When you hear the word performance as it relates to your worship team, does it make you cringe? Or does it excite you?
In more conversations than I can count, I’ve heard performance thrown around as a dirty word.
This is not a performance. This is worship.”
I get where these comments come from. Matter of fact, I’ve said them myself. What I want to guard against is demonizing performance. If you play music in your local church, there’s no need to avoid the word performance or think of it as something less than true worship.
Performance and worship don’t need to be mutually exclusive.
But I can understand both sides. Performance, when used poorly, is not of service to the Church.
In church circles, we tend to view performance as:
- Self-centeredness
- Showing off
- Making it all about the music
- Being a rockstar
But performance in the truest sense, is professionalism. Think about a true performer – they take what they do very seriously. A performer on Broadway wants to do their best in order to create an incredible, memorable experience for the consumer.
But that is also where performance becomes a problem. Let’s define:
The Problem
The problem with our performance is when we are simply creating memorable experiences for consumers. This is actually counterintuitive to the mission and CHURCH that Jesus died for.
Are we fostering an audience of consumers or a CHURCH of worshipers? There is a massive difference.
Are we using the stage as a spotlight for our own glory? Are we raising up fans for our music or a bride with eyes only for Jesus?
Moreso than manufacturing an experience for people, we want to create context for Heaven to heal hearts. A place where they can awaken to God’s ever-present nearness.
The Need
But performance isn’t entirely a dirty word. Oftentimes our lack of performance is an excuse for laziness. Sure, we want everything to be “about God” and “for an audience of One”, but our lack of preparation and performance quality has become a distraction.
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, & shout for joy. For the Word of the Lord is true; He is faithful in all He does.”
When you think of someone who is true and faithful, do you want to be around that person? Do you trust that person? Absolutely. In an earthly sense, that person is trustworthy and professional.
As a musician in the church, I want to reflect that attitude. I want to be faithful. Faithful in my preparation. Faithful in my performance. Faithful in my worship. Faithful in my compassion for people. Faithful in my serving.
The prayerful, well thought out planning on Monday morning and the painstaking attention to detail of performance techniques can mean the difference between a worship experience that draws attention to yourself or draws attention to the grand story of God.
So what’s the answer? The answer is to be aware of the pitfalls. Beware when your performing slips into a template you execute for your own attention.
Do you struggle with this? How do you communicate this with your team?
Let’s talk about it in the comments. You can leave a comment by clicking here.
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
I have only person who sings with me, so it is just the two of us. She has taken voice lessons and has sung all her life. This is my background too, except the voice lessons. When Jesus took hold of my life, I fought and still do, the performance mentality. We used to not make a point to pray beforehand, which then came out as clanging symbols and empty words. We now pray ahead of time, to prepare our hearts, yield to His work through us. Is there something else we can do. I will be sharing this post with her as well.
Performance is not a dirty word for those who play, I will add the word sing, music in their local church who are prepared with the proper attitude of heart and perspective of mind.
Allow me to explain….
If those who see their performance as being “self-centeredness, showing off, making it all about the music” and “being a rock star” then yes, performance is a dirty word. With this attitude of heart and perspective of mind they are, in essence, missing the point and purpose of what serving in a worship band or on a worship team is truly all about.
To understand this service it’s best to first define not only the word performance but also the word worship because any and all service or performance in a local church in done as worship unto the Lord. Worship is defined as “reverent honor and homage paid (I will add “freely given”) to God”; “adoring reverence or regard.” Performance is defined as “the act of performing”. To perform is “to render (music), as by playing or singing”; “to perform music.”
Those who have gained this as their understanding of performance and worship along with the proper attitude of heart and perspective of mind, who sing on a worship team or play a musical instrument in a worship band in their local church, are essentially ministering, serving, performing musically (through their playing or vocal ability) as an act of adoration, honor and reverence to the Lord always exercised with what you have called professionalism; “But performance in the truest sense, is professionalism.” So, let’s now define professionalism or being a professional.
A professional is “a person who is expert at his or her work.” An expert is defined as “a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field.” So, those who play a musical instrument or sing in their local church should be experts when ministering, serving, performing…which is Biblical.
Of the tribe of Levi, who had 3 sons –Gershon, Kohath and Merari, musicians (and singers) were set aside ministering, serving, performing in the house of God inside the Tabernacle and later inside the Temple. 1 Chronicles 15: 16, 17, 19; 16:41; 25:1; 2 Chronicles 20:21; 25:18; 29:25; Nehemiah 7:1. They were to be taught and be teachable; trained, studied, equipped and practiced in their instrument or vocal ability from a very young age until the age of 25 years old.
1 Chronicles 25:6a All these men were under the supervision of their father for the music of the temple of the Lord, with cymbals, lyres and harps, for the ministry at the house of God.
1 Chronicles 25:7 Along with their relatives—all of them trained and skilled in music for the Lord…
At the age of 25 they were considered to be expert (professional) singers and musicians who would begin their ministering, servicing, performing in the house of God which is directly related to your point of being skillful; “Psalm 33:3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, & shout for joy. For the Word of the lord is true; he is faithful in all He does.”
So, being an expert, a professional is really about being prepared! Those who play and sing music in their local church can be younger than 25 but should be prepared – trained, knowledgeable, studied, equipped and practiced in their musical instrument and vocal ability.
Not only were the Levitical musicians and singers skillful they were also faithful.
1 Chronicles 6:32; 16:37; 2 Chronicles 7:6; 8:14; 30:15; Nehemiah 12:45. They “waited on their offices”; waited at every gate that they might not depart from their service (performance). They were faithful to the task that was given to them. When they were not ministering, serving, performing in the Tabernacle or the Temple, they sought the Lord preparing for their ministry.
In conclusion. The answer to this question is also… performance is not a dirty word for those musicians and singers who have the proper attitude of heart and perspective of mind while ministering, serving, performing music in their local church which is evidanced by them being professional, an expert; a musician and singer who is trained, knowledgeable, studied, equipped and practiced in their musical instrument and vocal ability as they worship the Lord and help to lead others in worship to the Lord.
Like the Levites, these are the ones who display faithfulness. Those, whom as you have said, are to be faithful “in preparation, performance, worship, compassion, serving” which is a challenge to everyone, regardless of age, singing on a worship team or playing a musical instrument in a worship band in their local church.
Under this description BARELY ANYONE would qualify to play music in church! I have a hard enough time finding a warm body that is faithful and available to serve. Being prepared is one thing, being put to a Levitical standard is another! Thank God New Testemant worship is totally different.
So true! For me, this highlights a big problem in church today. We treat it like the old covenant, where the paid staff and clergy are the Levites and the laity are the other tribes.
And that is exactly was Jesus overturned.
Any ideas on how to change this mindset?
As a professional musician who joined the church later, it is the professionalism in the skill for this that the church lacks. for we are to do everything to the best of our ability as a word says, skillful… so performance is not a dirty word in relate to professionalism and being good at our position in the worship. as well as Ministry delivery. We perform for God as a unit and as Leaders to the people to Rejoice to God
Transparent. That’s what I want the worship team to be. Transparent. Like viewing an beautiful sunset through a large plate glass window. The window is there to focus us on beauty beyond the window. But it should be nearly invisible, and should not add or take away anything from the scene beyond. So too are we. We focus the congregation on God, and we are part of the congregation of God. But we should NOT want them to really see us. WE help THEM sing. And WE share with them the words of the songwriter who was inspired by God to write. But IT IS NOT ABOUT US. And if we don’t ADD to the experience, we should not be there.
In and of itself, performance is not a dirty word. I think it has a negative connotation due to an association to acting, i.e. The actor gave a great performance. I do think that that can very easily hit the nail on the head for a lot of people. I believe one of the biggest lies people believe is that as long as they ACT right, what they actually do or think doesn’t really matter.
On the other hand, as has been previously expressed, a performance is merely a presentation of skill or talent. If we do that as a part of worship, then we are demonstrating a willingness to present the best of what we have to offer to God. That is called leading. Then, if we offer our greatest expression of adoration for God by way of that presentation, and others discover that they are able to express their own adoration in the same way, we have led them in worship.
And that just so happens to be my goal in life. It’s a matter of integrity that motivates me to be sure that I’m doing it all for the right reasons.
From your perspective, where do we bring our unprofessional self? The part of us that can’t stand failure and does everything possible to hide the fact we don’t know what we’re doing?
Well, we allow that part of us that is fearful of failure to be crucified with Jesus. We pray and put it at the feet of God. We wrestle against it’s influence and effect of making us want to fake it.
The other side of it would to take steps to prepare ourselves as much as we are able for the task at hand. Practice, practice, practice. Do we tell ourselves, or complain that we don’t have time to practice? Might we be able identify some moments when we could be practicing but choose to do something else? I personally struggle with playing video games too much. When I look back honestly, those moments when I’ve felt the most stress because of not being prepared come on the heels of having spent too much time playing some game on my phone or xbox. So during the next week, I’ll make an attempt to exercise self control and choose instead to practice instead of playing.
There is also the realization that the folks sitting in the congregation don’t hear near as much as we do on stage, or as much of what we hear or see of our own playing. There are quite a few times I’ll miss a chord change sometimes, later when I apologize about it the response I get is, “oh, I didn’t notice.” Will there be people who do notice, sure. Will I be a little more diligent when I practice to pay better attention to the chord sheet, oh yeah. So I take my acumen and awareness to critique my execution of the song, and use it to try to improve what I have done in the past. I also allow myself a bit of grace and mercy because I recognize that the congregation isn’t near as tuned into what I’m doing as I am.
Consider this… who is we want them focusing on during worship? There’s an easy church answer there right? Perhaps it’s a bit of conceit to think they are paying such close attention to what I’m doing to catch every single mistake I make. Maybe, just maybe, I’m not that important. Admittedly, while playing the intro alone during “Spirit of the Living God” yesterday I flubbed a chord fingering… yup, no way that wasn’t noticed. Those moments definitely happen. The blessing is that there was also the entire rest of the song for them to forget about it.
If I’ve portrayed myself as a virtuoso, I’ve already lied. But if I bring my honest best, practiced and prepared offering of service and offer it while I lead, I believe that effort will be blessed by God. If there are many many blatant mistakes that disrupted the team and really disrupted the flow of the music or the set, maybe I should ask to step off the team for a bit while I try to remedy my insufficient skill. Maybe, I need to inspect how many other responsibilities I have and which should really be taking priority over others.
Bottom line, you ask where we bring our unprofessional self? We bring it with us, humbly and honestly with our integrity intact. We tell the enemy to shutup with his lies and accusations. We inspect our own motivations for doing what we do. maybe ask for someone else’s, a trusted friend or leader, what our motivations seem to be. If our heart is in the right place, so will our own worship and our leading of worship.
I have read the comments, the great insight and scriptures that has been shared. It has brought me into right perspective. I especially enjoy the comment about being transparent. I have much to learn…
Thanks for writing this, David. I found your article from churchleaders.com.
I was very involved in music ministry from my elementary school days up into my 30s. It’s been 4 years since I’ve participated in church and I don’t see that changing in the foreseeable future.
For me, I see the entire church experience as one giant performance, music and sermon included. I remember sitting with the senior pastor, trying to plan how to best evoke joyous emotion from the congregation. We cut people that enjoyed singing on stage simply because they weren’t at the skill level our worship director and pastor wanted. In short we acted like the hypocrites Jesus chastised.
Now I’m outside the institution of church and questioning if Jesus really is the son of God. My worship bands are Limp Bizkit and Bring Me The Horizon because at least they are honest about the human condition.
I dunno, man. Do you really think Jesus called us to a performance when we gather? Or did he call us to transparency and authenticity?
To clarify, I think expressing ourselves through our God-given talents to sing God’s Praises is worship. The word “performance” doesn’t address why we’re ” doing it, so no, performance isn’t bad. It Ned’s an adverb to further define it before we know.” worshipful perfotmance” is good. “self-centered perfomance” is not.
I deal with another dimension of it. In worship, it is our job to lead congregational singing. So it’s not a worship team performing at all. It’s a worship team singing with the rest of the worship congregation. We provide the accompaniment for them. So ours should not be a performance at all. We and the rest of the congregation are all in this together.
So, I see performance as a concert, as in “you are the audience and we the performers”. In worship, it’s ALL of us worshipping God together. In one voice.
David,
You remember being in Chorale, and Larry Bach always pointing out to churches we went to that there was always the temptation to view those on stage as the performers and the themselves in the congregation as the audience. We were in Tuxedos and dresses, and were singing songs that they didn’t know. If anything would suggest performance, that would be it. But, Larry always exhorted the congregation to take the words, even silently, and make them their own, and offer them up to the true audience of one, Jesus Christ.
Psalm 33:3, God does call for the music to be done skillfully. The training of the musical Levites was rigorous. This isn’t man made-up. This is the inspired word of God. When in specific service to the Lord, you are to bring your gift to the best of your ability.
When looking at the spiritual gifts in the New Testament, music isn’t listed, but things like giving and encouraging are. Does this mean that someone who doesn’t have the gift of giving shouldn’t give to those in need? Of course not. Does that mean that someone who doesn’t have the gift of encouragement shouldn’t try to comfort a brother or sister in hard times? Not at all. So, does that mean that people who don’t have a musical gift shouldn’t ever sing or play? Of course they can! But, I think sometimes it may be best served to sing in with the rest of the congregation, until you have developed some training and skill.
This is touchy, I understand. What does a small church with 75 people do, when the only person who even wants to sing is semi tone deaf? The same thing I said before – you offer your best! But if you have a place where there are seriously trained musicians, who have spent thousands of dollars to become proficient at what they do, they’re who you use, to prominently offer their gifts to God.
We don’t accept “good-natured” people to do other jobs for us, because they really like to do it, or tried something similar. We don’t want the guy who want’s to just try it out to perform our surgery. We don’t trust the person who likes to make pancakes for her husband in the morning bake our wedding cake for our wedding, cause she likes cooking. You get my point. You may like doing this or that on the side. You may wanna try this. But are you skilled? Have you been trained? Why would we just expect people who wanna be on the worship team to be on it, cause they like singing?
So if we use the best we have, all of this has to be tempered by discerning to the best of our ability the “fruits” of someone’s life. Our culture really esteems artists, and puts them on a pedestal. That’s not necessarily a musician’s or actor’s fault. But the artist has to be mindful to keep himself humble.
And the rest of the congregation has a responsibility. It’s their responsibility to worship, regardless of who’s on stage, how many lights are flashing, or out of tune the singers may be.
Sorry if this comment was too disjointed. Those are just a few of my thoughts.