Worship.. It's what we do. It's what we lead people to do with us. Whether that be the pastor leading people through the Word to magnify God, a husband washing his wife in the pure water of the Word so he can present her to God blameless, a father shepherding his family for the glory of God, a mother bringing up her children in the light of God's love, or a worship leader leading people in the praises of God. As Christians worship is engrained into our lives, but it isn't always easy. We are still dealing with our sinful flesh and we wrestle against distractions that sway our paths from seeking God. We can get so caught up in worthless activities and whatnot that we forget God should have preeminence in our lives. I have found this to be so true in music ministry as well: we forget that while leading people into worship we should be worshipping God too.
So to answer the question in the title of this post, "Don't forgot to worship."
Amidst the hustle and bustle of set-up, practice, mixing, and preparing for the worship service we lose our main focus. We get so caught up in the technical that we lose sight of the simple. It doesn't even matter how complex your band or worship set is either. You may be the only person leading and still get caught up daydreaming or focusing so intently on your singing, strumming, or ivory tickling that you lose focus on the wonder of God. You may be leading with a huge band and get distracted just hoping that a musical train wreck doesn't happen on your watch, or you start thinking "Man, we sound good!" Don't forget our purpose is to lead worship. If we aren't worshipping while we are leading, then what purpose do we even serve standing in front of God's people as examples and leaders? I am far from guiltless when it comes to this. Since I see it my own life I want to encourage you to search yourself to see if you have need of improvement in this area too.
As an example of how distracting and hectic music ministry can be, this is how my church and I prepare for worship Sunday morning. The tech/media team needs my setlist and lyric order from me by noon Wednesday so they can begin preparing lyric slides for the people to follow along. This is a great way to prepare, but doesn't give me much time to mull over songs and prepare the setlist as I would want to (I'm kind of a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of worship leader). I usually don't get an outline of the sermon until around this time or later which kind of hangs me in a limbo of sorts picking songs that line up well with the sermon topic, but nevertheless our God still works and uses the setlist chosen (when all else fails for topical songs, pick a bunch of songs that sing of who God is and what He's done). Saturday morning is when when the band gets together to practice. This is when we work on all of the technical aspects and make sure everything works for Sunday. The time needed for practice increases or decreases depending on how many people are in the band that week. Not to mention sometimes we don't get to practice on Saturdays because of other church or school events. Sunday morning is very pressed for time. Half or more of my team also leads worship for the previous service which doesn't leave much time except for a few minutes to quickly set up for the next service and make sure our instruments and microphones are working.
I don't say this to complain about the ministry I serve in, but rather to show that I know things can get a little distracting (and I'm not even the person in charge of our music ministry!). I don't want you to read this thinking "Well this guy just sits there and criticizes everyone and everything..." There are many times where I forget to worship because I'm so focused on making sure I do everything right.
Brothers and sisters, God has given us a ministry that He wants to do big things through, but if we keep allowing ourselves to get distracted from the purpose of our mission, how can we be used by God? If we focus upon the technical aspects rather than worshipping God in spirit and truth, how are we leading by example? If we are focused on how much we want to be liked as musicians or how we want to be the favorite worship leader in the church, how do we expect the people to learn how to worship on their own when all they see is us entertaining them? See the urgency of our purpose as lead worshippers! Hold fast to the purpose of our calling!
Don't forget to worship while leading worship. Otherwise you are just a worship song leader and not a lead worshipper.
Blessings,
Nick
