Encouraging Response

“A lot of people don’t know this… but it is possible to be emotive in corporate worship, and still be a Baptist.” That is how I encouraged and challenged? Our church to engage with Psalm 134. This psalm was both our call to worship and the name of the song we were about to sing that morning:

“Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord,
    who stand by night in the house of the Lord!

Lift up your hands to the holy place
    and bless the Lord!

May the Lord bless you from Zion,
    he who made heaven and earth!”

Some churches, denominations, cultures, and people groups are naturally emotive in the way they participate in corporate sung worship. Some are naturally more reserved. While I do not believe there is a moral high ground, as I wrote last week, I do believe that it is right and good that the truths we sing move us - and that we encourage our people to be moved.

If you would like to encourage your people toward responding in worship, how might you do that - you know, without poking fun at their denominal affiliation like yours truly? Here are a few things to consider:

Look around the room

Ask people not just to look at a screen, or at a hymnal, ask them to look around the room. We sing to God, yes, but we also sing to one another. Look at the faces of your brothers and sisters, sing to them, sing on their behalf.

Speak these words aloud

Whether the songs are new and unfamiliar or people feel they ‘aren’t really singers.’ Encourage people to at least speak the truths we sing aloud. Our words have power, and we need to proclaim truth not only have it sung around the room.

Open our hands

For some people, any physical posture in worship feels uncomfortable. I have encouraged people, even if they are uncomfortable raising their hands in worship, to open their hands - even if they are shoved in your pockets, will you open them as a posture of surrender, openness, and receiving?

Raise our hands

Lifting up holy hands in worship is a posture we see throughout Scripture, but can feel too odd, uncomfortable, or vulnerable for many worshipers. Why do we raise our hands? In victory - Jesus victory over Satan, sin, and death. In surrender - realizing that we can no longer fight. In dependence - upon God for our very breath. In faith - allowing our physical posture to aim and reinforce what we desire to be true of our hearts and lives.

Don’t just tell people to respond. Encourage, invite, model, maybe even be cheeky, and give them a loving rebuke. But help them see why we do what we do. I have often found people eager to respond, they have been waiting on permission, waiting on an invitation.

If this was helpful, you may also appreciate Postures In Worship.

25 June: Tuesday Refocus

“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” - Colossians 3:12-14

How am I dressing my heart and life? Although as a follower of Jesus, we know that the Holy Spirit must work in us for the truths of Colossians 3 to be not just true externally but internally (Philippians 2:13), there also seems to be a sense that we can choose what we put on - how we choose to interact with brothers and sisters.

When we celebrate communion we come back to the table, back to the place where we are reminded what God in Christ has accomplished for us. We come face to face with those who have wounded us and whom we have wounded. We forgive as we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32). We see how God has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility between God and man. We put on the clothes of those who work to bring down the divisions between brothers and sisters (Ephesians 2:14).

Father, may these things be true of us. Amen and amen.

Amen,

AB

Disentangling Preferences

I have preferences.

You have preferences.

The people we lead and serve have preferences.

That is not good or bad, it just is.

But often we don’t realize how significantly our preferences shape what we desire until something doesn’t go the way of our, well, preferences.

Whether it is over song, style, volume, liturgy, or aesthetic, how might we avoid starting another ‘worship war’ in our own churches? Here are a few things to consider:

Acknowledge that we all have preferences. You, me, our team, our church, our leaders - we can celebrate, honor, and acknowledge without being dismissive or condescending towards those preferences which are different.

Realize that no one is neutral. All of us have been shaped in our lives and faith by countless influences - these are places of deep memory and impact.

Develop a philosophy of worship. Our corporate gatherings matter, and we should take seriously the songs we sing and the way our gatherings form our people. That is why I want every aspect of the gathering to be intentionally shaped. But an unexpected benefit of intentionality is that it allows us to articulate a deeper truth to our people if/when there is pushback. Why do we do the things that we do? Our own leadership will be easily swayed if there isn’t something of significance anchoring the decisions we make on and off the platform.

Use preferences as an opportunity to fight for greater unity. We can consider one another more highly than we consider ourselves when we choose to die to our preferences, for the sake of a brother or sisters preference.

Identify my own preferences. More than just acknowledging that preferences exist - what are my preferences? If I was the only person I needed to consider, how would that shape the liturgy and flow of a service I built? How would it impact the style of songs - and the specific songs I choose? What elements would I include weekly? This is an exercise I need to do regularly so that I am able to disentangle my preferences from Gospel. To help me appreciate that I am a servant to the Lord and His people in a specific context, at a specific place in time. My job is not to make little versions of myself - to enforce my own preferences on a people. My job is not to make people more like themselves - to allow their preferences to dictate all that we do. No, my job is to help create a space where people can become more like Jesus.

What would you add?

Postures in Worship

Shout

Sing

Silence

Fall down

Lift hands

Kneel

Dance

These are just some of the physical postures of worship we see throughout Scripture. But often it is not Scripture, but denominational affiliation or culture (family, church, city, country) that carries a greater influence on our physical posture during the gathering.

Let me be clear: our outward posture does not (always) equal inward posture of heart. And very clearly in Scripture, we see wild, exuberant postures of worship, as well as stillness, and awe. Too often as worship leaders, we use external signs as validation that we have done our jobs. Some people are naturally expressive, and others are naturally reserved. Certainly, there are days, songs, seasons, and times when our congregations respond in ways that we would not expect - in expression, volume, general engagement, and enthusiasm. Do we encourage silence without feeling the need to fill with pads, or piano, as much as we encourage people to sing out and raise their hands? Physical posture is not the sole indicator of true worship, but it may be a window into the hearts, lives, and cultures of our community.

How can you encourage a fuller understanding and expression of postures of worship in your gathering? How might you invite people to move out of their comfort zone (whether toward silence, or expression) not in response to the worship leader, but in response to God?

Receiving Compliments

Pride forces us toward two extremes: I am amazing, or I am awful. Sometimes these extremes push and pull moments apart, again and again! And when we stand in front of people with a microphone, an instrument, a voice of authority, and a position of visibility we can quickly begin to size up our value and worth based on the response - or lack thereof - from the people we serve. We can foolishly believe that everything is riding on us. Did the music go well? That’s because we worked hard, practiced, and led well. Did things feel chaotic, disjointed, and a mess? It’s because we are not good and have no business in this kind of role.

Two weeks ago I wrote about responding to criticism. But the truth is responding to compliments is a different side of the same coin. Undoubtedly, we will receive criticism in our role. Undoubtedly, we will also receive compliments. I think we must receive compliments in the same way we receive criticism. First, prayerfully.

One of the ways that Christ equips and builds up His body is through His body. I desire to receive a compliment not as an affirmation of myself and my gifts, but as a testament to the way God uses His people to build us all up toward maturity in Christ. I want my heart and mind to be turned upward to Christ in gratitude, rather than inward toward self when people speak words that spur me on toward godliness.

Second, we receive compliments with humility. This doesn’t mean that we are not grateful, that doesn’t mean we attempt to deflect people’s words with something like, ‘It wasn’t me up there, it was the Lord…’ It means we recognize that we have nothing we did not receive, and so we give glory to God, who does not share His glory with another. It means that we celebrate who God is and what He is doing, rather than seek to build up our own fragile egos with the life-giving words of another.

Finally, we let God’s voice be the loudest and most consistent voice in our minds and hearts. When my heart is treasure the Word spoken over me by my Heavenly Father, I do not have to be swayed or swell with the criticism or praise of another.

“Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou my inheritance now and always,

Thou and Thou only first in my heart,

High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.”

On Nerves + Anxiety

Anyone who says they don’t get a little nervous, or a bit anxious to lead worship is probably lying. There are so many things that regardless of our level of preparation are out of our control. There are so many things that have to work together at once in a corporate gathering.

So how do you deal with nerves if and when they begin to surface?

First things first, pray. Ask the Spirit who indwells you to lift your eyes to Christ. Many of our nerves as worship leaders come from our sense that it all hangs on me. We need the Spirit to remind us that the work is already finished in Christ, He is the One we lift up, He is the One we celebrate, He is the One who deserves all of the glory.

We need to remember. We need to remember that our life is hidden in Christ. We need to remember that we are serving our brothers and sisters, that our family loves us, and is for us as we serve. We need to remember that Christ’s ability to be honored and glorified is not dependent on our ability to perform or execute a flawless setlist.

We need to practice. The times I feel most anxious when leading are when I know I have not spent enough time with a song, or with something I feel the Spirit leading me to share. It can be easy to swing the pendulum to the opposite extreme by rehearsing to the point where we leave no space for spontaneity, but real preparation should be an act of worship. We should spend time engaging with song and Scripture throughout the week so that we can be freed up to lead and serve well because we have traveled the road, familiarize ourselves with the journey before our Sunday services.

We need to come dependent. Often when we feel insecure, anxious, or fearful we can be tempted to try and control. We rehearse and rehearse and rehearse, we map out every second of the service, we run transitions countless times, rather than release and empower others with responsibility and authority, we hoard in an effort to control and minimize risk. This is both exhausting, and it is also the antithesis of what the Apostle Paul reminds us - in our weakness we are strong (2 Cor 12:9-10). When we come dependent we acknowledge that preparation is important, but true power comes from the Holy Spirit working in and through us to point people to Christ.

If nerves or anxiety are a regular part of your experience of leading worship, I’d also encourage you to read Tim Keller’s short book, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness. Seeing ourselves accurately off of the platform will help us see ourselves correctly on the platform.

Leading From The Congregation

One of the things I say most frequently to my team: we lead more off of the platform than on the platform.

For me, there are at least three things that I am trying to help my team understand with this language, first, that each member is a worship leader. Whether they are a musician, vocalist, sound person, running lyrics or lights, or the person who has assembled the set list and is leading the congregation verbally - each person is a worship leader. Second, it matters what we do, where we are, and how we are responding after we step off a platform, out from behind our instruments, and the way we engage in the rest of the gathering. And third, that each team member carries the responsibility of worship leader even on weekends where we are not serving on the platform.


Here are some considerations when it comes to leading worship from the congregation:

Presence.

This means after we serve on the platform, we go and sit through the sermon as a member of the congregation. That our presence is visible not just during ‘our part,’ but that we are identifying ourselves, and being identified, as sheep - not just as shepherds. Our presence in the gathering matters not only on the weekends where we serve up front, but also during those weeks where we are not. My personal conviction is that our team should be primarily made up of people who call this specific congregation their home church, and therefore would be attending this home church even if they were not serving on the team. If team members are only present at church on weekends that they are serving, it would beg the question, why?

Posture

As a follower of Jesus, and as a worship leader I want to be fully integrated. I do not want to have a ‘stage-self’ and an ‘off-stage-self.’ If I see myself as a worship leader, as someone who is carrying the culture of the team in a visible role, or among the people, there should be no division in the way that I posture myself, and respond leading up front or in the congregation. If you raise your hands on the platform, raise your hands in the congregation.

Engagement

What we do in subtle and significant ways communicates what we value. If musicians ‘do their job,’ walk off the stage to back stage, a backroom, or a coffee shop - what does that communicate to the congregation? If we are to be leaders - servant leaders specifically - we must model what is important and valuable for our people, by being engaged in the life of the church outside of our role, responsibility, and jobs. Sit in the sermon, pursue new people, be connected to community, listen, learn, grow, and then pour out from a place of being deeply rooted as a member - not just of the worship team - but of your church.

Another way that you as a leader can encourage your team to lead from the congregation, is providing new music that you will be introducing to the entire team - perhaps even elders, and ministry leaders, so that when you introduce a new song, it is not just the musicians serving that particular week that will know the music, but those people who can also lead from the congregation. We have a responsibility to equip and lift the eyes of our team to the significance of their role - not just in it’s forward facing nature, but in ways they can lead and shape the culture from the congregation as well.