One of the things that can keep a congregation from worshiping God is being distracted by unprepared musicians or teachers. What are some things that keep us from getting more skillful at our instrument or voice technique?
- Lack of desire to get better. This can come from thinking that you’re already good enough or it can come from believing that it doesn’t matter to do things with skill and that “God accepts us just the way we are.” While that is true, it is a Biblical concept to play with skill and also a Biblical concept to do things to the best of our abilities, doing everything we do for the Glory of Jesus. There is always room for improvement and it is so important that we are life long learners. If you are struggling with a lack of desire to get better, you might want to take a listen to this great message from Ken Boer and Pat Sczebel.
- Not practicing. So many worship team members think that it’s okay to just show up for rehearsal without preparation and then show up for the service without practicing. Why do we expect the pastor to spend literally hours upon hours preparing for the message but we’re fine with the musicians putting in only practice with the team but not any personal preparation? Not only does practicing make you a better player or singer, it’s makes you less of a distraction during a meeting because you are confident at what you’re doing and can look like you’re enjoying yourself and worshiping God instead of being buried in the music.
- Not listening to a variety of styles and genres, or just plain not listening to anything. It is so important that we constantly listen to music for inspiration and examples. Listen to new songs, listen to old songs, listen to rock songs, listen to jazz songs, listen to chant, listen to everything you can listen to (as long as it does not focus your mind away from God with its message.) Pick out your specific instrument or listen closely to how the vocals blend.
- Along with that, we limit our skill by declaring that we only like a particular style of worship. It is just as dangerous to proclaim that we can only worship “contemporary” music as well as proclaiming that we can only worship with hymns. Take in both and take in a lot of both.
Can you think of any more skill 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.
There are many things that hinder us from worshiping God, but sometimes we don’t even know what they are or what to do about them. For me, for a long time, it was a double life of saying and teaching one thing but living another, struggling with a particular sin. I still fight this battle often, but God has given me great resources to help. So what are some things that keep us from worshiping Him?
- First, unbelief. It is impossible to worship God if we don’t believe in Him. Shannon from 4whatitsworth has a great article about this.
- Second, a lack of understanding of who God is. Either we don’t know Him at all, or we’ve been taught incorrect things about Him. Solution: Get to know Him by reading and meditating on His Word daily, listening to messages and reading books on theology, and spending time with Him in prayer.
- Unconfessed sin. Once we get to know God we know that He hates sin. If we don’t confess our sin to Him and to others, it is very, very difficult to worship God rightly.
- Pet sin. Sure, we confess it, but we keep on coming back to it and justifying it. God says through the prophet Isaiah, and again as Jesus quoted this passage, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 15:8, Mark 7:6). This was a tough one for me for a long time, and I still battle with it, but as I mentioned, God has brought me a long ways and I’m so thankful for His correction and His grace!
- “I can’t worship when…” Perhaps you think you can’t worship God when a particular worship leader is leading or a particular song that you don’t like is sung. Or you think you can’t worship God when a particular song you like isn’t sung. This is a dangerous trap to fall into and it shows more about the attitude of your heart than your ability to worship. I struggled with this one for a long time as well until God has recently convicted me of this attitude and is helping me grow tremendously in this area.
I’m sure there are many other personal worship lids that we’ve dealt with. Care to share any and how God has perhaps freed you from them? Or maybe your struggling with how to break free. Leave a comment and we’ll help each other out.
For the rest of this week, I want to look at what keeps us from reaching the next level in any aspect of worshiping God - what lids keep us stuck in the box we’re in instead of letting us break out and move forward. Today, our pastor and I are meeting to talk about the lids that are currently at our church and what we can do to break out of them. I’m looking forward to the discussion. But here, we’ll look at these things tomorrow through Friday:
- Personal Lids - what keeps you from worshiping God?
- Corporate Lids - what keeps your congregation from worshiping God?
- Skill Lids - what keeps you and/or your congregation from moving to a higher level of quality and excellence in your musical and/or technical skills?
Have any lids you can already think of?
