Balanced corporate worship combines two components: spiritual and practical. It is easy and even enticing to over emphasis one to the detriment of the other. In order to insure God is our only object of worship while doing it in a unified, excellent, spirit filled manner we have to walk in balance of these two components. I’ll discuss what happens when we go out of balance on these two points, what the definition of worship and successful worship is in each scenario. This post primarily addresses two extremes as commonly demonstrated in the charismatic church or churches that participate in the larger charismatic worship tradition.

Lean to Practical

Churches that over emphasize practical measures tend to produce a great musical product and a great overall experience but a poor example of God glorifying, spirit filled corporate worship that continues after the music stops. This tends to be very experience based whether participatory or observational and people leave glorifying and remembering more about the production than God. Because of this there’s a feeling that worship can’t occur without the band, in other words the band has become a required mediator in their worship and that is what we call idolatry.

• Worship = What the band does on Sunday mornings and whatever can be consumed by the ears and eyes.
• Successful Worship = How well the band played, if you liked the songs they chose and how cool the videos were. How memorable of an experience it was. Successful worship now becomes a floating target as the bar of excellence and amazing production is continually increased.

Lean to Spiritual

When the spiritual component is over emphasized the quality and musical excellence tends to suffer since the attitude is, “who cares what we sound like as long as God is moving.” While that seems like an admirable thought the reality is what you sound like can be a barrier, distraction and hindrance. So we can’t let that attitude undermine the importance of excellence. If this is your attitude then the question really becomes, why are you playing music at all? If God doesn’t require your excellent music to move then he sure doesn’t require your crappy music to move. The swing is so far away from music mediation that the band absolves themselves of any responsibility. There’s an issue of first fruits and sacrificial worship that stems here but we’ll save that for another day. Sets in this environment start becoming very disorganized and difficult for the congregation to follow and be united in. A lot of spontaneous choruses are sung, which requires a lot of repetition and songs in turn start taking 10 minutes+. These types of sets tend not to fortify the importance of corporate unified worship but instead promote individualistic worship while in the presence of others.

• Worship = Whatever you feel and express through postures: dancing, singing, clapping, crying, raising your hands, kneeling, etc…
• Successful Worship = If room was given for people to express whatever God was doing in them and there was a response emotionally and physically through postures.

How do we find balance between these extremes?

We must realize as worship leaders, both are important. First on the practical side, musical excellence and organization is important. We are to be the instrument of unity in the church’s gathered worship, so yes we have practical responsibilities that are important to the success of gathered, corporate worship. Worship is continuing all week long without your musical assistance, but when the body gathers to meet we do as Colossians 3:16Colossians 3:16
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms [and] hymns [and] spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God.  

instructs we lead in the singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Your physical gifting matters, it’s important, so use it, maintain it and improve it.

Secondly, realize the notes are dead without the Holy Spirit. The only thing that makes our gathered worship worthwhile is the presence of the Holy Spirit. So we should have much reverence, thankfulness and humility because we’ve come together to glorify our Creator, Father, Savior Jesus. So it’s the inevitable outcome that upon viewing God’s mercy and grace that we respond in spirit and truth. There will be dancing, singing, clapping, crying, a full array of emotional response because quite simply the living God is amongst us. That’s an intense emotional experience I’d say. But don’t mistake the fruit as the source, continue to worship the source. This is the great deception that has a foothold in the charismatic church and must be confronted and dealt with candidly in our church bodies.

What does the result look like?

A balanced approach to worship would be a leader grounded in truth, completely reliant upon God’s grace, mercy and Holy Spirit, offering his best sacrifice of praise and leading his team and congregation in unified, redeemed worship of Jesus Christ. A worship leader should work continuously at improving his craft, making sure he’s leading not just songs in excellence but leading the congregation. You have to teach on worship, it’s an absolute must! Here are some questions to ask yourself to see if you’re off balance.

1. What circumstances, environments or tools does your congregation need to worship? Correct lighting, just the right combination of songs, etc…
2. In what areas does your congregation engage in worship? Spirit, mind, body, soul?
3. What determines a successful worship service?
4. What role does a successful worship service play in a life of worship?
5. Has our worship service become a consumption experience?

In the coming days I will post on how to use this balanced approach in set selection and music. I welcome your comments, disagreements and confessions of unbalance.

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Michael Guglielmucci’s father released a statement in efforts to explain the recent news that Michael’s terminal cancer was faked. I can’t begin to understand what his family is going through. It really is a tragic situation all around. The statement really reads like a movie script, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a movie at some point, it’s just that crazy. Not so surprisingly Michael was sick, but instead of addressing the root sin he tried to cover it…

In September in 2006, Mike had an accident and went to hospital. It was at this time, because of his torment of living a double life, Mike thought he could escape the pain by creating a diversion from his addiction to adult pornography, so he created the cancer scenario.

If you’ve been in church leadership longer than a week you’ve no doubt dealt with the destruction of pornography in your body. The lengths men and women go to hide this from their family never ceases to amaze me, although this certainly takes the cake. This hammers home the point that leadership, particularly male leadership, has to challenge their men on this. Talk about it, expose it, disciple through it, counsel through it. The aftermath of this sin is so destructive as is clearly seen here. Here’s Michael’s own words on his addiction…

“This is who I am … I’m addicted to the stuff, it consumes my mind,”

I admire the courage XXXChurch has shown in tackling this tough issue. Many take issue with how XXXChurch operates, and I may not agree with every tactic they use, but surely they are wrestling and taking on an issue most churches ignore. And for that they should be commended and supported and prayed for.

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What’s Next?

This one question I am asking various worship leaders and pastors. The context is what’s next in corporate worship but beyond that no guidance has been given for appropriate response. Part 5 of this series is Christian City Church Worship Pastor Andy Bennett’s response.

Christian City Church in San Diego celebrated their 3yr anniversary this past Sunday night by recording a live worship album. Andy’s band House Red was on stage leading worship comprised completely of original songs. We’re blessed to have Andy take time and respond to this important question, here is his response.

1. It’s not about “The Gig”. It’s about God’s House. It’s about the fact that Jesus carried a cross for us, so we will praise Him and worship Him with everything we have. People are always surprised that none of our musicians and singers are paid. Many of our team members have been involved in large scale recording and performing projects, but Praise and Worship at church is totally different.

We are servants way before we’re musicians. Moses was faithful in ALL God’s house, not just the parts that he enjoyed. Its the same with people in praise and worship. Whatever we can do to make church the most mind-blowing place on planet earth. That’s what God’s house should be! A lot of worship teams are comprised of “hired guns” who just come in and play at church on a Sunday, whether or not they are members of that church (or any church for that matter). Jesus pointed out the difference between hirelings and sons. We are raising sons in our church, not bringing in hirelings. Its an honor to play on the platform in the house of God, not something you need to be paid to do. People will do a lot more for something they believe in than they will for a paycheck.

2. No Compromise on Excellence. How many times have I been in church and seen a dance, “drama”, mime, song, poem, “song of the Lord”, skit etc that is of such poor quality that I would not dare bring any of my friends to see for fear of them laughing and walking out?! We go to the movies and are rocked by special effects, brilliant acting and enthralling storylines. We pay to see artworks that are masterfully painted and sculpted. We go to the theatre and see extravagant singing, dancing and musicianship. Then we go to church and the shrill, off pitch wailing of the worship leader makes you cringe. You try and push through the barrage of noise to be able to worship God in the midst of the cacophony, but struggle to feel anything but frustration at the fact that the music is so off putting. But we excuse by saying, “Its for the Lord”, as if that’s an excuse for shabbiness. Or we say, “that was so anointed”, like there’s some indefinable (more like incomprehendable) reason for having someone who cannot hold a tune to save their life lead God’s people in His glorious worship.

We only allow people on stage who are able to contribute to a sound and atmosphere that is musically excellent. Just because someone is a volunteer doesn’t mean we can’t expect something big from them. After all, they’re not doing it for us, like some kind of favor. It’s our service to the One who has redeemed us by His very own blood. God only gave us his best. He didn’t look around heaven for a shabby old angel with a busted wing and send him down to do the dirty work. He showed us His extravagance by sending us His only beloved Son, perfect in every way. We can give nothing but the very best back to Him as His awesome church!

We are constantly verbalizing this culture in our church, so people end up serving where they have some kind of strength, wherever that may be.

The way the message is communicated often becomes a bigger message than the message itself. Shabby communication – unimportant message. Excellent communication – a message that’s worth hearing.