Wisdom From All Directions
One of the most well-known ancient proverbs from scripture is a push to humility: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
So, in that spirit, I’d love to share wisdom from nearly 25 years of worship leadership—not because I’m incredibly wise, but because God has granted me wise mentors, diverse experiences, brilliant peers, complex contexts, and plenty of failure along the path God laid out in front of me.
I hope this series will serve as an invitation to think well about our gathered worship. Perhaps you can share with your fellow worship planners and leaders, adjusting them for your context or arguing with them altogether. No doubt you’ll have your own nuggets of wisdom to add as well. Please share them with us at Reformed Worship, contact@ReformedWorship.org.
Wall-E World
Pixar has broken a lot of creative rules over the years, to great success. One of the more stunning efforts to go against the grain may be the movie Wall-E, where the titular character—a trash-gathering robot left alone on an abandoned earth—falls in love when another robot is sent back to earth on a scanning mission, and then he pursues his new love across the galaxy. What’s so staggering about this is that Pixar creates a captivating story over the course of an hour and forty minutes without Wall-E saying a word. When words are spoken, they come from the mouths of secondary characters. Wall-E emotes through some beeps and whirs, and struggles to say even his own name and the name of his love (“EVE”). Communication is through show more than tell, and it is frustrating and difficult.
Main characters usually speak. Occasionally that rule is broken. Stories exist with hushed heroes or silent sidekicks, sure. But main characters usually have something to say and are capable of saying it.
Pixar should absolutely be lauded for their work on Wall-E, and there is a lesson for worship leaders in “show don’t tell,” but by contrast with Wall-E, our worship gatherings should be driven by the words of a “main character” who is the Word. Our God has something to say and is capable of saying it.
Blessed Is the Worship Leader Who Lets Scripture Speak
God speaks to us through scripture. The Spirit’s work brings the text to life for us, revealing the Word—Jesus Christ—to us through the written word. Our God is a God who speaks.
This means we as worship leaders have the joy and responsibility of creating a space where God's speech is heard and celebrated, and we can listen and respond appropriately. This leads us to our first worship leader beatitude:
Blessed is the worship leader who lets scripture speak, for their congregation will hear God’s voice.
One of the wisest things we can do as worship leaders is to simply let God speak.
Gathered worship is a dialogue. God, in mercy and grace, initiates our worship, and the exchange begins. Within that dialogue, there’s a place for human words and direction, including the words we’ve received via our historic tradition.
But, wow….sometimes we just love to hear ourselves speak, don’t we?
This is particularly true in the contemporary worship contexts I’ve called home. The value placed on a highly charismatic leader who can articulate and inspire is off the charts in contemporary contexts. It’s seemingly an unwritten part of the job description. Having a great communicator in the role of worship leader or preacher can absolutely be a celebrated gift for a church community, but if we’re celebrating the great communicator more than the greatness of the presence of God in Christ by the Spirit through his Word, then we’re hitting the mute button on the main character.
Saturate the Service with Scripture
Every space within the worship service can be carried by scripture. The call to worship, call to confession, assurance of our pardon, proclamation of the word, the prayer for illumination… there are so many ways God invites us to speak through scripture in these moments and others.
In a few of my previous contexts, the call to worship was simply a welcome: “Good morning, we’re glad you’re here. Let’s stand and sing.” A call to service or discipleship came in the form of opportunities in the nursery. There was no space for confession or assurance, so that wasn’t even considered. The invitation to the table was strictly logistical: “We’re grateful for Jesus’ sacrifice. Here’s how we’re going to do this….” Now, in a contemporary context within the Reformed tradition, I’ve come to love how the scripture doesn’t just fill these gaps but actually inspires each new movement of our time together. (Even as I struggle to lead well in this context, as old habits die hard).
And scripture can guide the way we pray our prayers of the people, the way we greet each other, even the way we laugh together! Imagine God encouraging the family of faith through Proverbs, where wisdom is personified as a woman who is strong, dignified, and laughs about what comes in the future! Perhaps that would be healthy for us to hear from our God.
A worship leader’s words can help give context or give direction as we hear and respond. That’s appropriate for a servant leader in the church, and such words can come out of our humble weakness just as effectively as out of our strength of communication. But our God is a main character who has given us a Word along with a Spirit to understand that Word at work in our midst. What a treasure for that Word to define our time together! Let’s be wise worship leaders and saturate our services with Scripture.