent on cashing in the demand of the market.

While worship has enjoyed a deservedly growing focus, perhaps it has become all about the music, with the problem being that worship time is judged by what the music did or did not do for a person (“Worship wasn’t that great today” meaning the music was lacking…or…”We changed churches because the worship is better over here” meaning the music is great…)

You have to read the whole post entitled “Meaning Based Worship.“

I haven’t been a worship leader for as long as Dave, but over the past 13 years as a worship leader, I’ve been through the same total range of sentiments that Dave talks about. So where do I stand now? I think I have more questions now than ever. Here are just a few.

• Do we embrace “New Worship” to encourage our congregations to be found singing a “New Song” or do we do it just because it is just “New?”
• Do we sing “Old Songs” so we appease the emotional connection some people have to “those songs”, or do we do them because they communicate a message or direction we are led by God’s Spirit to go in that Sunday?
• If we do the “Old Songs”, do we redo them to make them more “modern?” (The side question I always ask is, “Is this “new version” better or worse?”)
• How about those “Not-so-old” but “Not-so-new” songs? You know, the ones you feel connect with people but might be on the verge of having people say, “This song again?”
• What about the conflict of worship song preferences? You know when “so and so” comes up and says, “Isn’t (insert worship song here) awesome” and you politely say yes because you fear saying no may make you seem rude – but really you don’t like the song at all?

And these are just a couple of thoughts I have concerning the type of music we pick. I haven’t even begun to talk about how a person’s worship leading style (aka stage presence) affects the temperature of worship. I’ve seen it all:

• The Stoic
• The Rockstar wannabe
• The Hand Waver (aka “Paint the sky-er)
• The Eyes Close-er
• The “Angry” look
• The “cheesey happy” look
• The “I don’t know what I’m doing up here” look
• The “Hold the mic between the fingers” look

I have no problem with sincere and undignified worship of God. I also understand that everyone worships the Lord differently, but I’m not talking about the roles the people of the congregation take on. I’m talking about worship leaders. It’s just seemed to me that, for the sake of seeming authentic, some worship leaders (band members included) just are distracting. As one person said to me once, “One can only take so many pelvic thrusts from the guitar player during worship!”

As I currently serve as a Worship Arts Pastor, I do find myself constantly rethinking how worship in the corporate setting can be more sincere, more meaningful, less distracting, less self-absorbed – more about making disciples.

The point is this. I’ve often felt weird about my disposition to constantly question how we “do worship” and what goals our choices in worship songs, style, and structure actually accomplishes (or doesn’t). But I think that in order for worship to kept authentic in the corporate setting, the methods, the intentions, and the style should always be “reThunk”. And I’m ok with that.