Thanks to our Worship Leader and my friend Ted, I have been able to take a different perspective on Sunday morning worship. Ted has been gracious (and I mean that literally) enough to allow me to share the stage with the team on Sunday morning and play guitar. It has been an eye opener for me personally as I have really had to check my heart on what Sunday morning worship music means for me.
To be honest, it made me begin to ponder…what drives the Sunday morning worship experience? Is it the music or does the congregations reaction to said music drive the “experience”? Several years ago, my wife and I were part of a church plant. It was a very small congregation which, at times, felt like you were the only one singing. We met in a large auditorium that dwarfed our small church. The band played and we sang, but it wasn’t until a certain group came that we all realized we might be missing the mark. This group was from a local rehabilitation center and they flat out WORSHIPPED. They sang. They danced. They raised hands in praise and poured out tears of passion to their Savior. They were broken and had nothing. Just worship.
Those were our best Sundays.
I’ve been in churches large and small. I’ve been in churches with full choirs and bands of a select few. The large churches didn’t necessarily have better worship. If anything, it seemed like a great concert performance from an outstanding church band and choir. So again I wondered, is it the band/choir or the people that drive a worship movement in the church? What does it take to set the people free to worship as they feel led? I’m not knocking any particular church or worship team, I’m just asking the question.
Maybe you can offer some advice as to what you have found….
