Congregational Worship Lids
Yesterday we talked about what in our own personal lives can hinder us from worshiping God. What kinds of things hinder the corporate congregation from worshiping God?
- First, if there are personal lids going on in the people of the congregation, it’s very difficult to worship corportately as a congregation. The personal lids need to come off first. How?
- By teaching: a lack of teaching on worship is a big lid to corporate worship. Especially if there are people within a congregation who don’t spend the time studying on their own, if there is no teaching on worship, it’s hard to know how to worship! We need to be continually bringing teaching on important subjects like this before the people.
- Lack of teaching on the centrality of Jesus Christ and the Cross. Many churches today have moved away from the authority and Lordship of Jesus and the importance of the Cross. As Luther said, it is impossible to worship God without Jesus.
- Lack of preparation and confidence. While God is the one who we ultimately boast in, there is a reason for Psalm 33:3 (play skillfully.) If the worship team is full of bad, poorly-prepared musicians, the people can get easily distracted. So, too, if the teaching is brought by a poorly-prepared teacher, the congregation can easily be distracted, or worse yet, taught incorrect things.
- Too much preparation and confidence. If there is a slick, perfected production but no humility and no attitude of engaging with God, but rather one of making the service the best production it can be, it’s difficult to worship. I am a firm believer in well-executed, well-produced services, but we can definitely be TOO excellent.
I’m sure there are many more. It is so important for us as worship leaders and teachers to make sure we do all we can to remove any hindrance to worship God from our congregation.
Hey Ryan! Great series of posts. On your last bullet I can understand where you are coming from but TOO excellent might not be the best way to describe. I don’t think we can be too excellent for our Lord. I think that we can be so produced that we are putting on a show and not engaging people in worship.
Comment by Ernie Stevenson — March 21, 2008 @ 7:29 am
Thanks for the comment, Ernie!
While I agree with you to a point, I really do think that we can be too excellent.
We need to leave some room for inadequacy so that people who might not feel “up to standard” don’t feel even less “up to standard” than they did before they came in.
Making sure we leave some breathing room for error and while still being prepared and produced well is very good for keeping us humble.
And the great thing is that when we do make a mistake, God still perfects that offering through Jesus Christ!
Comment by Ryan — March 21, 2008 @ 8:23 am