Two Realities Collide as we Lead Worship!
Worship leading is a difficult thing, especially if we are longing for powerful times with God. Glory, passion, intimacy, the presence and the power of God moving among us are things many of us desire in our meetings.
As many church services can at times be much less powerful than all that, we can quickly become frustrated, unless we realize there are two things at work in any group when we come together as Christians to worship:
1) What does God want to do?
Firstly, there is God’s perfect will for a meeting. We of course, desire to be led by the Spirit. To see God’s presence and power move among us.
Jesus said “I can do nothing of myself, only that which I see the father doing”. (John 5:19) Jesus ministered by following his father’s will, by “seeing” what his father wanted to do, then re-enacting that. I would say that is the secret to powerful services – following and obeying God’s voice.
But there is something else at play in every meeting of a group of people that we must understand if we are going to avoid frustration:
2) What can this group of people cope with?
“Coming to his hometown, Jesus began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed….and they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honour (see below)” And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith”. Matt 14:53-58
The second dynamic at work is; “What can this group of people cope with?” If Jesus couldn’t fight the lack of faith in his hometown, and it affected God’s perfect will for that “Mission to Nazareth”, how much more will a lack of faith, expectation and hunger for God affect our churches and meetings.
When we lead worship we need to keep one eye on God (“What is he saying to do?”), and another on the “crowd”, (“How are they coping with this?”) and draw people into God’s perfect, presence filled will as best we can. Do your utmost not to be discouraged by the fact that we don’t see “perfect” and powerful meetings all the time – even Jesus didn’t – because of the level of expectation in the crowd.
What can worship teams do to affect the expectation in the crowd?
- Show seriousness about our worship ministries, with attitudes of excellence
- Come expecting to receive from God every Sunday morning
- Be determined to meet with God, whatever the “crowd” are going to do
- Be the most responsive people in the room, in every spiritual activity
- Be visual and physical examples of worship
- Lead worship even when we’re not up the front
- Spreading expectation and faith like a virus
- Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Be VERY filled! You’ll overflow and affect the atmosphere!