Sustained Worship
I remember when the International House of Prayer first started to host round-the-clock prayer meetings in their prayer center. Mike Bickle said that the art forms of music and singing help to sustain enjoyable prayer.
Rather than sitting in a cold room with no sound, music assists the fragile, distracted human in a sustained pursuit of God. In the case of IHOP, this is for hours upon hours at a time. When your mind starts to drift, the singing helps you re-engage on a certain truth. When you’re tempted to look around or doze off, the “production” serves to focus and engage our distracted hearts around the glory of God.
Of course, the Holy Spirit is enough. Yes, the Word of God is all we need. But that also doesn’t mean we should get rid of songs, lights and talented people. It doesn’t mean our worship is heretical. There will always be someone who will try to idolize the gift rather than the Giver. But that can’t be avoided.
Switch It Up
For example:
We could all completely overhaul our weekend worship experiences this week.
- We could turn off the heat (or the air conditioning, depending on the season).
- We could turn off the lights or simply purchase the brightest fluorescent lights we can find.
- We could get rid of the band.
- Of course, the smoke machines would be gone.
Even in an environment like that, a leader still needs to lead. Even in that context, a member of the congregation could be subject to Worshiptainment. They could still idolize the leader no matter how dense and boring the environment is.
Anytime someone is on stage, they run the risk of being idolized. It’s part of our nature. The answer isn’t to rid the church of leaders (obviously), but it’s to have more brokenhearted leaders whose only aim is to make Christ known.
It could also be argued that we should remove any form of entertainment in our sermons. No jokes, no illustrations, no videos. If entertainment is wrong, let’s rid it from everywhere in our churches.
Which brings me to my point: Worshiptainment isn’t the problem. Matter of fact, great humor can be used in a sermon to open a hard heart to truth. In the same way, creative music can be used by God (as can boring music) to open hearts to the immediacy of His Presence.
Production or No Production?
That’s not to say we shouldn’t dial back our production on occasion. Or that Tozer, Platt or Livingston are wrong. Maybe we need to remove our comfortable entertainments to get back on track. But they are not the problem. They can actually be a valuable tool to reach people and sustain worship and prayer when the human heart is weak. And of course, God can do that without those tools as well.
But let’s not make blanket generalizations. Let’s not judge and put down our hard working, Jesus loving, Bride-of-Christ serving worship leaders who are laboring to create weekend experiences to help people encounter Jesus. Let’s learn from everyone and try many different forms.
Lead worship like Housefires. Or …
Lead worship like Elevation. Or …
Remove your comfy chairs and exciting music entirely.
The power isn’t in the form but in the Presence of God that will inhabit praise wherever it is found, whether that’s in a stadium full of smoke and rock & roll or a small group with a lousy singer and out-of-tune guitar. He truly does … inhabit the praises of His people.
What’s the Next Step?
Do something different than you’re currently doing.
To keep things the same all the time doesn’t serve our people well. As leaders, we need to bring a relentless focus to the glory of God. A great way to do that is shaking things up.
If you’re used to quiet, acoustic, reflective worship, try something more aggressive. If you’re used massive weekend productions, dial it back and do a series on simplicity. Above all else, don’t shrink back from the displaying the glories of God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
