Worship Spectators

The quality of worship music has advanced tremendously in the last ten years. We have better sound, lighting, video and room acoustics than ever in history. Worship conferences and the internet have allowed worship leaders to access unlimited songs, teachings on worship and training for worship musicians.

But another trend has risen up along side our advancements. It seems that we've gotten so good and slick in our musical presentation that we (the congregation) find ourselves spectating at times instead of worshipping.

Recently, I overheard an interesting conversation betweentwo of the students at my church. They were discussing the use of motion backgrounds behind the lyrics. The conversation when something like this, "The motion backgrounds distract me when I'm trying to worship." The other replied, "You're not suppose to pay attention to the background."

"So why use them if I'm not supposed to pay attention to them?" The other replied "Well you can't just having nothing in the background."

I think this conversation says much about how we use technology in worship and the danger it poses to create spectators instead of worshippers. Just because we can doesn't mean we should.

There seems to be a move away from the busy screens and worship bands lit up with $100,000 lighting packages. I'm seeing more black backgrounds behind lyrics and worship bands even set up on the side to avoid becoming a distraction to the congregation.

I'm not a technology hater. There's no doubt that worship presentation software has eliminated a ton of distraction caused by searching for the next lyric in PowerPoint or swapping out an overhead slide. 

But as worship leaders, we must keep one finger on the worship pulse of our congregations and one hand on the heart of God. If ever these two become disconnected, then our worship leading is no better than a decent karaoke performance.  

Comments

[Len]

Thanks for your thoughts, we have a small worship team, no smoke and mirrors. We sing and play what we feel lead to play-seems to work.

[Louie Giglio Indiscribable]

I can definately see their point. We have a lot of media happening during our worship and it does become quite distracting. I think that if you are using media so it doesnt look bland than it has to be very simple.