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“Worship is the story we tell with our lives. Essentially we tell a sentence of that story every single week. The sentence that we tell with our lives is predominantly what happens outside of the sanctuary. If we are telling a God-honoring sentence during the week, our corporate worship will be a powerful exclamation point at the end of that sentence. At times, perhaps our corporate worship is not an exclamation point, because the sentence we told this week was not a very good sentence.”

When I read this quote from Matt Lundgren of Willow Creek I felt a wave of relief and at the same time, humiliation. This graphic definition of worship is comforting to those of us who are forever trying to lead/cajole/herd/encourage/cheerlead/shepherd/drag a congregation full of non-expressive, unengaged individuals into unbridaled personal and corporate worship.

HEY, if they aren't singing at the top of their lungs with their hands raised, eyes closed and tears running down their cheeks... it's NOT OUR FAULT! They've probably just lived a less than "worshipful" life this week. Sure, we still need to give our best gifts to God by preparing and rehearsing well and readying ourselves spiritually. But in the event that a worship song tanks or people spend the first half hour texting their friends - we've got a nice escape clause. (that's the relief part...)

The wave of humilation came when I thought of all the times I personally have failed to enter fully into worship (for crying out loud, I get three solid chances every weekend, plus rehearsals). If I'm not engaged, it's not because the guitar player missed an important lead line or the worship leader messed up a lyric or two, it's because the life I led the past week may not have been so very... worshipful. And I'm supposed to be the worship pastor. Like, I went to SCHOOL for this. (shaking my head)

This thing we do on weekends - it's not a formula, it doesn't rise or fall on a plan, it's not self contained, it's doesn't start and end inside of 60 or 70 minutes. This act we call worship - is actually "life." And I'd rather do it more fully and passionately in the 167 hours I have each week OUTSIDE the doors of the ministry center than in the one hour i spend inside. (OK, for those people scanning for typos - it's actually 3 hours because I attend three services - but you get the point.)

Here's to a life of worship this coming week. See you at the exclamation point.

"pruh-VAH-ka-tiv"

I ran across a couple of really provocative worship blogs lately and thought you'd enjoy reading them too. Don Chapman wrote both and they appear on the Worship Ideas web site.

The first entry is called "Does Great Music = Growth?" It's a great article, and if you like the sample that follows, check out the rest at http://www.worshipideas.com/Does-Music-Equal-Growth.shtml

Don writes: "So just what does music accomplish? It simply sets the tone and flavor of your church. Your music style will attract a certain style of crowd. It's no different from a radio station. Think of the different crowds associated with these music styles: Country. Heavy Metal. Classical. Can you picture what someone looks like who would listen to each style? How about: Cowboy hats. Long hair and tattoos. Suit & tie."

"Different styles attract different looking people, but there's another element to put into the mix - personality types. One personality type revels in the mediocre, the other loves quality. Ministries with a low standard of quality, no matter what the style, will attract people who have a low standard of quality. If the church allows off-pitch people to sing on the praise team, they'll attract people who like to hear off-pitch singing. Believe it or not, there are actually people in this world who thrill to hear off pitch singing on mic. These same people also enjoy karaoke."

"This mindset would prefer to see a bunch of people who wanted to sing in a constant rotation so they can use their "gifts," no matter how bad things sound, rather than see the talented few leading week after week. Call me spiritual or something, but I really don't care who's up there as I go into my own personal world of worship. What gets me out of that world is the jarring effect of hearing someone yelping the wrong notes."

And another entry called "Contemporary is the New Traditional"... here are a few lines. Check out the rest at http://www.worshipideas.com/Does-Music-Equal-Growth.shtml

"....the band of the contemporary church was very good but sounded like they were stuck in 1987. One of the quickest ways to date your sound is to have a guitarist who uses chorusy, reverby effects from 20 years ago. Because of the instrumentation, even the cutting edge songs they were doing sounded dated. Another factor is the worship leader - a rather hip guy in his early 50's. I also got a feeling of that old Willow Creek performance vibe so popular in the 90's. All together, this added up to a service that attracts... people in their forties and fifties.So here's the predicament: take the music up a notch and risk losing people, or stay the same and not attract younger people and families."

there you go... enjoy!