Serve the Room

In the 1967 Oscar winner, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” anglo parents (played by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn) believing themselves to be progressive, are thrown a major curve ball when their daughter (played by Katherine Houghton) brings home her African American fiance (played by Sidney Poitier). What makes it such an intelligent comedy is to watch these white sub-urbanites stumble over themselves and the reality that they were not as progressive as they thought as they attempt to make their future son-in-law feel welcome in their home and in their family.

I wonder that this still happens to some degree in our planning of worship services. Part of my problem with the “worship wars” is how it seemed to fixate on individual styles and preferences while missing the greater priority of the need for all people to connect with God in significant ways. I have been in some planning sessions where it was obvious that the service being planned was for those who planned it! The ideas they came up with were certainly progressive but irrelevant to those coming. There seemed to be little intent to engage the whole room, but merely that part of the room that looked more like…me!

For those of you who have been or are worship leaders, does it at all bother you that a good number of people may leave our services with their toes tapped and hands clapped, but their unhearts untouched by and souls unreleased to God? Their hands clapped and voices sung, but their souls uninspired? Their appreciation for art improved but their appreciation for The Master Artist ignored? Yeah…I know I can be harsh at times, but honestly, I believe that much of what goes on in our worship services may be a presumption of divine affirmation when we may have failed to serve our people from the very onset of planning.

One the disciplines of responsible preacher/teachers of Scripture is to “exegete” a passage which means to ‘read-out’ of it. In other words, it prevents one from reading into a passage their own personal presuppositions and inclinations. To exegete Scripture is encounter it from the perspective of the Author, His authorized biographers, and then through the lenses of the original audience who first heard or read it. This must be done long before we draw our own personal and contemporary conclusions.

What if we did that with our weekend worship crowd. (What’s even easier about this, is that it is rare that the crowd will change drastically from week week so one good ‘exegesis’ could apply to several months (or maybe even years) of worship planning.) Do you know “Who’s Coming to Dinner”?

• What’s the age range and population in those ranges?
• What’s the gender makeup?
• What’s the marital/family status?
• What’s their social status? (educational, socio-economic, political, professional, etc.)
• What are the musical tastes and styles?
• What are their entertainment/recreational tastes?
• What are the learning styles and tastes?
• What are the spiritual stages of life?
• What are the common trials and challenges they are dealing with?

Sometimes we can be guilty of leading people where we want to go rather than where they need to go. I would challenge you to consider taking time with your worship team and answering these questions to get a feel for who is in your crowd and then asking the harder question, “Is our worship format meeting them where they or are we possibly expecting them to meet us where we are?”

Hey…ya caint serve ’em if’n ya don’t luv ’em and ya caint luv ’em if’n ya don’t know ’em! (Or something like that!)

The following applies specifically to elders and pastors, but provides applications for worship leaders as well.

1 To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; 1 Peter 5:1-2

Response is the Goal.

I have asked worship leader candidates what they consider to be a successful worship experience. In other words, what are the dynamics of a worship service that you led that you would say was “a win”?

Now I realize that such a question may not be at all fair since the One, True, Judge of our worship is God and God alone. Giving supreme priority to that as the foundation and inspiration for all we do as worship leaders and worshipers, I do believe that in our roles as “worship pastors or leaders” it is important, indeed, vital that we have some parameters that guide our leadership. Specifically I believe we should prepare and execute our worship with an end in mind. The word or action that I think best captures that portrait of success is “response”. May I go even farther to say that “meaningful response to God” characterizes true, authentic worship in the corporate setting.

I offer the distinction because many will think that merely because congregants sing, applause, clap their hands and stamp their feet (in rhythm, no less!), that we have achieved the response we were after. Being in church as long as I have (since I was a zygote), I know how easy it is to fake response. So let me go on record: it is impossible for any human being to judge the quality of another person’s response to God, let alone a congregation without some external, demonstrable act (like singing, applause, clapping, “Amen”-ing, altar response etc.  I think the best we can do as leaders is to prepare our worship service with an Isaiah 6:1-8 intention. We must do what we can to give people the chance to encounter the awesome wonder of the Living God, clear the way for them to respond to Him in ways we may not see and leave the validation of this to God.

In addition to the ways I have mentioned, consider these other forms of response:

• Conviction of sin – a deep sense of remorse for our words, thoughts, and actions that have offended the heart of God
• Wonder – a deep sense of awe at some aspect of God’s character and work
• Gratitude – a deep sense of awareness of the manifold goodness being poured out upon our lives with the corresponding (co-respond-ing) demonstrations of thankfulness
• Joy – a deep sense of satisfaction, fulfillment, happiness in the reality of the divine mercies and love of God
• Compassion – a deep sense of loving care that directs action for those around us, in our families and spheres of influence.
• En-Couragement – a deep sense of great trust in God who supplies us with what we need to endure and overcome the trials of life.

That’s just a few but here’s the question that can be a catalyst for the creative planning process: what would we need to do in our worship services to help create an atmosphere of response to these deep sensings? How must we as worship leaders, following the lead of the Spirit, serve our congregations in a way that can inspire their greater affections to and for God? What elements in our worship services need to be provided that can facilitate time for people to move from passivity to activity in their engaging the Great God of their hearts and Shepherd of their souls? How must we guard this sacred moment to make sure that nothing distracts our people from the God who desires us to know Him best when we are still?

Worship from the perspective of the worship leader is never merely about what he or she offers God, or offers the congregation. It is about how they serve to help the congregation offer their best to the One who has already given His best to us…and still does! We must be diligent and vigilant to examine our worship leadership motives and practices and purify them of those things that get in the way of the Groom being intimate with His collective Bride.

Consider that when most people come to church, they really don’t need our music, our new song and lyrics, our video clips, testimonies, choral arrangements, offertories, or even, dare I say it, our thoughts on the Word of God. They desperately need God! And they desperately need to know they have been set free to respond to the God who has already revealed Himself. Heaven waits in earnest for the Bride to respond with devotion to the Groom. Hell fears it!

Everything we do as leaders must be dedicated not to giving people our offerings but empowering them to give God theirs. After all, worship is exclusively and completely what God made us for. It is in our response to Him that life regains transcendent significance and where God truly has our hearts as we aim our lives for His heart.

May He give us the grace under His leadership to help His people respond to Him with intimate love, humble submission, childlike wonder and complete devotion.