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Once on a vacation, my wife and I became “not so popular” when we informed our three daughters that we would be attending church the next day. As a pastor, I've typically worshipped at a local congregation anytime I'm away from my home church. I can't say that my motives are always pure, [since] occasionally it becomes a covert work operative as I morph into “Secret Shopper Sam.”
After checking the youngest child into one version of Kid Church Disneyland (wish I had that when I was a kid), we made our way to the auditorium. By then, we were a few minutes late, so I was quite impressed when I heard the worship team through the distributed speaker system in the outdoor courtyard. Nice touch, I thought.
We entered the room and made our way to some open seats, not too difficult given it was New Year's Day. I started taking notes. Uhh, not sermon notes, but tech notes. You know, lighting design critique, FOH configuration, stage looks, song lyric projection, SD vs. HD, yada, yada. Don't tell me you don't do the same thing.
Authentic or simply copied?
At one point, my daughter looks over and says, “Do all churches look alike?” Hmm, that was quite revealing. I guess it didn't take an 11 year old much time to notice that it's possible we might not be so creative, but rather good at copying others.
At one point, my daughter looks over and says, “Do all churches look alike?”
Now, lest you think I'm merely pointing a finger at others, it really is an indictment on myself—the one who should have been worshipping instead of critiquing. I know better. But this church really had it together—excellent production values and great sermon, too. The notes I was taking on my iPhone (no, not texting) were a long list of all that they were doing really well. In fact, the list includes many things that my church could improve upon.
I have nothing against learning from others; I do it all the time. In reality, my own creativity is primarily fueled by others' ideas. My exhortation is that we don't lose the identity of our own congregation to become like another. It's really tempting.
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. - Colossians 3:23 NIV
Getting priorities straight
As the pastor of worship and creative arts at my church, I'm entrusted with the service architecture of our weekend worship gatherings, as well as the leadership of the music and technical staff. Regardless of your church's structure, your music and technical teams have obvious interaction, and they play a role in planning the experience people have when they attend our services. We hope they'll be impacted with the message of the Gospel, whether through song, testimony (yes, a really cool life story), sermon, or gathering at the Lord's table; and that people would take much less notice of whether or not we are using new LED moving heads, have Twitter followers, or if the worship leader has cool hair and skinny jeans.
