Greetings from beautiful western Ky!

“Excellence in Worship”, is this a worthy goal to pursue at your church? What “fruit” are you seeking from “Excellence in Worship”?

Just wondering how this phrase strikes you?

have a great day!

Keith

“Excellence in worship” would be about getting every member to put more into it—the guy in the back row that can’t wait until it is over, the mother with 3 young children that won’t sit still, the parent concerned about their kids, the senior worried about life, etc.  Excellence in worship is about being able to get those folks to focus on a awesome God that is there, and cares.

hoot,

thanks for the post! i loved your first line. i would be thrilled to be a part of most any worship service that could draw everyone into the worship.

thanks again,

keith

“Excellence in worship” would be about getting EVERY MEMBER to put more into it”

well since this topic has drawn little interest i will conclude with these final thoughts. in theory “Excellence in Worship” may actually translate into alienation of more people than it actually involves in the worship service at a church. our goal to be “Excellent” may be our recurring human flaw of trying to make everyone happy by supposedly giving them , the church, less to complain about. therefore we select those who we precieve to be excellent at “Leading Worship”, which is a very small select group, to lead us to “Excellence in worship”, while the vast majority of the church body just sits back and watches(and in my humble opinion atrophy spiritually). as i am sure you can tell i am big on getting new people, new faces, new talents, younger people involved in leading worship, which by the way i consider “mentoring” in some of it’s finest glory. the problem is that most all the different catagories i listed are “inexperienced” and therefore lack “excellence” in their skills. so again, they are left out of the leadership opportunities in the name of “excelence in worship”. an oxymoron of sorts compared to hoots initial quote i used to begin this post.

so as spiritual leaders let us not forget that “mentoring” the “inexperienced” of God’s kingdom is one of our greatest responsibilities. therefore i agree with hoot that “excellence in worship” should equal “involvment of the body” in that worship.

thanks for allowing my thoughts!

Keith

Lynn jumping in here:

Seems when the phrase ‘excellence in worship’ pops up, conversation turns mostly toward church assemblies and how to make them engaging to people.

Don’t misunderstand me here.  I think it is a sin to bore people with the gospel and the church.  And am all for ‘engaging assemblies.‘  I believe something special should happen when Christians assemble. 

That said, however:
  1.  Is worship only about what happens on a special day and in a   special building ?

  2.  How do we ‘worship with excellence’ during those other six days and outside church walls?

  3.  Might ‘the audince’ actually be God is the ‘audience’ before whom all Christians are ‘performers?‘  And if so, what does He consider ‘excellence in worship?‘  What bores Him? 

  4.  Might ‘excellent worship’ be more acturately measured - at least in part - by the way we worshipers treat people daily because we are ‘paying attention to God’ all week long?

Lets hear from the rest of you out there.

An elder friend and I were talking about this subject the other day, and he made the simple, but profound, statement “I wish we had another word.“  Obviously, worship takes place when God’s people assemble; but, again, just as obviously, worship is what our daily life is.  Personally, I tend to believe that our corporate worship is more praise (our reaction to what God has done), and our daily life is worship (our reaction to the presence of God).

thanks for the replies! i’ll chime back in.

i am neither an elder nor a minister, i am merely a voice from the pews. i am also the father of two son’s and a nephew that have grown up attending my present church. before i go one word further let me say that I LOVE MY CHURCH, THE PEOPLE OF MY CHURCH. I LOVE MY SHEPHERDS AND MY MINISTER! none of that is in question. i am not mad, disgruntled or upset about anything or at any one, so please don’t read my words thru those glasses.

i grew up in a church of about 80-100 and presently my church is about 225-250. as a young man we were encouraged to “step up” for the Lord and lead in many ways in our public worships as well as within our youth activities. i remember standing by my father’s side as he led the singing and eventually i was leading singing. i have been at my present church for aprox 20 yrs and when i first came here i saw a similar attitude of encouraging the young people to step up and lead, and many did. as we transitioned away from a more tradtional, stamps/baxter from the songbook, format to a more progressive, sing off the wall via powerpoint, i have observed a very disturbing trend. our young people are left sitting in the pews without much encouragment to “step up” and lead. my understanding of this is because we are trying to move toward “Excellence in our worship”. ironically our transition to more “freedom” and less “judgment” in our church has reduced the number of people that actually lead our worship! ironic isn’t it, that some are judged unworthy to lead in the worship in the name of “excellence”. please don’t get me wrong, the folks that do lead do an excellent job, but i actually miss having some young man start a song so high that we all wonder if the ladies can actually carry us thru the chorus.

now for my final concern, at my church it is very obvious that the young people are disconnected from our worship services. at any time during any of our worship services you can look at our youth group and 2/3’s of them will not be singing a word and in my opinion they are approaching prayer and the sermons with the same lack of zeal. as a parent and a brother in Christ it appears our search for “Excellence” is leaving casualities in it’s wake and that has me very concerned. we won’t know if my hypothisis is valid until they are adults, but i do know that i hear all to often that we are losing our young people right after they graduate high school. so i ask again, do we involve them enough to feel a sense of ownership/leadership in their own church? if we don’t then we may be contributing to them feeling useless and un-needed or even unwanted. people need a sense of accomplishment, especially young people. so i believe “excellence” in a sacrifice comes from the “attitude” it is offerd with and not from the “quality” of the offering.

thanks for allowing me to ask the question!

keith

Just the other day I was sitting at the back of a church bus with some 8th graders.  The question of worship came up, they all said they loved to sing and worship God but just not at church on sunday morning. 

This statement caught me by surprised until I realized something.  I don’t really enjoy sining at church on sunday morning either.

I have grown up in the church all my life.  I know the songs.  I know the meaning of the words and desperately grasp to sing his praises, only to me the way we sing in church never seems to match what I feel God deserves. 

I truly feel that younger generations are looking around asking the same questions.  To me teenagers they rather sing for an hour straight loosing their voices. 

I also agree with Lynn, Worship is about a daily life that starts when you leave church…not when you walk in and sit down sunday morning.

Thanks MrBradon, Keith, Hoot and Topper for helpful comments.  They seem smack-on to me.

Let me take a shot at summarizing what I am hearing - and then throw in a comment or two:
SUMMARY:
1.  Worship is a life offered to God, not just the gathering on Sunday mornings.

2.  Everything that we offer to the Almighty God whom we respect and adore (including sunday morning stuff) calls for excellence.  Carelessly planned assemblies may not honor God on the one hand or help the worshippers praise Him on the other. Nor will self-serving lives.

3.  “Slick and exciting” on sunday mornings may be more about us than about God.  But on the other hand: worship is most authentic when offered in the ‘heart language’ of the worshipper.  Plus it is a sin to bore people by careless planning - be it sermons or services.

COMMENTS:
Who do we think we are?  WHO DO WE THINK GOD IS?  When we barge into His Holy and Loving presence - demanding that things “be to our liking or we can’t authenticly worship” - is that ‘excellence in worship?‘(Gotta have my kind of music.  My kind of preaching. The room temperature I like. Some times even indirectly implying that the worship of my brothers and sisters is not authentic unless they express their feelings about God as if they were emotionally ‘wired up’ the same way I am? Complaining that “I’m not being fed.  I am not GETTING ANYTHING OUT OF THE WORSHIP! 

Two huge ‘excellence in worship’ Questions come to mind:

  a) What is God getting out of my worship? Does God feel loved and adored by the way I worship him? (is He getting my best attempt to honor Him - my excellence - no matter what is going on around me?)

  b) What are those around me getting out of my worship? (Does the way I worship help others offer Him their best - their excellence - in worship?)  Maybe I should re-visit Hebrews 10:25 on my way to church?

Ooops.  I got a bit preachy there.  Pardon me.  It was mostly my own self-examination.

Keep the cards n’ letters rolling in.

Lynn

well, i spend a day on the tractor and this place comes alive! EXCELLENT!(no pun intended)

first, let me say THANKS to all that have shared a comment!

second, let me point out that i was not concerned with “approval” of our worship. please read carefully, i am concerned with the “invlovment of christains” in our worship, specifically the youth and newcomers to Christ. i do not care if we sing “off the screen with powerpoint” or from the “songbooks”, i don’t even care if we close our mouths and “sign” the words! i am sure God will understand our intent and be glorified by it!

let me use this analogy, at least at my church (and i precieve brotherhood wide in urban churches) we have this new tradition of “excellence = experienced” when it comes to taking part in the Sunday worship services. we have become paranoid that we must do everything as perfectly as possible or someone will complain (not God by the way). so we do not involve as many people in leading worship as we used to as a brotherhood.(at least at my church) we are also leaning toward a new “tradition” in our churches, that being professional worship leaders. in many instances a paid full time position that precludes the need to “train up new leaders”. at my church we even had the “worship leader” lead the prayers as well as lead the singing all in the interest of time effeciency! how do you like that one? now you ask what do i not like about this type worship? easy for me to answer, i think this type approach will lead to a slow death for the church of tomorrow! as our young people begin to figure out that we don’t want them and their peers to lead they will also lose the desire to follow. it is the classic, “if i never get in the ballgame then why am i even on the team” thought process. we have developed the attitude that God can’t appreciate and value a tee-ball game. if He/we can’t watch the big leagues play then it is just not worth watching. yet every Saturday morning here in Paducah Ky there will be more people crowded around our local tee-ball field than you will find at any varsity home baseball game all year! why? because people are very tolerant of people they love! in the case of tee-ball that is usually parents and grandparents. we don’t even keep score and yet everyone has a blast watching and ENCOURAGING the little guys! they LOVE TO HELP THEM LEARN AND GROW! how have we lost that same attitude in our churches? we are becoming way to worried about “professionalism” in our worship and far to unconcerned with “training up a child in the way he should go” and encouraging/teaching them to be the leaders of God tomorrow!

so again, please note that i am not concerned with what i like or don’t like! i am concerned with the fact that we are doing away with “little league” all together!

i welcome your responses!

Keith

Hello all,

God deserves excellence in all we do - espescially in our attempts to lead others into worship.
Also, God gives the body of Christ a variety of gifts.  Some have a gift of preaching. Some of leading worship. (David trained special worship leaders in advance of the Temple)  And of course many other gifts. However, ‘excellence’ requires not just giftedness , but traininin/mentoring in the use of those gifts as well. So part of excellence in worship is to be led by people who have that gift - and are trained to use it well. 

(Of course, the same is true of any spiritual gift: serving the poor, managing a company, teaching school, giving health care, painting pictures, acting, farming—or use any of our gifts to the excellence level in service to God calls for training.) 

So, of course training young people who have ‘worship leading gifts’  is part of the role of good shepherding and mentoring.

But - let me be direct - the serious and inceredibly difficult and important challenge of leading the body of Christ to the throne of God in a worship assembly is hardly ‘little league.‘  (For example: after a life-time in the pulpit, I still feel overwhelmed by the enormity and complexity of leading the church to encounter God through preaching)

There are other more appropriate venues in which train/Mentor/prepare young men and women for leading worship—outside of the keenly important critical weekly gathering of the whole church.  (examples: classes, retreats, youth groups, mid-week gatherings, etc. etc.)

Let me recommend two books here:  WORSHIP EVANGELISM, by Sally Morganthaller and IN SEARCH OF WONDER: a Theology of worship for today’s church, with essays by several Christian leaders.  (click on E-store)

LA

QUOTE: “So, of course training young people who have ‘worship leading gifts’ is part of the role of good shepherding and mentoring.“

lynn,

i couldn’t agree more with this statment. i am also in agreement with your suggestion that we use all venues to help young people “test the waters of leadership” via their youth group activities ect. but NOTHING replaces live “game action”! even tonight the green bay packers are playing the bengals in a pre-season game. two new quarterbacks are being trained by the packers. more than once the announcers have said “nothing is better than a full speed game action to hone their skills. that is all i am saying about the leaders of tomorrow!

my reference to “little league” was simply trying to make the point that the fans (people in the pews) enjoy that level of effort as much as any baseball they will view in their lives. actually at my dad’s house tonight he kept flipping the channels between the packers game and the little league world series. he would make comments about how amazing these kids were to watch! i believe churches, even huge churches, have the same sense of amazement when they see God’s spirit at work in the lives of young people and new christains when they step up to lead!

QUOTE: But - let me be direct - the serious and inceredibly difficult and important challenge of leading the body of Christ to the throne of God in a worship assembly is hardly ‘little league.’ (For example: after a life-time in the pulpit, I still feel overwhelmed by the enormity and complexity of leading the church to encounter God through preaching)

with all the respect that i can express, let me say that i totally disagree with your thought in this paragraph. in fact it is statments like these that may scare young people away from ever trying to stand before a church to lead. i just don’t see this type thinking expressed in the word to describe a ministers role and i don’t even hear the term “worship leader” mentioned. and forgive my simple thinking but i think Jesus came to do away with temple worship and it’s exclusive worship leaders!(aren’t you glad you didn’t have me as a student!) i still think that instead of earthquakes or mighty winds God still just works thru simple gentle whispers. i do believe we have blown this whole worship thing way out of proportion with all the “professionalism” we have attached to it. we are taking ourselve way to seriously about worship. remember that God sees and hears us as little children. he even told us not to forbid little children for such is the kingdom of heaven, that’s us! all we have to do to enter the “throne room of God” is to whisper His name and it doesn’t matter whether we do that from the pulpit or the back row.

finally, i realize that you can’t take one small church as a study model for an entire brotherhood, but at my home church we were taught from generation to generation that “whenever God needs someone to stand up and speak for Him, be prepared!“ sounds like good advice for someone like Paul to give to a young man like Timothy, “preach the word! be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke and exort with all longsuffering and doctrine! that is what was taught to all of us and i believed it! still do! i never thought that was a call to professional ministry, but i did believe and still beleive that it is a call for me to always be ready to “speak for God”! and to this day whenever i visit my home church they will offer to let me speak or teach. and why do they do that? because they are still teaching me to “speak for God”. i can name several who have gone on from that small country church to preach for the Lord, most notably would be Bro Harold Hazilip and he’s not even the best speaker of the bunch! it is thru this type of upbringing that a rednecked country boy from a church of 75 learns that God will be with him whether he is speaking to a class of 5 people or to a church of thousands. trust me, i would not mind preaching at Oak Hills sunday morning and i am just a dentist. that desire is not just a gift i have but a training i was given in my youth! if not for the training and the opportnity at an early age then the gift may have never matured. 

so admittedly i may be coming at this from a predejuced background or viewpoint, but it is not a selfserving view. i am not seeking to “have my way” in worship. i am simply asking you and the many other ministers here on this board to realize that God can raise up worship leaders from the stones in our parking lots and from within our youth groups as well! but if the existing pulpit ministers never take the lead in mentoring these young people while they are young and impressionable then we older mature christains become “ostacles in God’s way” instead of mentors in God’s hands!

i would like to see EVERY CHURCH commit to encouraging their young people, high school and college age, to lead the entire sunday morning worship at least twice each year. the church as a whole would love it and the young people would be encouraged and grow from it! and most importantly, God would be glorified by it, from generation to generation!

lynn, thanks again for your comments and again you have my profound respect! we just may differ slightly on this topic.

Keith

Hello gang,

Sorry am so late in posting again.  Got side-tracked by a little detached retina issue last week.  Doing great now.

First, let me thank Keith for reminding us that:
God can raise up whatever he needs - from stone. 

There is a tendency to put too much emphasis on the church assemblies.  Obviously following Jesus has a whole lot more to it than our little gatherings on the week ends. 

There are some real hazards in developing ‘religious professionalism’ with its potential for ‘personality cults’ and clergy/laity distinctions.  Well said Keith.  My apologies if I appeared to equate ‘excellence’ with this kind of ‘professionalism.’

Amen Keith.  And thanks.

Comment: If worship is a spectator sport, (still an uncomfortable metaphor for me) then is not God the ‘fan?’  The ‘audience?’  If so, are not leaders the ‘coaches’ who do all they can to encourage excellence in the way our hearts ‘performer’  before Him? 

Second,  our vision for Swap Shop is the sharing – swapping – of methods, resources, questions, experiences, models on a more practical level.  So gang – let’s keep those kinds of things rolling in. 

However, Keith’s insightful thinking has introduced a number of important philosophical/theological questions that call for the kind of extended exploration than would not be appropriate in the Swap Shop.  (

So, with your permission Keith, may I shift our inter-mural theological dialogue to a more appropriate alternative venue than Swap Shop?

But for Swap Shop: Any one out there have a fresh idea about something that works where you are?  Or some challenge for which you seek fresh ideas or coaching?

Have a great week one and all.
Lynn

Lynn,

permission granted!

i want to close with a few clarifications:

1. i am not talking about “having it my way in worship”.
2. i am simply suggesting “occasional” involvment of youth and new christains(who might be 40 yrs old, yet inexperienced) in leading during our worship services.
3. making sure that these people are “MENTORED” by older more mature christains before they “step up to lead for God”.
4. i am not an advocate that worship is a 24/7 experience. “faith” is 24/7, worship is more intentional and seperate. not enough time to discuss that one here!

yes, God is the “main veiwing audience” but even He willed that the church also be “the audience”. it is thru the church viewing and participating in the worship that we are edified and we exhort one another. if we were not to observe and learn from one another in worship then we could all just stay home and worship alone and it would be just as good.

finally, i will leave sports as my examples. let’s try “Americain Idol” as our example. why is idol so wildly popular? these are not the best performers that our country has to offer. non has ever won a grammy. none is a “star”, so why are they so watched by the americain viewing audience? i say “involvment”, “participation” and “a sense of wonder” in the abilities of others by the viewing audience! sometimes even these talented people “mess up” in one of their performances, yet the viewing audience rallies around them with their voting. they want to see them succeed and grow. america loves to support a hero in the making, we love to “participate” in encouraging others. that is exactly what every church could benefit from by establishing organized MENTORING of leaders, young and old. but in that mentoring the entire church must welcome these newcomers to the front and encourage them whether they do great or they fall flat on their face. that is what “family” is all about! when the minister and the worship leader meet and plan behind closed doors and never “involve” the church in the “wonder” of worship, it distances the church from being able to encourage and exhort.

i will now leave this topic. i always appreciate comments!

thanks

Keith

This is my first post so bear with me.  I am a young preacher with only 6 years experience who is preaching in a small church with no elders and minimal leadership. However, I am amazed how this small church can step out in faith and do great things.  For example with an average attendance between 40-50 they paid for 40 kids in the community to go to camp, handed out school supplies for 75 kids, and feeds and ministers to 30 children on Wednesday nights.  This is all done by donations and not the church budget.  By the look of things we are a thriving and reaching many.  However, our Sunday morning worship is not.  Whenever we feel like we have freedom or permission to think outside the box if you will we do great, but so far we are unwilling to touch the “sacredness” of Sunday worship. 
  So our success in the week is starting to make us ask why we don’t see it on Sunday morning.  We work togeher six days of the week in the Kingdom, but we seem to worship together alone or sit in the pews with others by ourselves on Sundays.  We embrace the Choas during the week, but are afraid to lose the order on Sunday.  To make a long story short we are just beginning to ask the question about excellence in worship and to be honest it is a bit scary.

Hi Newbie! Great post.  What your gang is doing looks like ‘worship’– the Romans chapter 12 kind of worship: “bodies as living sacrifices – spiritual worship.  But what a challenge: bright young spirits stifled by dated assemblies!.

Suggestions:

1.  Slower is faster:  Your youth are building community respect for your church – and respect for the youth within the church.  Long term, this could help move toward more meaningful assemblies.

2.  Immediately: carefully tweak traditional things in small but meaningful ways that improve without polarizing

3.  Be thoughtful:  The ‘Sparkling and New’ isn’t always better.  Change only what really helps – not just for change sake.

4.  Educate: take leaders to experience fresh things: Visit another church or even a worship conference – like The Zoe Conference http://www.thezoeconference.org  or Stream in the Desert http://www.hallelmusic.org.

5.  Be careful:  the most common blunder is when leaders blind-side the church with their hottest new innovation, without warning – on a Sunday morning! (Surprise at the week’s most emotionally loaded time, and most sacred place is recipe for disaster.)

6.  Experiment: try new things in safe places and small ways. Youth gatherings, retreats, special events.  Then maybe Wednesday or Sunday evening - before moving it front and center on Sunday.

7.  Read: For more of my thoughts see two books:
-  Navigating the Winds of Change.  (Alert: the change management principles in it still fit.  Some of the specific changes suggested are dated.) 
-  In Search of Wonder - essays by respected Bible teachers.

Above all, build love, respect and trust between the generations through joint experiences:  events, projects, programs. Maybe a joint mission trip.  Or let the high-school group throw a banquet for the senior citizens– where the youth actually prepare food and ‘wait tables’ for those older.  For after-dinner speeches have the youth ask seniors, “Stand up and tell us what it was like to do ‘X’ when you were our age.” 
Lynn