It seems that a lot of people today think that being a good worship leader means that you can magically usher in God's presence somehow, that you can make Him show up as if you could have some kind of control over what God does. But this is certainly not the case. God is already in any given worship service regardless of what the worship leader does or doesn't do. In fact He is everywhere.
Jeremiah 23:24 says,
"Who can hide in secret places
so that I cannot see them?”
declares the LORD.
“Do not I fill heaven and earth?”
declares the LORD.
If God fills the heavens and earth, then He's going to be there in our church services. Kauflin does a good job of bringing into perspective what it is that the worship leaders actually do. "Because we lose perspective so easily, God needs to become bigger in our eyes. He never changes in size--it just seems that way...Our great privilege as worship leaders is to help people see through the eyes of faith how great God has actually revealed himself to be. He doesn't change. We do." (p. 62) As we lead worship we aren't trying to usher God's presence into the building, or change God in anyway. He is there and He is mind blowingly amazing! Our job is to open our own eyes and help the congregation to open their eyes to see Him for who He really is and respond to Him appropriately by praising Him and magnifying Him. We (humans in general) have a tendency to forget very easily and so we have to continually redirect ourselves toward God and remember how great He really is so that we can worship Him appropriately.
I liked how Kauflin closed this chapter, it brings us right back to worshiping God with both knowledge and love--both must be present in our worship. "Magnifying God's greatness, then, involves proclamation and passion. Our responsibility as worship leaders is to make sure that in both ways--biblical truth and strong affections--people have every opportunity to magnify and encounter our great and awesome God." (p. 67)
What did God show you in this chapter?
I keep forgetting how big our God is and this chapter reminded of that. He is bigger than all my little worries in this life.
ReplyDeleteAlso it was my impression that if we are truly focused on Him then it's ok to have a little emotion come through in our presentations as it's that relationship thing and He wants to see where are hearts are.
I know I'm a week behind, but I just read chapter 8. As I read, I kept thinking that I have some things backward. I love it, when during worship I emotionally connect with with the Lord through song. But really, shouldn't my singing be a natural outgrowth of the love that I have in my heart for God,a love so great that I simply cannot keep it in, a love so overwhelming that mere words are inadequate to describe it?
ReplyDeleteI had a flash of a childhood experience that I would like to share briefly.
At about the age of 6 or 7, a cousin and I were playing at my grandparents house, doing something we weren't supposed to be doing, someplace we shouldn't have been, and broke something. We decided that the right thing to do was confess, so we went and got our grandmother and brought her to where we had been, showed her the mess we had made, and threw ourselves on her mercy. She hugged us, forgave us, and thanked us for telling her about it. She said that she would have grandpa come out and fix it tomorrow. I don't remember the infraction, but I knew at the time that we deserved certain punishment! When grandma walked away, my cousin and I were so thankful, so relieved,so amazed at the grace extended to us that we spontaneously burst into song about how wonderful our grandmother was (taking turns making up verses). Somehow we sensed that just talking about it wasn't enough to express our love.
I think that's how praise and worship music is...an overflow of our hearts in response to God's indescribable love!