Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Presentational - Participational part 2

Thanks for sticking with me until I got this posting up.

Josh, I hear you man. I understand what you're saying about the cheerleader stuff. But here's another angle on that. Thinking that you have to be a cheerleader when you're leading worship is wrong. Thinking that you have to get the people all hyped up is not what worship is all about. There's nothing wrong with being energetic and celebrative in worship. In fact some churches could probably use a little more of both of those. Light a little fire underneath them I say. But to say that worship is happening just because those two emotions may be there isn't true either. Or that worship happened just because they were present is also wrong. The 'cheerleader' approach is definitely the wrong approach.

And I do like your, "Not being paid to be a Worship Leader doesn't stop me from being a Lead Worshiper." So true. You should look up Greg Allen's story. The really short version: While he was the worship leader at South East Christian Church he ran into some really bad vocal problems. He couldn't lead worship - He couldn't even talk for close to a year, yet he was still a Lead Worshipper. And I don't mean just getting paid as their worship leader, I mean he was still leading worship, as a Lead Worshipper even though he couldn't talk or sing.

Great question at the end of your comment. Yeah, what would happen if we practiced so much that we were able to give up the concentrating on playing all the right notes or singing all the right words and just solely focused on our personal participation as we lead worship?! We probably would have the best worship that we have ever had! Maybe even a II Chronicles 5: 11-15 experience would happen. I'm no theologian and I'm sure you won't read this in any commentaries, but here's my take on that passage, especially verse 15. God was so pleased that yes, He came down and filled the temple. But my take on this is that He was so pleased with the worship and all that the people did for and in the Temple that He actually worshipped with them. The Creator worshipping with the created. Now don't take this really far past just these few words, because how could God who is the only one deserving of our worship actually worship Himself?

I'm sure I'll get some feed back on that last thought. But that's my take on it. At least it's not a matter of salvation!


Ethan, Yes, I would certainly recommend Ken's book "Created To Worship" College Press, to anyone who is looking to help themselves improve of being a lead worshipper. It's a good book for anyone who is either a volunteer, part time or even full time worship leader. And I really like chapter 2. There are some valuable questions that need to be answered by the leaders of a church to help them move beyond where they are now and into a more focused idea of what worship should look like for them. And no I'm not getting kick-back for pushing the book. :)

My take on Anthropocentric in the context of worship would be anything that helps people grow closer to God. That could be worship that is directed towards God, and even more so, worship that helps them become a closer community or even help them understand that worship needs to happen outside of the building, in the community around them. I guess it would be anything that would help them be God to the people around them. So I guess that could be either presentational or participational.

My take on Theocentric in the context of worship would be anything that helps the worshipper direct his worship to God. Again that could be either presentational or participational. but with this one I would hesitate to say that presentational alone can get your there. If that's all that is there it probably has become entertainment and that probably won't bring people into the presence of God.

With that said, I know that there are some Arts out there, that as presentational events someone might feel that they are closer to God. We are coming into the season where the Messiah an oratorio by George Fredric Handel will be sung a lot. And the last piece of these Christmas concerts is usually the choral piece The Hallelujah Chorus. (Which by the way is really the end of the Easter section, not the Christmas section). I'm sure there will be people out there that after hearing it sung will have what they would call a God experience. However, I would ask them what have they gained, what have they learned, what have they discovered in this work, that has brought them closer to God? And not for just this experience, but also how will it help them continue to walk closer to the Lord. Obviously I can't speak for them, nor can I say that none of those things might not happen to them. But being in community, reading of Scripture, the prayers of the faithful, singing the hymns of the saints of the past and the new spiritual songs of the contemporary psalmist will have a better chance of doing that. And yes again these can be both presentational and participational.

I think I said this in my first post about this, but I do believe that a little of both is needed in our corporate worship experience. But we need to vigilant about making sure that God is worshipped, and that we as worshippers grow and experience God in a new way, both in corporate worship and in our private worship.
John

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Deleted posting

I have to apologize. Josh, I had a response to your comment, and you too, Ethan. I was writing it in Word and then Iwas going to send it off in this posting. I saved it to my desk top. I just cleaned my desk top of all items that were not short-cuts to programs. It's gone.
I will be going back and rereading your comments and then send a new posting out.
I wanted to get this out to you both.
John

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Presentational - Participational

Wow, it's been over a month, sorry 'bout that.
I do apologize for that. I have been trying to get a video to work for you all to see. But that never did happen. I spent weeks with it! Also for the past several weeks we have had some very severe server problems. It’s been up and down (mostly down) to the dismay of our IT person.

With the transition of going from one location to two worship services to two locations and four services, I have been noticing that we have also made a change in the way we are planning our worship services. The second site, Cook Auditorium is a much smaller venue. We have decided that we would also pare down the number of people we wanted to use in this location. That was relatively easy to so. We went to 3 vocalists, keyboard, bass, acoustic guitar and percussion/drums. This past Sunday, I lead and played keys. We had two other vocalists, a bass player and a percussion/drummer. One of our vocalists also played acoustic guitar. So in reality all we had on stage was 5 people. We pared down. As I said easy to do.
But I have noticed something else happening also. In our planning for that venue we were more intent in adding items that would make the congregation participate more. In the NLC our worship services tended to be more presentational. While we were very much aware of this, we always tried to keep that to a minimum. We know that in our worship services we have Believers; we have guests and we have those who have been coming awhile and are about to make some kind of decision about their life and commitment.
I really would like to talk about two issues. Is your worship service more presentational or more participational? I’m not sure that the word participational exists or not. But it works fine for me. If I can get my congregation to participate then I can answer two felt needs. I can help the believer come closer to God in his or her own worship that day and also help that person who is ready to make a decision be responsive to the working of the Holy Spirit. So with being participational I can answer two of three important issues. Ken Read in his book “Created To Worship”, calls this “Our Trilemma”. He asks the questions, “Should the church be Theocentric or Anthropocentric? Should the church gather together for the singular purpose of worshipping God (Theocentric)? Should the church be a place where the needs of the people are met (Anthropocentric)?” But Ken, that’s only two. We do find out that he adds the evangelistic thrust to these two to make it three-fold. And these are three issues or concerns that every church needs to come to grips with with as it plans and implements it’s worship services. And even beyond it’s worship services.
Of course the balance between all of these is going to be very different from church to church and cultural to cultural. And even event to event. If I’m planning a worship service for a Christian Convention at a hotel I may not be too worried about meeting the needs of a guest. More than likely I’m going to plan a very Theocentric worship service.
And this isn’t really about which one is more important than the other. I guess the question that first has to be asked is what is the focus or purpose of your church? More specifically what do you want your worship service (when ever it is) to accomplish? If the church already has a mission statement, does your worship service fit that statement? If your church is moving in a certain direction is your worship service moving along with it?
You may find that you will have to stress one of these three points more than the other two. You may want to try and balance all three equally. The more I read Paul’s writings to the Church in Corinth, he wasn’t asking if there were any non-believers present he pretty much assumed that there were. In Act’s when the church first started meeting, they met in homes and one can assume it was pretty much a private affair for the most part. And they also met in the temple courts (publicly) and I’m sure that there were non-believers present at that time.
So where does all this leave us? I’m sure there are camps of advocates on each side of this tri-sided quandary. Me? I’m kind of a middle-man person. I want to make sure that what we do on the weekend moves our church in the direction that the leaders have given us. And therefore I would have to agree with this vision in order for me to do my job as best I can. Can I do this to the best of my ability by just keep on doing what I am doing? What can change to help do it even better? What can I make fresh again what can I do to renew something that has worked in the past but has gotten a little stale?
I’m not sure that this posting is finished, but I wanted to get this out and see if anyone wants to respond in any way? How about it? Am I missing something that I need to do? I know I don’t have all the answers. I’m still looking and growing and learning.
John