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Article found on Internet - makes interesting reading
https://worthilymagnify.com/2014/05/19/crash/
Last week I spent a couple of days attending the National Worship Leader Conference,
hosted by Worship Leader Magazine, featuring many well-known speakers and worship
leaders. The conference was held about 15 minutes down the road from me, so it was
an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I’m glad I went.
I met some new people, heard some thought-provoking teaching, enjoyed some good
meals and conversations with worship leader friends, and experienced in-person
some of the modern worship trends that are becoming the norm in evangelicalism.
It was eye-opening in many ways.
Over the last few days I’ve been processing some of what I saw and heard.
Worship Leader Magazine does a fantastic job of putting on a worship conference that
will expose the attendees to a wide variety of resources, techniques, workshops, songs,
new artists, approaches, teachings, and perspectives. I thought of Mark Twain’s famous
quote “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait 5 minutes”. The same
could be said of this conference. It’s an intentionally eclectic mix of different speakers,
teachers, worship leaders, and performers from different traditions, theological convictions,
and worship leading philosophies. You’ll hear and see some stuff you like and agree
with, and then 5 minutes later you’ll hear and see some stuff you don’t agree with at all.
It’s good for worship leaders to experience this kind of wide-exposure from time to time,
and the National Worship Leader Conference certainly provides it. Yet throughout the
conference, at different sessions, with different worship leaders, from different circles,
using different approaches, and leading with different bands, I picked up on a common theme.
It’s been growing over the last few decades. And to be honest, it’s a troubling theme.
And if this current generation of worship leaders doesn’t change this theme, then corporate
worship in evangelicalism really is headed for a major crash.
It’s the theme of performancism. The worship leader as the performer. The congregation
as the audience. The sanctuary as the concert hall. It really is a problem. It really is a thing.
And we really can’t allow it to become the norm.Worship leaders, we must identify and
kill performancism while we can.
It’s not rocket science. Sing songs people know (or can learn easily). Sing them in congregational
keys. Sing and celebrate the power, glory, and salvation of God. Serve your congregation.
Saturate them with the word of God. Get your face off the big screen (here’s why). Use your
original songs in extreme moderation (heres’s why). Err on the side of including as many
people as possible in what’s going on. Keep the lights up. Stop talking so much. Don’t let
loops/lights/visuals become your outlet for creativity at the expense of the centrality of the
gospel. Point to Jesus. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t sing songs with bad lyrics
or weak theology. Tailor your worship leading, and the songs you pick, to include the
largest cross-section of your congregation that you can. Lead pastorally.
I am a worship music nerd. I listen to a lot of it. I follow the recent developments. I know
who’s out there (sort of). I try to keep up (it’s not easy). Even I didn’t know most of the songs
that we were supposed to be singing along to at the conference. I tuned out. I sat down.
I Tweeted. I texted my wife. I gave up.
You’re not reading the ramblings of a curmudgeony guy complaining about all the new-fangled
things the kids are doing these days, with their drums and tom-toms and electric geetars.
You’re reading the heart-cry of a normal guy who’s worried about what worship leaders
are doing to themselves and their congregations. People are tuning out and giving
up and just watching.
This is not a criticism of the National Worship Leader Conference, though I do think they could
make some changes to more intentionally model an approach to worship leading that isn’t so
weighted on the performance side. As I said, the conference exposes us to what’s out there
in the (primarily) evangelical worship world.
It’s what’s out there that’s increasingly a problem.
Worship leaders: step back. Take a deep breath. Think about it. Do we really want to go down
this road? It will result in a crash. Back-up. Recalibrate. Serve your congregations, point them
to Jesus, help them sing along and sing with confidence. Get out the way, for God’s sake.