Look Out Below!!!
So look at all that mess down there!!!
Lots of heat. Lots of great points. Lots of bad points.
Lots of authenticity.
I see the worship leaders uniting.
Arms locks as in an intense red rover game.
I see attendees uniting. Able to voice their annoyances in a forum where they know worship leaders will hear.
Both are fair.
But since I threw the grenade, here is my take…
Worship leaders…
What you are hearing here is what is not being said to you by the masses on Sundays.
This is the question I BEG to know the answer to on a weekly basis.
Did the worship leader have an amazing moment with the Lord on stage and forget to bring the attenders with him?
Is the church tired of hearing the same song over and over again?
Is the church tired of hearing amazing sermons with hours of prep put into them from the teaching pastor only to have worship dude pull something out his tail end he thought up in the moment?
Worshippers…
That is the rest of you 
Are you so stuck in your zone that God can’t use a hicky filled kid half your age to lead you into His presence in new and fresh ways? (I did laugh out loud at the hicky comment because I’ve led worship with a hicky before)
Are you going in to a church service spiritually prepared for what is about to take place?
Are you telling me that your teaching pastor can tell you to all read your text out loud without a thought from you but when the worship pastor tells you to raise your hands…it’s different?
I think the common thread I am finding here is what your Sunday morning worship services are intended to do.
That is where lots of this conversation is stemming from.
All of your comments are GREAT questions and comments to chew on.
As we chew, remember not to spit on your neighbor.
That’s just gross.
And if the worship leader really sucks at bringing you into His presence on a Sunday morning, here is the cool thing,
It’s not really his job anyways.
I think someone just made that job title “Worship Leader” up a few years back.
But hey, I’m not complaining.
It’s been really good for me.
Los
Great follow up post. Thanks for sharing your heart on this because my stomach was really in knots from all of those comments.
this is why i love you man. i am a reader for life, my friend from afar.
Thanks brotha. I am on the same page….
Maybe we have been duped into believing that the worship,praise,production,media….is second rate to the meat and potatoes, preaching, teaching….and therefore have the right to questions ones worship leading ability or effectiveness. The preaching/teaching should always be from the true word which is there regardless if you choose to take a bite. The worship likewise should always be reflecting the “greatness” of God and we have the ability to participate by choice. I believe the buffet of churches available has caused us to pick and choose the (good and the bad) in our opinions allowing that guy with the pointed red tail and pitchfork to creep in and use this to his advantage.
I stopped reading after about comment 10 (I’m non-confrontational). But I can really see both sides – that, and I saw what you were doing from the beginning. We really need to stop and ask ourselves on a daily basis – “Why do we do what we do?” And to remember that “WORSHIP” isn’t just something that happens on Sunday morning (or evening or Saturday evening…whenever there is a corporate gathering of the church) it can be something continual when our focus is on the One worthy of our worship. The other question is “Who are we doing this for?” Is it for the people in the audience, is it for us personally or is it for God?
How about this.
In his book UnChristian, Dave Kinnaman makes a good point. “Whether we agree with the foundations of someone’s feelings or perceptions of something, they still exist, and if we DO disagree, then we must fight the roots that their feelings stem from.”
As much as as a worship leader I don’t like hearing those feelings, for some reason people are feeling this way, and we need to figure out a better way to meet them where they are. Even if is educating them on our roles and how we each should come to meeting the living God through a worshipful life.
my $0.02.
“I see the worship leaders uniting… I see attendees uniting. Able to voice their annoyances…”
Well thank god. So glad i have a forum to voice my annoyances. Not sure what i would do if i couldn’t tell the world how terrible of a job my worship leader is doing. But maybe if for 3 seconds we would stop looking at the man on the stage or at ourselves and we look to the throne of grace and love then suddenly song choice wouldn’t matter, dress code wouldn’t matter, transitions wouldn’t matter… the King is searching hearts for authentic worshipers and i think this post and the last both miss the mark. i don’t care how good the title, “worship leader” has been for you, and i don’t think Jesus does either… HE alone is the leader of worship.
yes, biscuet!
@Biscuet – amazing. Love your heart.
Yea Biscuet. Again. Really easy to spiritualize the obvious.
I say of’course.
Do you honestly think you are not being agreed with here?
Seriously.
But I will take you at your word and assume you think I am all about song choice, dress, and titles.
My heart is for God to unite the Church in worshipping Him without leaving my unbelieving friends behind.
And if my unbelieving friend is not going to come back to church because the worship leader was a tool, then your statement about Jesus not caring about the title “worship leader” is off.
That my friend is called, chaos.
I’m so *not* digging @Biscuet’s comment right now. It is flippant and sarcastic.
As an unbeliever, the “worship portion” of Sunday morning was downright dreadful to me. As you would expect, very few worship songs held any appeal what-so-ever. But even as an unbeliever it was obvious to me that some days the throng of people that surrounded me on all sides was having a unified experience that I can now, as a Christian, really relate to. I didn’t get it back then, but you can witness something without making sense of it.
If you are concerned about the nonbelievers in the congregation, then the things many of the commenters have addressed are infinitely important.
I’m thankful that some of you out there are deliberate about not leaving your unbelieving friends behind. More specifically I’m thankful for the worship leaders that did the best they could not to leave *me* behind, before I believed.
peace|dewde
http://dewde.com
i forgot to check back to the comments… i didn’t expect to create such a stir… let me reply here…
@dewde: sarcastic? yes, in the beginning. flippant? no, i thought long and hard about whether to write anything at all. I have experience and credibility in creating engaging worship environments, but i’ve also traveled the world enough to know that worship happens when God shows up, not when the right song is sung or prayer prayed or video used or whatever.
@Los: i didn’t judge your heart, bro. And my comment wasn’t about Jesus not liking worship leaders or even that title… it was about the way you presented yourself as one of the elite. (and i just laughed at the thought of worship leaders somehow being elite).
@Jesse: Thanks.
@Judifree.com: I love yours.
Elite?
You must be a RS newbie.
Welcome to the home of the ragamuffins where the only thing we are elite at is sinning and sucking.
Go back through some of my life.
You will see that I claim to be no such thing.
Alas this proves the point of my 9 am post.
We think we know each other so well through 15″ of LCD.
Reading my comment again, I won;t delete it, but I have gotten a bit riled up for no real reason.
Sorry about that.
I suck at not sucking.
Love this place though.
Los
@Los: I’m not sure what it means to be a newbie here. Just like you wouldn’t want to come across the wrong way to a first time visitor to Buckhead, such is the same with RS. But it’s not my first time… been around for a while and commented quite a few times, but that’s another thought for another day…
i’m back and forth to atlanta a lot. Let’s kick our 15″ LCD’s to the curb and get coffee sometime.
Hey Los,
This topic got one of my teams talking tonight. I pointed out some of the comments on your earlier post to the team and we came up with quite a bit of conversation that was really positive. Good job. Thanks.
Los,
You need a thank you for just lifting the lid on this!
This stuff is so real – so raw – so good.
As a former interm worship leader and current praise team member, I agree we need to check ourselves at the door – Worship leaders and Worshipers. Mmmm such good stuff.
I crave for the day when we are all on the same page, worshipping in the hosts before God – until then I will try my best to create that here on earth, however pale and weak it may be in comparison.
Rock on brother!
@Biscuet: Cool man. I stand corrected about the flippant bit. Sorry about that!
Hey! My hicky kid is great! He just freaked out some of the old timers. Just had to clarify. I’m no different from him- except I concealed my hickies. I hope you or anyone else did not take that the wrong way. I was just trying to bring something funny to the table. Love.
I REALLY appreciate all the comments that have been said about us “worship leaders”. It has honestly kept me VERY humble and caused me to take a deep look into what I really am doing on this earth.
Los hit it dead on in saying that it’s ‘not his job’ to bring people into the presence of the Most High. Whenever I lead worship (I would love to say that its every minute of every day, but who am I kidding?) that is excatly were I am going and you I strongly encourage you to come along. I can’t make you worship. But I can be a leader that stands boldly in the throneroom before God Almighty. My job is to lead the way and simply be a tool for worshippers to use in order to experience true worship through music. This is my purpose, and this is why I was created.
Sorry if this is a little off topic? I still need more coffee…