What is good worship leading? Lately I've found myself ruminating about this subject in the least likely places: time-out during one of my son's basketball games, standing in front of the frozen food section, waiting for the little cylinder to pop back into place at the drive-up teller.
It's only worship leading, for heaven's sakes! You'd think I was obsessed. It all started at a worship conference. Wisely the organizers of the event had made sure we weren't just analyzing worship ad infinitum. We were actually scheduled to worship! I was looking forward to our corporate fellowship and intimacy with God more than to the classes themselves.
Halfway through the first worship service, I wondered if I'd registered at the wrong conference. Here I was in an ostensibly interactive, God-focused environment, but I had no sense whatsoever of being authentically engaged. It was as if someone had plugged in a prefab worship video, the kind that seems permanently stuck in cultural reverse. Picture it -- hundreds of sincere worship devotees, dutifully clapping double-time for five songs straight, mimicking the worship leader in multi-minute, shoulder-abusing arm-lifts, spitting out worship-correct statements on cue.
It was less than awesome.
Admittedly several of the trappings of interactive contemporary worship were present: extended corporate singing, mini-prayers interwoven within medleys, expertly segued moments designed for brief (very brief!) personal reflection. Still there was something hauntingly synthetic about it. Was it just me? Two conference attendees talked with me afterward. Their experiences had been similar to my own.
Since then, I've concluded that the overriding problem was the worship leading -- or, more accurately, the worship performance. What's the difference between the two? Here's an in-process list refined from months of frozen-food section/basketball game musings. No doubt you could come up with a few entries of your own.
Worship Performer
- feigns a private worship life with God
- lifts up self
- manipulates people through "virtual worship"
- consumed with presenting a "glittering image"
But the LORD told him, Samuel, don't think Eliab is the one just because he's tall and handsome. He isn't the one I've chosen. People judge others by what they look like, but I judge people by what is in their hearts." -- 1 Samuel 16:7
- fails to give spiritual "big picture"
- personal goal: maximum visibility
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Experiencing Worship, The Study