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