Confession time.
I don’t know if musicians are allowed to worship.
There I said it. Sounds weird I know, but let me explain.
It had been one of those Sunday mornings when waking the congregation was about as easy as pulling teeth from a buffalo. I mentally shuffled the song order in my head, trying to come up with the right musical combination to shake everyone from their stupor. We started into another chorus and . . . my drummer quit. Just stopped playing. I glanced over and it looked like he was sitting there on his stool, worshipping by himself.
Well . . . good for him. But what about me and my piano? I needed a beat. It sounded empty without him. Musicians can’t take a break to worship. We’re supposed to keep playing, no matter how red-hot the service gets.
It bothered me when I thought about it later. The obvious spiritual answer was, “The drummer had the right idea. We don’t need instruments. God can move without any help from us.”
But admit it. How many of my fellow music leaders would be annoyed if they suddenly found themselves without a time keeper? Show of hands. One, two, three, four—that’s what I thought. We know how fickle a congregation can be. They might sit down at a moment’s notice if the song service hits a sour note. Music shouldn’t be that important, but I find in reality it often is.
It’s a question I struggle with. Are musicians allowed to stop playing and take a worship break? I don’t mean raising your hands at the end of a song and jumping up and down for ten seconds before launching into the next medley. I mean quitting cold in the middle of a chord progression. Without any signal from the pastor. Just saying, “I’m done. I want to join the worship. God will move without me.”
I have no answers. More often than not, the music leaders of my childhood would soldier on, no matter how long the service went. I don’t know if it’s the right way, but I imagine I’ll do the same. Just keep pounding away on my piano, and praying God accepts it as my offering.
Well, of course we know that God accepts what we do as our offering of worhip - but I get your point. You know it makes me wonder if we forget the point - worship is not for us - it's for Him. It's not about US getting anything out of it - we're not supposed to. Again, it's for Him, He's the audience. I know I, for one, often forget who the audience is, and that can cause us to feel like we're a one-man dance show trying to get a response out of those on the pews. Sounds like your drummer had the right idea - who the right audience was.
ReplyDeleteMaybe sometimes it would be good if we just stopped and worshiped - maybe that would help everyone there to remember who the audience was - not THEM, but HIM!!!!
I run sound and projector as well as teach Sunday school so I'm not in the same boat but a similar one. Since my church dose not have evening service I'll go to a neighboring church at night and that rely helps.
ReplyDeleteAmen to this post. It is hard sometimes to not be able to enter in, but when we are on our instruments, we just remember this IS our worship and I believe God accepts that as He is the one who equips us each service to do what we do. There have been times that our pastor has actually stepped in and said "Everyone needs to worship - no music, EVERYONE!" and that is tremendous, gives us a chance to enter in. But in the meantime, I just tell myself each time I sit down at the keys, I'm coming back to the heart of worship, it really is all about HIM! Great article. Very thought provoking!
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