Worship, Football and Mr. Sandman

Last week I sat and watched the Bears game in amazement as they took apart a pretty good Atlanta team. Atlanta just beat a pretty good Philadelphia Eagles team although Philly QB Michael "Dog Killer" Vick missed the fourth quarter with a neck injury. So this week I was really looking forward to watching the Bears play New Orleans.

I was leading worship at church and had a meeting following the service. As the meeting kept going longer and longer I was noticing the time was getting closer and closer to kickoff. Finally the meeting was over and we were on our way...oops...have to stop at da Jewels (Chicagoism...it's really Jewel-Osco which is a grocery store) to pick up some tomatoes.

Finally after getting home and preparing lunch I sat down to watch the game. I was just in time to see the Saints kick a field goal. The score was Bears 7 and the Saints 3. Not too bad. Through out the second quarter it was clear that the Bears were having a tough time on both offense and defense.

The offense was struggling except for Matt Forte. That guy is really good. The defense got torched for a long TD pass from Drew Brees to Devery Henderson. The defense held the Saints to a few more field goals and the Bears were able to get one field goal. So going into halftime it was 16 to 10 in favor of the Saints.

Enter Mr. Sandman...

Leading worship is always an energy intensive activity. An hour practice before the service and playing through most of the service means almost two straight hours of playing and singing. When I come home I am usually wiped out and laying on the couch watching sports is usually a drowsy combination.

I promptly slept through the rest of the game which looking at how it ended up was not a bad thing. The Bears have a lot of work to do before next weeks big game against the Packers. Next week's game may go a long way to showing whether their week one performance was a fluke or not. Hopefully not but Aaron Rodgers has the ability to pick apart defenses as well as Brees. So it could be another long afternoon.

Rock Stars or Worship Leaders?

Ted Kluck has a great article entitled Where Rock Stars Go to Die on the Gospel Coalition’s Blog. It is an excellent article about the blurred lines between being a rock star and a worship leader. Kluck relates his experiences at an Acquire the Fire youth rally and shares this about the student worship band:

The student house band is called School of Worship, and they’re quite good. They sound good and look good[7], and the kids in the crowd seem to be responding. The lead singer (all 96 pounds of him, including vest and glasses) is shaking his hips and gyrating onstage like a real, live rock star. The crowd is responding like a real, live crowd should.

The only thing that separates a “worship band” from a “rock band” is the presence of lyrics on a projection screen behind the worship band. What’s really happening is a concert. A performance. But the presence of lyrics on a screen somehow makes it “worship.” If this sounds weird/confusing to you, that’s because it is weird and confusing to me as well.

Actually it does not sound weird and confusing to me. I know all too well the struggle between performing for others and leading others in worship. I must admit that it is one of my great struggles when I lead worship at church. I would also guess that anyone who enjoys being up in front of people will struggle with it too. John Ortberg has a great sermon on this entitled A Leader’s Greatest Fear. Various versions of that sermon can be found here. While the short version gets to the point, I highly commend the full version.

I can struggle with my mind starting to drift while leading worship. Unfortunately it can drift from being focused on worshiping God and leading other in worshiping God to how I look and sound. In the middle of one song I actually started to think about whether or not I sounded good. It was not in terms of wondering whether or not I was doing a good job but whether or not I could take this show on the road.

I’ve tried different things to stay in the right place (if you have seen me lead worship in the past you will recognize this one) but nothing has done better than sharing my struggle with others and expect them to hold me accountable. I also understand that this will most likely be a life long struggle.