Have you ever thought about what makes a worship service powerful?
Is there a certain form to guarantee a great service every time we lead?
On the one hand, I don’t think that’s a very productive question. We don’t want to pursue “feelings-based” worship.
Just because worship “felt” good doesn’t mean it was.
We’ve been talking about the highest compliment we can receive as worship leaders and how to not miss the main point of worship. It only makes sense to tackle this question of what makes our worship services powerful?
No matter what type of leadership role you fulfill in your local church, whether worship leader, pastor, or small group leader, it’s important that you know these 3 keys to a powerful worship experience.
3 Keys to A Powerful Worship Service
1. WORD
The most powerful worship is in response to God’s Word connecting with the hearts of God’s people.
Truth inspires worship in the hearts of worshipers.
We sing a powerful lyric, hear a powerful word, listen as God’s Word is declared, and respond with heartfelt adoration.
Worship divorced from God’s word is mere emotion.
To be honest, it’s rather easy to manufacture feelings based worship – get the right lighting scheme, the most airy keyboard pad, massive cymbal swells, and you’re on your way.
But true worshipers worship the Father in Spirit and TRUTH. It’s a response to objective truth, NOT subjective feeling.
Worship leader, get to know God’s Word.
What’s the takeaway?
- Fill your worship services with the declared Word of God
- Sing songs about who God is, not just about how passionate we are
- Respond to the Word in spontaneous worship
2. SPIRIT
This is where the supernatural comes in.
It’s where even our spirit-inspired planning takes a backseat to what the Holy Spirit is doing in the moment. I absolutely love this feeling.
It’s like a mighty, rushing wind sweeps through the room and no one really knows what to do but to stand (or fall) in complete and utter adoration.
The Holy Spirit is always THE Worship Leader.
He’s leading us to glorify Jesus, revealing Jesus to our hearts, and performing miracles in our midst.
I just try not to get in the way.
What’s the takeaway?
- Really trust the Spirit’s ability to lead. He is moving.
- Don’t rush – enjoy and respond to what the Spirit is doing in the moment
- Cry out as a team for the moving of the Holy Spirit
3. HUNGER
What do you do when you’re hungry?
If you’re like me, nothing can stand in the way between you and a Chipotle burrito. You push past all odds and make it happen.
You see, worship services rise and fall on how hungry we are for Jesus.
We have a responsibility to prepare ourselves for encountering God in worship.
What if we didn’t need to be hyped up into a worship frenzy every service? What if we came prepared? The Spirit of God responds to hungry hearts.
He wants to fill you. He wants to pour out His Spirit.
What’s the takeaway?
- Come to worship services prepared to encounter God. It’s your responsibility, not Joe Worship Leader.
- Don’t rely on songs in your worship. Worship through every song, between every song, and after service is over.
- Be desperate
That’s power. When the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the Hunger of His people collide, there’s no telling what could happen.
Question: Do you agree? What do you think is essential to a powerful worship experience? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Great post as usual, David. I think it boils down to following a Biblical precedent for congregational meetings found in Colossians 3.
“Let the message of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; singing with gratitude in your hearts.” (paraphrased)
Keep it God- and Gospel-centered and it will be powerful. Then we can be assured it was because of the Holy Spirit’s moving and not because we manipulated the crowd with emotion.
I wrote a full post on this subject yesterday. If you click on my name above, the link will take you there.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16 ESV)
I believe this is a biblical precedent for powerful times of corporate worship.
Keep it God- and Gospel-centered and you can be assured that it will be powerful because of the Holy Spirit and not because we manipulated the crowd with emotion.
I wrote a full post about this yesterday on my blog: http://www.tobybaxley.com/2011/07/dear-church-part-2-how-to-choose-songs.html
I’d love for you to go comment and link back to your post here.
Great post as usual, David
I’ll check out your post, Toby. Colossians 3:16 is one of my favorite passages. I’ve encouraged my friends before that if the “Word of Christ” doesn’t dwell in you richly, it’s not possible for you to teach and admonish. It’s the Word within that encourages others without.
Excellent point. I’ll use that with my folks sometime. I think my first comment got flagged because I gave the page URL instead of the homepage in the form field.
Oops! sorry for the duplicate post. I didn’t think the first comment posted.
Your first comment ended up in my spam folder. Sorry about that!
Love the thoughts in point #3. I am constantly trying to remind my congregation that they aren’t “exempt” from their responsibility to seek after God and worship Him with all their heart (I don’t usually say it in such plain terms). It’s not my job to “force” them to worship, because what kind of worship is that, truly? It’s only my job to facilitate what they should already feel compelled to do.
Also love the point about God’s Word. Very true.
Jay, what do you say specifically to your congregation? How do you translate that it’s their responsibility to come prepared? I think that would be helpful. Thanks.
This is great stuff, and very simple and core stuff that I think many people miss. I know I sometimes get all too caught up in making sure that the cymbal swell or synth pad is perfect, and although these things are tools to an end, they are not the be-all-end-all. Worship is about God and God alone. Nice post.
I think we’re all guilty, Jarret. You’re not alone!
Great stuff! Thanks for sharing!
First, the key to a good worship service is Soft Pad 2 via the RD7. Second, Chipotle burritos will always stir up an emotional response from people, regardless of the circumstances.
On a more serious note, we have to regularly include the Word within the music part of the worship service. If we just get up there and play our 4 songs and sit down, we definitely missed the point. But if we create some space and give an opportunity to exhort the people through the Word, it can provide more room for the Spirit to move.
Regarding hunger, I asked my congregation a couple weeks ago if they would come on Sundays expecting God to move before they even arrived. Some laughed, some didn’t, and others were offended, but I want to continue to challenge them to hunger after God and let our corporate worship experience be a healthy meal of some good ol’ come-to-Jesus time. I want them to have such an amazing Sunday Jesus-moment that they have to spend time with Him during the week.
I love me some Chipotle.
Amen!
Good stuff, bro. Keep doing what you’re doing. And let’s get some Chipotle soon.
Solid article Dave. Appreciated your pre-qualifier: “We don’t want to pursue “feelings-based” worship.” So true, we don’t want to be so experientially focused that our objective becomes “catch the worship buzz.”
Word + Spirit + Desire = yes & amen.
Do any of your churches use the term “worship experience”? Doesn’t that have strong potential to set us up for “feelings-based worship”?
We use “worship experience” sometimes. You have a good point there.
We use “experience” too, either in the context of “worship experience” or “Sunday experience.” I see what your saying, but I’m not sure there is a better word to describe the goal of our services. We don’t simply want to call it “church” and imply that we just “have” it or “do” it, and our thought process behind using the word experience is based on wanting every attendee to experience Christ in whatever way He reveals himself.
What does your church call it?
We call it an experience too. I have nothing ti do with what is called as I am a leader at a satellite campus of a larger church. My post was more of a “wondering out loud” than an indictment.
Honestly, I don’t know what it should be called. Worship Gathering perhaps? My problem with “experience” is that worship is an offering and a service to God. Anything we experience from it is a by-product. We experience worship as fire falls from heaven to consume our offering, so to speak.
Worship is the act of ascribing worth. The feelings follow the action. I just think that “experience” implies feeling that inspires action, and has the potential to promote the consumption of worship as a commodity.
David, thanks for providing this forum for us to wrestle with these issues. I think this kind of discussion is important to the Church.