Participation Vs Observation

“The church must worship, and worship and entertainment are at opposite ends of the table.” - A.W. Tozer

I have been thinking quite a bit about the line between worship and entertainment these days. In part because over the past 18 months, our church has been in the process of finding quotes, establishing a budget, raising money, and seeking grant monies for a major audio-visual update of our space. More than just the physical reality of new equipment, we have had to determine how our convictions shape not only the kind of equipment we purchase but how it is used during the weekly gathering.

Like many things in our world, there is an opportunity for polarization when it comes to style, equipment, and the implementation of technology in the corporate gathering. There are churches by conviction or default have a simple setup. Sometimes these churches will accuse the high production value of another church of being distracting, performative, and putting on a concert rather than leading people in worship. And there are churches that are early adopters of new technology, always at the cutting edge of the latest and greatest technology, style, or song. These churches can often accuse simpler churches of being distracting, unwilling to use technology to engage the world, and behind the times.

Everyone has personal preferences tied up in music, volume, aesthetics, and style that are important to acknowledge. I think it’s also important to acknowledge that in many cases the convictions we carry about the implementation of technology and how we chase the latest and greatest or cling to simplicity is a second and third-tier issue. Jesus-loving, Bible-believing Christians can hold different convictions around these ideas and still be in fellowship with one another.

This is an area that can be gray. But I have started wondering if we are asking the wrong questions. Perhaps the better questions here would be: Are the decisions we make encouraging participation or observation?

Participation is worship - it is liturgy - the work of the people. Observation is entrainment - it is passive and encourages consumerism.

I believe in some ways this question frees us to make decisions with our unique congregation in mind. It does however require an awareness of the culture, the people we serve, and a clear philosophy of worship that is rooted in something longer-lasting than style and technology.

Are the decisions we make encouraging participation or observation? In some ways, this question seems almost pre-Reformation. One of the things we see during the Reformation is the tendency all Christians have to outsource their faith to “the professionals.” The Mass was observed in a language many did not speak or understand - they became passive observers, rather than active participants. What was true 500 years ago is true today - participation is an essential part of the corporate gathering.

Hidden Visibility

In one of the churches of my youth, our Worship Pastor was classically trained. He could lead a band, conduct an orchestra, and direct a choir. He did not lead from an instrument, and truthfully, very rarely did he lead vocally. If you asked him, he likely would not have thought he was a brilliant vocalist. Most Sundays there was a small choir, a piano-driven band, and a handful of vocalists leading at the edge of the platform - and Steve off to the side, with a largely unoccupied microphone on a stand.

One of the things I have come to appreciate about Steve’s leadership as I have grown older is that when he led, he carried enough presence for the congregation to follow, without dominating the songs and setlist. He would give visual cues with his hands, raise his eyes, and turn toward the congregation when it was time to sing. But much of his leadership enabled the people of God to address ‘…one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord…’ (Ephesians 5:19).

When I began leading worship at our church in the United Kingdom, it took me - and them - months to learn the ebb and flow following one another. They would sing with such volume and confidence, and many times I would start to lead a song, but by the end of the song, they were leading me.

As production quality continues to increase across churches, as churches across denominational and cultural borders begin to look more alike, as backing tracks and strict time limits become more common, as congregations anticipate (or expect) their church worship teams and worship leaders look, sound, and lead like what they see online - some of the questions I am asking myself:

How can I lead with hidden visibility? Especially as someone who does lead from an instrument, who does lead vocally. I do not want the people I lead to observe my leadership as spectators but participate as worshipers. I want to lead with enough conviction, competence, and presence that people do not just think I am in my own ‘worship world.’ Nor do I want to lead as a performer or showman.

How am I encouraging increased ‘one-anothering’ in the corporate gathering? I do want to have so little margin, so little capacity for in-the-moment response that our services feel rigid. I do not want to be so visible - or so loud - that our congregation cannot hear the voices of the people of God as we sing to God or to one another.

As I think, pray, and plan for 2024 - Hidden Visibility is one of my goals.

Advent Preparation

We are only a few weeks away from the Advent season. One of the elements that has helped mark out this time as special for me in the last few years has been writing an Advent devotional. Collecting these quotes, prayers, Scripture, and writings helps set my attention and affection on the coming of Christ during a particularly busy season in the life of the Church.

• 2020 - O Antiphons Advent Devotional

• 2021 - Light in Scripture Advent Devotional

• 2022 - Songs and Psalms Advent Devotional

If you are looking for something for you, your church, or your team, here are links to the last several years. I’ll also be posting a new Advent devotional in the weeks ahead.

If you’re looking for some practical resources for worship leaders, worship teams, or church here are some posts from previous years:

• Cradle and Cross

• Advent Beyond Nostalgia

• Navigating Advent & Christmas

• Advent, Christmas, Corporate Worship

The First Work

Ready or not, Sunday is coming.

Whether you lead worship as a volunteer, bi-vocationally, or have been freed up to lead worship full-time, there are countless practical details that need to be handled before a Sunday service. I tend to be task-driven, so I find powering through a checklist quite satisfying. In fact, I even created a worship leader checklist you can download for free here. Yes, there are many things to do: set lists to build, teams to schedule, lyrics and sound to set up, planning meetings, follow up, and communication. But the longer I lead worship, the more I begin to be convinced that my first work in leading worship is not the tasks, but to become a person of prayer.

Be before do.

Be a worshiper before leading sung worship.

Be present with and to the Lord.

Serve in the secret place before a public space.

We serve out of who we are. We serve out of who we are becoming. In every area, our lives can be ruled by the tyranny of the urgent. How do we continue to choose the good portion even when our time is limited and our tasks are many?

My hope is that prayer increasingly feels more like an anchor instead of a detour to my week, my life, and my ministry responsibilities. I hope that for you as well.

Sound Standards

I went to school for Recording Arts and Music Business. I’ve led worship for a long time, but I am not a great sound person. But one of the things I have realized as a worship leader is that sound falls under my umbrella of responsibility, whether I am serving with a highly-trained, paid sound person, or an untrained volunteer, I cannot be hands-off with sound. Sound is critical to a service.

Like many things, sound has best practices: how to set up a system, the levels of volume needed in a space, and the kinds of equipment needed for a specific context. There are a myriad of resources available online for technical aspects of running sound that I have found helpful. Besides general training and knowledge of a particular soundboard, I have found the most helpful aspect of equipping sound people is setting sound standards.

Setting up sound standards feels like trying to help people live by the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. Because sound is as artistic as it is technical, I want to make space for our sound guys to bring a level of artistry to their craft, knowing that our musicians rotate and therefore the sound is produced with in itself never be ‘standard.’ Sound standards also allow space for a specific congregation and the direction of the church as a whole. A few of my sound standards:

I want the volume loud enough that people need to sing out to be able to hear themselves sing, but not so loud they cannot hear one another.

I want the vocalist leading a song to be the loudest in the mix.

I want the instruments to be defined, but well-balanced without one being louder than any other through the entirety of a set.

The instrument driving a song needs to be what is heard most clearly.

I want the sound to serve the song and the people, that might mean it needs to be louder or quieter depending on the tone of the service, the size, and make-up of the band, or the size of the congregation.

We are aiming for consistency over individuality when it comes to the mix.

Whether on a platform or behind a soundboard, we are on the same team. One of the ways I have learned to push toward unity, and toward collaboration has been spending time with a sound person before rehearsal to walk through the order of service, the dynamics I am hoping to create, who is on the team, and any pieces I would like them to be aware of moving into the service.

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?

Teaching Concepts

So many things seem normal and common when they are familiar. If you have grown up in church, or at least been in a church long enough to sense the rhythms and liturgy, to use context clues with language and word choice, you likely know this to be true. There are so many aspects to the gathering of the local church that might seem confusing if you have no context.

Why do we sing?

Why do we lift our hands?

Who leads us into God’s presence?

Why should we gather with the people of God?

Why do we sing and celebrate so much about the cross and blood of Christ?

Worship leaders are more than musicians or vocalists, we are theologians, and teachers. Sometimes I wonder if worship leaders do not lean into the responsibility to teach our people why these things matter, because we do not understand why these things matter. But everything becomes more meaningful when you know the story, the history, the intention, and the direction behind what is happening and why.

We cannot force people to worship rightly. We cannot lead well enough, or competently enough to will someone to worship. But we can shepherd people’s attention and affection toward Christ by teaching the truth in our songs, in our transitions, in our prayers, and in our liturgical choices. We can work to provide the context to make sense of raised hands, the purpose of singing, the power of the gathered people, and the only hope that is ours through Christ.

For a worship leader, teaching does not (and perhaps, nor should it) look like spending 20-45 minutes walking through a text of Scripture. But maybe it does look like spending 20-45 seconds thoughtfully articulating the concept behind a song, the definition of words, or a deeper theological truth that through the power of the Holy Spirit could open up the hearts and minds of our people to respond in wholehearted worship, wonder and praise.

Connecting the Gathering

I live and serve in the South. Cultural Christianity is alive and well in the Bible Belt. Having the external appearance of faith without a heart that grasps and truly responds to the Gospel is my short-hand description of cultural Christianity. It has the external appearance of goodness, or morality with a compartmentalized heart and understanding of the way our faith should influence and impact everything about the life of a believer:

Our desires and affections.

The way we view and spend our money.

Our thoughts and actions.

The words we speak, and the way we use social media.

Our interactions with our family, our neighbors, and our enemies.

Our engagement within our communities and around the world.

What we treasure, and what we reject.

To some extent, this is not a unique reality for Americans living in the South. Every human lives a compartmentalized life. We divide ourselves across work, family, friends, free time, money, and faith. But if we are called to be and make disciples, that is a call that must pervade every area and aspect of our lives.

When I started to see worship leading as a place of discipleship, I began to see the gaps between what we do on a Sunday, and how we live the rest of the week.

Sunday worship is the overflow of Monday through Saturday worship.

Sunday worship fuels and propels the people of God to live as worshipers throughout the week.

In gathering with the people of God are reminded that God is much bigger than we are, that we are never alone, and we encourage one another to live as followers of Christ.

In gathering with the people of God we are reminded of our dependence upon God and the gift of His Body.

In gathering with the people of God our attention and affection are refocused around the person and work of Christ rather than the desires of the flesh or the culture.

May our lives, and the lives of those we lead look increasingly less compartmentalized.

Other posts that might be of interest:

All of Life Worship.

How to respond to Current Events.

Growing as a Communicator

Connecting Songs and Sermons

Questions To Consider

One of the things that our team has spoken about is the need for a deeper dive into our songs and services apart from a weekly service evaluation. And that would open up questions, and facilitate discussion for our whole team around the purpose and movement of our gatherings, apart from song choice, and how each of us can play a part in moving our services in the same direction.

One of the things that sparked these categories in my mind is Mike Cosper’s 10 Questions to Consider at the end of every year. I appreciated how he was able to open a view of the gathering wider than song choice and simply judge a service. The categories below are certainly not exhaustive, but will hopefully fuel deeper thought:

SONGS

• What new songs are we singing, and how are people responding?

• Which songs consistently have high responses (loud singing/participation, comments, humming in the bathroom)?

• What holes are in our master song list (content)?

• What are we singing too much (themes, songs, style)?

• Is the liturgy balancing an awareness of the people, while continuing to lead toward a direction that more closely embodies our values and mission?

COMMUNICATION

• Is it clear?

• Are we equipping our verbal communicators to understand and navigate the movement, tone of the morning, and the moment while still being themselves?

• Are the announcements leading people in worship, and moving them toward mission, not just giving them information?

• What has been confusing?

• Where have we dropped the ball (for the congregation, for the team, with visuals, with helping equip those on the platform knowing how to effectively communicate)?

FORMATION

• What is missing?

• What is stale?

• Are the ordinances being thoughtfully navigated (within the service and by the communicator)

• What has been surprising?

What would you add?

Here are some other similar resources you may find helpful:

Don’t Judge The Service.

Service Evaluation.

10 Questions to Consider.

17 September: Liturgy + Set List

• GRAVES INTO GARDENS

  Call to Worship: Romans 11:33-12:2

  All we do is give back to God what always has been His. We live in response to the mercy and grace of God by offering our lives as an act of worship. Part of what we do as we gather is reorient our lives around responding to the mercy and grace of God. Let’s do that together as we sing:

• ALL I HAVE IS CHRIST

• HOLY IS OUR GOD

  Sermon: Mark 10:1-12

  Scripture says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Some of us have sin that is loud and obvious, all of us have sin that is subtle and subversive and deep in our hearts. As we continue in worship, we’re going to confess our sins to God and one another:

  Book of Common Prayer Corporate Confession

  Now that we have confessed our sins to God and one another, I want to give you a few moments of silence to consider and confess your own sins.

Brothers and sisters hear the good news: The Lord who loves you says in His word: Go and sin no more.

• HOLY FOREVER

• LAMB OF GOD

  Benediction

Choosing A Key

Choosing a key is a tricky business in this world of corporate sung worship. Trying to land on a key that allows men and women, young and old, competent and tone-deaf to sing out their praise to the Lord is nearly impossible. Like many things, you can likely find resources online that coach you through the key-to-key range that is best suited for congregational singing, but I am not a theory teacher, and this is not that post. Rather in this post, I want to offer a few points to consider when it comes to choosing a key:

1. What is comfortable for your range? Who is going to be leading this song? If something is out of range (low or high) for the vocalist who will be leading the song, it will automatically become more difficult for the congregation to follow along.

2. The original key. Many worship songs these days end up on the radio, which means they are likely pitched higher than even the worship artist would play or lead them live. Just because you can sing something in the original key doesn’t mean you have to. That being said, sometimes putting something in the original key can make it a lot easier for musicians and vocalists to learn their parts.

3. What else are you playing? A larger consideration for me in choosing a key to a song is the other songs surrounding it in the setlist. Now, this is not something I have to worry about as much using tracks and pads to smooth transitions, but I want to be able to move seamlessly from one song to another. As a guitar player this means thinking about things like - will I need to change a capo? Retune my guitar? If it is not in the exact same key, what are the transition chords I need to play to move me into the next song?

4. What key will be on the edge? Where can I pitch this song to encourage people to be right on the edge, and have to really sing out, but still be singable enough that they simply stop singing because it feels completely out of reach. I think about this with lighting in the worship gathering as well - I want it to be bright enough that people can see one another, but dark enough that they don’t feel exposed in their worship.

5. Consider the song. People will often give modern songs a hard time about the anthemic octave jump from one part to the next, but truthfully, if you sing a lot of hymns, the melody range can be just as significant. The only difference is that we have become familiar with these melodies in such a way we do not notice the jumps.

Ultimately, there is trial and error involved. One of the reasons I like Co-Leading, especially with men and women on the team, is that you can choose keys for a man to lead that will be comfortable for men, and choose keys for a woman to lead that will be comfortable for women. We need to be willing to serve our congregations, serve the song, and be willing to sacrifice some artistry - just because you can sing that high doesn’t mean this is the right place to make that known.

The Most Important Part Of The Gathering

What is the most important part of the worship gathering?

My Anglican friends would likely say the Eucharist.

My extroverted friends would likely say the time of fellowship.

My musical friends would likely say sung worship.

My worship-leading friends would likely say sung worship as well.

My reformed, gospel-centered friends would likely say the preached word of God.

Most pastors would likely say the sermon.

My charismatic friends would likely say what is unexpected, or surprising.

Whether we realize it or not, every portion of our corporate gatherings is formative. We are shaped in subtle and significant ways by years of repetition. What we emphasize, and where we place the most resources (time in the service, staff, money, etc) is likely what the churches we serve value most. But if everything portion of our gathering is retelling the gospel story, if every part of our gathering is intentionally placed to form our people, then each component has a role to play in the importance of our formation.

What is the most important part of the corporate gathering? It all is important.