Worship Leaders: The Task

Worship Leaders: The Task

Thoughts?  Comments?

Five commenters will be randomly selected at the end of this four day series.  Those selected will receive a copy of Bob's book courtesy of Crossway Books and will be featured on a follow-up post at worship.com.

Comments

[Ryan]

"Pastors are the real worship leaders." We really need to remember this. Our pastors are teaching and equipping people to live lives for Jesus Christ, thus leading people in how to worship with every part of our being.

The only problem with these videos is that Bob is so canned because he's reading from a script! :-) I like his unpolished interviews much better..but I digress :-)

[Emily]

"magnifies the greatness of God in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit..."

"our job is to lead others in saying how great God is."

"We don't want people leaving our meetings saying, 'What a great band!' We want them leaving saying, 'What a great Savior."

These are so true. I have been part of many worship sets that from a musical perspective were a train wreck - sound equipment wasn't working properly, notes were played or sung incorrectly. but thankfully, worship is not limited at times of human weakness. One verse that has often encouraged me during times of singing in the band and collectively leading the church in worship is the verse "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

I'm weak. but my God is powerful and works through those times.

[Josh D]

thanks! I will probably show these to our worship team this coming fall. Bob once again hits it home by saying that it's not about us...I also like the previous comments on how worship teams are expected to "create" the atmosphere of worship these days. It just doesn't work unless everyone is seeking God's presence.

[Joel Lee]

Quoted from Chris Webb's comment:

"[Worship leaders] are ‘rated’ on how they made [the worship experience] happen and words like ‘anointed’ or ‘blessed’ are thrown around with little or no knowledge of what they even mean. They count the tears on people’s faces and say things like ‘I think they really worshipped' when in fact, they have no idea."

Mr. Webb, you hit the nail on the head. Particularly on YouTube, I see a lot of musicians playing covers of Christian songs. When I read the comments, they are full of things like "You are so blessed" and "You should be a worship leader".

Worship leading is to lead others into worshiping God, not about playing music well. Skillful is definitely a part of it, but that's a secondary requirement. I find it almost saddening to see that so many people don't understand that worship leaders have a very difficult task to fulfill.

FIRST, it's about leading a lifestyle of worship that is pleasing to God. THEN, it's about leading others into a lifestyle that is pleasing to God.

[Jason Delgado]

wow, well stated. this is something i would not deny but it is god to hear this well defined. i am excited cause i shared some of these video's with the other music worship leaders at our church and it is booth our hearts, and we see now the importance of being more united with our elders in worship decisions.

Thanks for posting these.

Soli Deo Gloria!

jason d.

[Chris Webb]

Today’s worship leaders are being bent in a way that is not natural. Worship leaders are being told that they are responsible for a variety of things that they have little control over. Such as creating a worship experience. They are persuaded and taught to care about things that have little to do with worship. They are ‘rated’ on how they made that experience happen and words like ‘anointed’ or ‘blessed’ are thrown around with little or no knowledge of what they even mean. They count the tears on people’s faces and say things like ‘I think they really worshipped” when in fact, they have no idea.

I perpetrated these lies, too. I believed them.

Back up a few hundred years, when church music led the parade of awesome music. This is a time where proficient style and biblical content ran neck in neck. Now look back and see how, through the last 100 years, churches became locked in the past, failed to move forward, pushed art to the background and musicians out of the church.

Today modern music is now sitting at the threshold of the church door. It peers into an open room and realizes that the church is void of people capable of welcoming it into the church. The musicians are gone, the music is gone.

This poses a significant problem and our response has been incorrect.

A few churches have succeeded and, with pure motives, have left many other churches salivating for the ‘worship experience’ to happen, weekly, at our churches. And typically, it does not. Typically, the music is comical at best. Typically, the volunteer band is off key and no one, outside that church, would ever spend a second listening to them.

We are taught to ignore their inability to sing or play proficiently just as we ignore the obvious lackings of a 3rd grade play.

And when we cannot be a part of ‘the experience’ because our musicians are, shall we say, less talented than all the other music we have ever bought or heard then we are taught to questions ourselves. Like there is something wrong with us and that is why we could not worship to the ‘noise’ that the pastor calls ‘music’.

My ill attempt to paint the picture of what we have is, hopefully, secondary to the idea of where we are. Worship leaders today are following the wrong leader. Worship leaders all around the country are trying to be Chris Tomlin, David Crowder or Bob Kaufflin. But, sadly, they don’t have the ability or team to musically get there.

It is our truest defeat when we place the music tools above the act. Worship should never be contingent on the tools or people. Rather, our worship response must be on something greater than ourselves.

My point here is that we are teaching people the wrong way to worship. We will do our God and His people a greater service when we teach the concepts of 24/7 worship without the music, tools, buildings, experiences or circumstances.

The people of God are at a grave disadvantage when they need anything other than the knowledge of God to ‘bring them into the presence of God’.

If we are unaware of the presence of God by our surroundings then we are no better than the same people that Jesus criticized for not noticing Him when he walked this earth. How can we ignore, as Christians, the 24/7 presence of our God and then respond accordingly when it is in our face and everywhere we look.

Corporate worship needs a leader who can stand up to the misleading of today’s magazines and videos. It needs someone who is able to ignore the pull of the ‘experience’ and push past the need for music.

Our God has already made the experience and He is the creator. The release of our reliance on other tools will be the beginning of our 24/7 worship of God and our worship will no longer be chained to the experience.

Be aware, I am a huge music fan. I am not a grumpy old traditionalist. I grew up on Van Halen and have matured into John Mayer. I pursue music daily. I like my music loud and real. I like bass that makes your heart skip a beat and I cry at wonderful guitar solos. I’ve played guitar for 30 years and I was a worship leader in a church.

I was standing in the middle of a sea of people with the greatest worship band that I knew in front of me and I felt empty. No response at all from my body. I wanted to leave and I was scared. When the music left me empty and I realized how much I needed it I knew I had to quit cold turkey – like a worship junkie.

Today, I worship at dinner, while driving, at work, while walking my dog or holding my wife. It’s a 24/7 thing. I attribute all of these experiences as the proof of God and I marvel in Him for what he has done. Worshiping this was has never let me down. It’s never been off key, called in sick or was too loud.

I have had several requests to lead worship and I will not do it again that way. I will no longer perpetrate the lie. Instead, I will teach worshipers to rely on God for their experience.

Chris Webb

[phil simpson]

Thanks again, Bob. Very insightful. It's interesting that the approach of many is to come to people with problems and say, "God can help you with that". While that's true, Bob seems to be pointing us to a greater solution: point people to who God is, and what He has done for them in Christ. This will not only diminish the size of the problems, but will glorify God as their vision of Him is elevated closer to its actual height. One approach is primarily man-centered and therapeutic, the other primarily God-centered and focused on the glory of God.

[Richard Owen]

Bob does a great job of pointing out how the NT emphasizes “worship” as all-inclusive (John 4:23-24; Rom. 12:1ff), not so much along the lines of appointed times, places, and practices modeled after OT worship (which foreshadowed rather than defined New Covenant worship), which connects with at least three simple, practical NT elements:

(1) The Lord’s Supper – as the most significant and simplest liturgy (or “work of worship” – a legitimate concept) churches often struggle to cultivate in meaningful ways – leading to responses of praise and singing according to OT Passover custom, Jesus’ practice after the Last Passover, and early church tradition of singing after the Lord’s Supper.

(2) Teaching, admonishing, encouraging one another (Heb. 10:25) - where singing the truth seems to also fit in (Col. 3:16, Eph. 5:19), in addition to preaching and teaching the truth, to make us not merely “feel” something, as Kauflin cautions, but to also “think and do” something.

(3) Serving one another – by first sharing and discovering what’s happening in each other’s lives, leading to prayer and action (a.k.a., bearing one another’s burdens) in practical ways.

As James emphasizes in his epistle (paraphrased): “Don’t ‘worship’ to the neglect of showing your faith by caring for the needs of orphans, widows, and the needy in your midst.”

This leads to John’s question in his first epistle (also paraphrased), “How can we say we love God when we see our brother in need and withhold from him any worldly goods we have to offer?”

When churches get to this point, consistently and in significant measure, then they’re REALLY starting to worship God by biblical definition – following, as Bob reminds us, the greatest commandment (God-ward) and the next one which is so much like it (man-ward).

All of this is so basic, yet we often miss it. We just need to get back to the collective fellowship and worship of Acts 2:42, which is a succinct summary of what is covered in other passages (Rom. 12-14; 1 Cor. 12-14; Eph. 4-5, Col. 3, etc.).

Outreach and evangelism will be the natural outgrowth of folk who are ALREADY engaged and practiced in significant ways in each other’s lives. Churches struggle with “witnessing” to folk outside the church because they are often uninvolved in “witnessing” to God’s glory and meeting men’s needs inside the church. It’s hard to export something which is not indigenous. :o)

[silvervknight]

It's so exciting to magnify Jesus in worship! I love the example I heard from Pastor John Piper: we're not magnifying Jesus as if we're using a magnifying glass to make something small bigger. But we're magnifying Jesus as if we're using a telescope to make something gigantic that seems so small closer in view so we can better appreciate the beauty and glory of His presence.

This video is another reminder that I am not the one stirring the hearts and spirits of men. That is the Spirit's tasks. :D I just need to accurately and clearly present Jesus as He truly is. Then, how can the congregation not burst out in praises for the unique God-man! Hallelujah~

[Joel Lee]

"We don't want people leaving our meetings saying, 'What a great band!' We want them leaving saying, 'What a great Savior.'

Becuase apart from Jesus Christ and His substitutionary death on that cross for our sins, all our worship, all our achievements, all our efforts are unacceptable in the eyes of a holy God."

This hits home. This right here is why I respect Bob so much. His understanding of the role of the worship leader is humbling and his love for exalting God above himself is contagious. It just makes me smile and marvel at the greatness and glory of God.

[Brian Williams]

I've been reading Bob's blog now for a couple of years ever since I attended a Sovereign Grace conference for pastors and worship leaders in Orlando. I pre-ordered his book back in December and received it a couple of weeks ago. I started it this week and I'm blown away at the wisdom in this book! If you don't win it here this week, make sure you purchase it. Every leader should have it. It will encourage you and challenge you to be the leader that God would have you to be.

Great job on these videos!

[David]

It's a great definition of a worship leader's task.

One thing I noticed about his statement is a silence concerning musical worship as an evangelistic tool. Should intelligibility to non-Christians be woven into his definition, or is it right to leave it out?

[Brian]

Thats exactly the point I'm working with myself and the rest of my worship team on. Its not about us, but about Him. I'd rather the congregation walked away from the service not recalling anything particular about the 'technical' side of what we've done, but only realized that they came into the Presence of our Lord.

[Isaac]

This really helps me to appreciate more the task at hand for worship leaders, and the worship leaders I've seen who led worship with skill, and communicating the Word of God. So often it seems it's either/or!

[Brance]

Great definition of a worship leader. And yes, it is the pastors' job as well as the music leader's job. It's the job of the Sunday School leader, the youth leader, every leader in the church, and every Christian in culture.

Magnify God with our lives, with our teaching, with our music, with our work.

"skillfully combining God's Word with music" is a key phrase as well. Much of the music sung in Churches today does not magnify God, because it is not skillful, and it is not Scriptural.

That's what I love about Bob's music, it is Christ centered because it is Scripture soaked. And that leads to worship.

[Sara]

What a wonderful task we have! Yes, and what a wonderful Jesus!!! He is the center of all, and everything was created by Him and for Him. I agree totally with this video and pray everyone of us could lost ourselves in His great Presence, where He is ALL!