We live in a day where the excellence of local church worship is at an all time high. There are more original songs, more recordings, and more professionalism than ever before.

We talk enough about excellence here at Beyond Sunday to know there’s nothing wrong with a well planned, well executed worship service.

But oftentimes a passion for excellence can be a disguised as an over-dependence on the epic. We don’t truly believe God is enough so we seek to make “powerful worship” happen in our own strength more often than not.

Have we become so dependent on “powerful worship experiences” that we don’t know how to seek God without them?

• What happens when you’re on your death bed?
• What happens when you’re alone with God on Monday morning?
• What happens when your son or daughter is addicted to heroin?
• What happens when you’re in the darkest night of your soul?

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On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your relationship with your lead pastor?

Or if you’re a lead pastor, is the connection with your worship leader strong?

We all know this is the most important relationship on a worship team, but it’s rare for this partnership to be healthy. At best, they tolerate each other. At worst, it’s an all-out war of misunderstanding.

But it doesn’t have to be. It’s time to be intentional about it.

I’m talking about more than just being a “yes” man. I’d even venture to say your lead pastor is looking for more than just someone to fulfill orders. He wants a partnership. He wants your input. But he also wants you to understand the vision, buy into it, and work it out within your volunteers.

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We talk a lot about passion. Having a passionate worship team. But is that really enough?

I have a feeling it’s not. And I think you might agree.

There’s a few goals that rise above for me:

• Having a fire for Jesus behind & beyond the stage.
• A steady, daily gaze into His Word.
• A heart that trusts His goodness through trials.
• A team that loves the Church, not just their opportunity to play.

I’ll take that any day over a charismatic bass player who has cool hair and good stage presence. Of course, cool hair and good stage presence isn’t the devil. I work on my hair and my stage presence, though some may contest 🙂 These things aren’t mutually exclusive. But it’s important for us to create a culture where a fire of Jesus is cultivated off the stage. We need to do more than just call for energy, stage presence, and leadership of songs.

Because here’s the reality – if you have a person on fire for the glory of God in the secret place, it’s going to show in their leadership on the platform. It will. It might not be mosh pits, backflips, and sprints across the stage, but a fire for His presence will release an authority in worship that is better than just manufactured stage presence.

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Envision it. A team that doesn’t just play music on Sunday, but a family. Not only a family, but a family on a journey together, chasing the heart of God.

Does this describe your team?

If you’re a leader, you feel the pressure. We need to disciple our teams. We need to be spiritual. We have to worship and have deep conversations. But it’s rare for a team to really do this well.

And believe me, I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to choose a book for your team to read together and find that no one reads it. I know what it’s like to have a Bible study and no one engage.

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I can remember seeing Michael Jordan play live like it was yesterday.

For years I had followed his career, watched the games, collected the basketball cards, wore the shoes, and hung the posters on my wall. I was a fan, to say the least.

But something changes when you go from collecting a card to seeing your hero play live basketball in downtown Chicago. The atmosphere was electric and full of expectation and wonder.

Looking back, I’m sure I went a little overboard with Michael Jordan. I was literally obsessed. Every waking moment was spent collecting items, working on my ball handling skills, or thinking about Jordan. While it never progressed to kneeling prostrate before a shrine of MJ in my room and lifting high praise in a monotone chant, it was pretty close.

There’s a lot about this routine that resembles our relationship with Jesus, isn’t there? The live game resembles our corporate gatherings as well. The sad truth? We’ve lost the expectation. We’ve lost a sense of encounter. Our gatherings are devoid of expectation.

Let me site one more example.

It’s obvious that every Steeler fan across the country is upset right now. Sunday’s game was no way to leave the post season after a great regular season and having earning the coveted bye week. But my point isn’t to wallow in sadness.

For a Steeler fan, every game arrives with excitement and expectation. What is going to happen? What crazy catches will Antonio Brown make? How many defenders will Leveon Bell shake? My son and I watch with intensity. We shout, we jump, we sweat, we eat, we dance, we cry. It’s an edge-of-your-seat experience.

I’m not here to shame church-goers into being more like football fans. Nobody wants to see you shirtless with black and gold paint from head to toe. But I am saying that we’ve lost our sense of encounter, wonder, excitement, and expectation in our meetings with God – both personally and corporately.

And if we lose that, we lose everything.

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