Who Are Our Meetings For?

One of my favorite Authors is Tommy Tenney. If you've never read Tenney's The God Chasers or God's Favorite House or Finding Favor With The King I would highly recommend them. (probly in that order) I have to agree with Tommy when he says, Our favorite services and God's favorite services are probly most often completely different. (paraphrased)

How often do we come out of a Sunday church service and say "wow, that was an awesome worship time today" or "man, that was a great service today" and God is saying "Really? I didn't think it was all that great." Our worship team may have hit all the shots we rehearsed and our key changes worked without a train-wreck and the singers really nailed their parts... We may have sung people's favorite songs and executed them perfectly (or close enough that the general public didn't notice anything wrong) We got the goosebumps and walked away feeling good - but did GOD actually receive any glory? Did GOD walk away feeling good? Did He really get the chance to be made to feel welcome in our midst so He could move in and start MOVING-IN us? Did we press in to His presence or mingle around in the outer courts? ...Maybe close enough to feel warm and fuzzy but not any closer where the warmth turns to fire that burns away our flesh. 'Cause to be truly close to God requires death - and who among us likes that? 

Not me. 

But God does.

So what did we really accomplish except maybe fooling ourselves?

When we plan our worship services we must always keep reminding ourselves WHO this is really about. It's not about us. It's not even really about the people in the congregation ultimately; though we are given charge to lead them and help them worship God. But if we lead them into anything other than worship that is ABSOLUTELY GOD CENTERED and focused on truly pleasing Him - than we really haven't helped them anyways. Our job is to know the difference and set the standard; to lead with backbone and clear purpose that may even have to buck the popular norm for the sake of God actually being glorified. 

Hard stuff.

But who said it was easy to LEAD?

Love God. Love People.

I recently attended "The Worship Summit" satellite simulcast led by Integrity Artists like Paul Baloche, Lincoln Brewster, Brian Doerksen & Ross Parsley. In short it was fabulous and I took lots of notes. So if you were there and you see some thoughts here in this blog that sound familiar from time to time you know why! One thing several of them talked about is exactly our theme in church right now:

What's the greatest commandment? In Matthew 22:34-40 Jesus lays it out as simply as possible. Love God. Then love people. That sums it up. This is the basis for all of our worship leading too. Life complicates. But we have to keep coming back to the simple basics as worship leaders. Love God and love His people. 

LOVE GOD

To LEAD worship we have to, ourselves, worship and love God. A leader leads from out-front, modeling the way and calling others to follow. We wade into deep waters and beckon others to join us. We don't stand on the shore and prod others to go swimming while we cheerlead. And all of this service comes because He loved us first in a way we could never repay but spend our lives as if to try.

LOVE PEOPLE

We have the privilege of SERVING God's people by leading them in worship. This is not a power-position but a chance to bless God by blessing those created in His image. We get the opportunity to take people to Jesus - who loves them even more than we ever could. So we make our decisions based not on what strokes our egos and will feel good; but what is best for the people of God. What do they need? What does God want for them? How can we facilitate the meeting of heaven and earth today for sake of God, for the sake of His people, because we love them both?

What are we focused on?

Musical excellence? 

A perfectly programmed production? 

Or blessing God and His people?

One this is for sure: In our churches, we will eventually get what we focus on.