Jon Green
The Worship Follies pt. 2
08/02/07
The Worship Follies pt. 2
The Worship Leader
Back in the day, when churches started singing in four part harmony as a congregation, there was a prevalent need for someone to lead the group. Some guy stood up in front of everyone and conducted the group as if he were conducting a choir. The worship leader was born. There was a need for organization in the singing, plus the organist usually sat at the back of the room, so it was convenient for the director to stand facing the crowd so that the organist could see. This moment was the first time in the church's history that someone was appointed to stand and lead facing everyone from the front. Up until that point the people of the church either sang in unison as it required in the liturgy, or they followed along with what they could hear from the choir and instruments behind them. This change happened 150 years ago during the Evangelical movement.
For many of us, we can't imagine what worshiping at church would be like if we couldn't look at someone else to be inspired. However, we must remember that the focus of worship is God, and Him alone. When we are focused on the leader of singing, we are distracting ourselves from worshiping the true and living God. Often it is much more challenging to focus my attention on glorifying God with what I do, than it is to just stand, clap, sit, pray when the worship leader says so.
So I guess the challenge in this post is, "Can you worship without a leader?"
Yes, being inspired by someone else can be a good thing. And yes, there needs to be someone organizing the music and providing inspiration through the music, whether it be through text or the instrumentation. But our focus should never be on those people, it should always be on glorifying God. We should never be focused on people, the details of the morning like where we sit, or whether the words on the screen keep up with the song, or whether we like the clothes the pianist is wearing, or what our favorite song is. We should always have our minds singularly focused on giving God glory and expressing our thanks to Him with joy and humility.
Although it is nice as a worship leader to get your ego stroked a little:)
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08/14/07 @ 21:50 Moving on. I have found that it is difficult to worship God. There are so many things that can destract me, and it is so increadibly easy to sucumb to that tasty temptation of destraction. It seems that many people have missed the point of what worship should be. Jon is doing a good job of trying to education our congregation, but the fact is that people are not going to listen if they don't truely want to. I would guess that the majority of people that check out these kind of blog sites are those who are interested in learning more about what it means to be a christian. But sadly the majority of people are not going to want to hear a lesson that does not already jive with their set belief systems.
In John 7:60-71 Jesus has just completed giving an increadibly hard lesson that the majority of the people following him find too difficult to cope with, so they desert him. I have seen this happen again and again with so many different people, and yes it is frustrating, but even Christ himself understood that "you can't save'm all." So trying to force people to understand this when their faith is lukewarm is useless and a waste of Gods time. So compaining about what people wear, or sound like is a losing battle.
There are always going to be destractions when it comes to worship. That is an undeniable fact because unadulterated Worship of God is exactly what Satan doesn't want. True Worship is being able to focus on God so utterly and deeply that everything else,(noises, styles of clothing, a broken string) are completey drowned out, allowing nothing but the presence of God to surround you and fill you in your joy, your anger, you peace, your sorrow, your love, or your dispair.
Lastly everyone will worship how they want. Just becuase sunday morning may not be what you want, doesn't mean that the person next to you or down the row isn't completely lost in their worship. So destracted people shouldn't become destractions themselves.
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08/11/07 @ 14:45 Permalink
08/07/07 @ 19:52 So you agree with the statement that Jon made when he said, "We should never be focused on... whether we like the clothes the [person] is wearing?"
If we are directing our attention to God, what does it matter what somebody is wearing on stage? I mean let's be honest, we're not talking about women dressed like prostitutes here, usually just a difference of taste(i.e. I prefer to wear slacks to church and that guy is not wearing slacks so he is not dressed appropriately).
I think the most important thing to ask at church is not "Is that guy glorifying God?" but "Am I glorifying God?" Because usually my definition of what "that guy" should do to glorify God has a lot more to do with my preferences and tastes than it does with God's expectations.
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08/06/07 @ 19:09 Permalink
08/06/07 @ 18:48 Leave a comment:
Jon Green
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