How To Balance Great Performance AND Congregational Singing in Worship

[This post is part of a series on Leading Your Team & Congregation Through Worship Tensions. Check out the rest here.]

[This guest post is by Chris Vacher of chrisfromcanada.com]

If you’ve served in worship ministry for longer than one Sunday, you’ll recognize that tension is part of the game.

David has done a great job of outlining some of these tensions and giving a really healthy perspective in this series. For some of you, these tensions will not apply. For others of you, you are feeling like the focus of your role is about making sure some of these tensions don’t become disagreements.

I want to take a couple of minutes and give you some of my perspective on this tension between worship ministry focused on congregational singing and worship ministry focused on great performance.

Is Congregational Singing Important?

Scripturally, singing is given priority throughout both the Old & New Testaments. There is something unique and significant about the people of God singing when they are gathered together.

Is Performance Important?

Yes, in the sense that God calls us as leaders to do things in such a way that gives Him honor and glory. When our “work” is done well – playing the right chords, working through song transitions, singing in a way that encourages others to sing – it should be and can be done in a way that gives God more glory, more honor and actually points away from us, our talents, our abilities.

It’s important that we have a good understanding of the correct place for those two priorities – congregational singing and great performance. Let me give you three quick points that may help you and your worship team discuss the tension present here.

1. It’s not about you

If you are making Sunday morning about the new riff you’ve been working on, if you’re excited about showing off your new pedal, if you’re most looking forward to wearing that new outfit on the platform – it’s about you.

Worship is always about Jesus and His glory, beginning, middle and end. If there is any kind of focus given to anything but that (either from the team or from the congregation) you’ve allowed an idol to creep in. So in the tension, make sure your worship is first about Jesus.

2. Worship is a ministry of service, not a ministry of performance.

This is one of the things we talk about often at our church with people who serve on our worship teams. We have been given subtle hints that leading people on Sunday morning is based on the performance of the leader and the band.

Actually our main role as worship leaders is to serve the congregation – we are encouraging and facilitating an opportunity for the congregation to be engaged in worship. The congregation is not there to observe our epic devotion and how serious WE ARE about our worship. They are there to express their love, commitment, praise, adoration for God because of what HE has done, not what we have done in leading them to that place.

3. Performance is okay

We love to play the false humility card and may even get a little indignant when we hear “Wow, great worship this morning!”

Our first reaction is either “You’re right – it was!” or “No, no, no. The worship is about Jesus and His glory, not anything that I have done.” You can probably hear yourself thinking or saying both of those things! I’ve learned that the best thing to do right then is a simple “Thank you.”

Someone has taken the time and the effort to find you and compliment you (and your team) on giving them that opportunity to engage in those moments of worship. If they are going out of their way to show their appreciation to you and your team, thank them and then pass that appreciation on to the rest of the people that were leading that day. It will be an encouragement to them, as well.

Obviously the pendulum can swing too far in either direction.

We can easily get caught in making the priority and focus of Sunday morning anything but Jesus. My guess is that most of us are living in the tension of wanting people to sing more and sing louder, wanting our performance to improve and our desire to see Jesus giving more glory and honor.

Keep going. Keep exploring that tension with your pastor, your worship team, your church. And in the midst of your exploring and in the midst of the tension and in the midst of your performing, keep the focus on Jesus.

Question: How do you balance the tension between great performance and congregational singing? You can leave a comment by clicking here.