After more than a month since retiring from full-time music/worship ministry, and after visiting several different churches, I have some observations to make about worship. My belief that our worship begins and ends with the heart has not changed. The Lord looks at the heart. Our own attitude of heart determines our worship experience; our encounter in His presence.
We've been in every size church and been reminded that the size of the church, the number of people gathered in His name, is not the determining factor in whether I worship or not. It takes only two or three for the promised presence of the Lord.
We've seen different arrangements or orders of worship. Again, my experience of the presence of His presence was not determined by the order of the different elements of worship.
We've heard all different styles of music used in worship expression. The style doesn't get in the way of my worship as long as my heart is tuned for His praise and expecting to meet Him and His manifest presence.
We've encountered every level of ability in those who were called to the leading of worship in all kinds of different churches. Again, ultimately my own heart was the determiner of my experience with God.
So, ultimately, it is about my own heart. Is it sometimes easier in certain circumstances of worship? Sure, according to that which I am most comfortable with. But, is every worship experience supposed to be easy? Maybe not.
In regards to that, I have been puzzled a few times where the worship leadership had not considered who their congregation is. In preparing and going as a missionary to Zimbabwe, Africa many years ago, one of the things we were challenged to do was to study and understand the culture where we were ministering. We could not force our own heart language, both musical and spoken, on the people in another culture and expect them to worship authentically.
And here in our own country, we should not assume that every church is that same generational or sub-cultural make-up. We should not do worship that is the "popular" way of doing worship today, forcing it just because it is the newest or most popular. Nor should we assume that everyone's musical heart language is the same as it was 100 years ago. We should understand who we are ministering to and with, taking that into consideration when we craft worship experiences. That will make our worship experiences much more participative by all and more authentic in given situations. Then we can stretch a bit by introducing either new and/or old to those worship experiences, enhancing and enlarging on that which may be more authentic; creating an environment of meeting needs of all sub-cultures and/or generations. mjm
