Photo by Terren Hurst on Unsplash
As church production leaders, what’s the difference between a worship set and a rock concert?
Well, one brings glory to God while the other brings glory to man.
Sort of, but that’s not the primary difference. Or at least not the one that I want to talk about. And, honestly, I don’t think Bono would be a good worship leader. But he’s really good at leading U2, and that brings glory to God because God made him to do that.
Well, then—one is holy and the other is secular.
Is plumbing secular or is plumbing holy? I suppose a lazy plumber doesn’t honor the Holy, but just because something isn’t inherently Christian doesn’t make it “unholy.”
Production teams are the burning bush drawing the children of God to holy ground.
Fine, one is godly and the other is humanistic.
This answer works about as well as the one before it: being human isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, Jesus was human, and he was pretty good at it. Sure, some music tips over into being humanistic, raising humanity to a god-like place it wasn’t meant to occupy, but that stuff is pretty obvious when you hear it.
Let’s cut to the chase of what I’d like to talk about—the primary difference is that worship is prayer and rock music is, well… music. Or just artistic expression. It almost never leads people in prayer, but worship music, the kind that we help produce every weekend, is, plain and simply, prayer.
The notion of worship as prayer should be the primary motivator and shaper of everything we do during a worship set.
The light cues need to support prayer. The video wall graphics and backgrounds need to support prayer. The audio mix needs to support prayer. The broadcast direction needs to support prayer. Everything we produce during a worship set should be stewarding a spirit of prayer.
Churches care a lot about attractional ministry, and rightly so. We should be winsome in our speech, our presentation, and our character. But that last part is important and vital to our production leadership, that we work with winsome character. If we think grabbing people’s attention with a wild light show and intense LED wall graphics is enough, we’re barking like a good hound dog should, but we’re barking up the wrong tree. Yes, God grabbed Moses’ attention with a peculiar sight, the burning bush that was not consumed, but God’s purpose wasn’t to simply capture attention; God wanted Moses to come near, and once Moses drew near, a conversation started. Production teams are the burning bush drawing the children of God to holy ground.
If you ever come to a service at LifeMission you’ll probably notice what I noticed on my first Sunday there, and that’s the placement of our altar call. Nearly every Sunday as the worship set closes, Pastor Clint walks up on stage to close the set, and then he immediately takes the room to a salvation call. What we’ve found is that if we properly steward a spirit of prayer during our worship sets, people connect with the Lord better than they do during a sermon, and so their hearts are ready to hear that the kingdom of God is at hand.
Now, I’m not saying you need to do things the LifeMission way; I’m just saying that the spirit of prayer is powerful, and that makes sense because the apostle James told us effective and fervent prayer changes things. But are we leading our worship productions like that’s the truth?
