Living in the Tension

Finally, brothers and sisters,

whatever is true,

whatever is honorable,

whatever is just,

whatever is pure,

whatever is pleasing,

whatever is commendable,

if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise,

think about these things.

Philippians 4:8

Dear Friends,

Have you ever thought about our worship service as a performance? I know that when I was taking preaching in seminary and they started talking about preaching as performance I really wanted to argue against it. By calling it a performance it seemed like it suggested that it was just for show and not real or authentic. The word performance itself means, “The act of carrying out or accomplishing something, typically a task or duty.” If we stick with that definition, then my reflection/sermon IS a performance. So also are the songs the Music Team performs… Along with the drama the children put on last Sunday.

The reason I’m dwelling on this is because my whole pastoral ministry I have lived in the tension of how to perform worship well. Words like professionalism, excellence, and quality immediately want to enter the conversation. I suspect that you have all been in worship services where the quality of the music was exceptional… where everything was done to perfection… where no mistakes were made, everything was well-organized, and everything was top quality.

I suspect that you have also been in worship experiences where things were not so perfect… where it seemed ad hoc, singers and instruments were off-key, what was spoken was not polished… and, yet, worship happened.

In terms of planning and organizing worship, it often seems to come down to this bottom line for me:

1)      Either we restrict participation to people who can do things well or

2)      we allow anyone who is willing to participate in leading.

The benefit of #1 is a more professional-looking worship. The negative is that participation is restricted to a few.

The benefit of #2 is that everyone feels that they have the opportunity and ability to participate. The negative is that the final performance may be less than ideal!

My own journey with worship leadership (or leadership in general) began in high school. I was pretty much scared to death to do ANYTHING in front of people out of fear of failure. The problem is that my youth group mentor, Rose, kept seeing the possibility in me. She kept pushing me to try things and—no matter how well I did—she affirmed my trying and kept encouraging me. Because of her persistence, I discovered and developed abilities I had no idea that I had!

Now, as a pastor, I try to live in the both/and of #1 and #2. How do we have people participate in worship that already have demonstrated gifts AND create plenty of space for anyone who wants to contribute and develop their own gifts?

Last Sunday, Brielle stepped up and carried the whole Paul drama almost by herself! Kaila said YES to directing the children even though she had never done that before. At the beginning of summer, the members of Council said YES to making the announcements and picking up other worship leadership roles.

One way of summarizing this is to name what it means for us to have an excellent worship service… Could we say that an excellent worship is one where we utilize, discover, and encourage the gifts and participation of members of the congregation while proclaiming the Word and administering the sacraments?

What do think?

Pastor Phil