See Like Jesus
Worship Leader
June 10, 2020
We have before us an urgent call to discover what our Teacher, Jesus, would show us if he were among us today. If we could watch him or hear him, what would we learn about worship? I imagine it might turn a few things upside down. Worship, as we have come to know it today, may even come unhinged. That’s okay. Maybe it needs to.
A few years ago, I was at dinner in California with two dear friends, Andrea Hunter and Lester Ruth. Lester has done amazing work analyzing CCLI data to find trends and recognize both what churches are singing, and what we’re not. As we talked about worship that night, the conversation led us to a topic that resonated deeply with all three of us—lost and missing things in our worship services. We talked about the kinds of prayers and songs that seemed to disappear over the decades, and Andrea suggested we end by asking the Lord if there was something he wanted us to do about it.
Let’s not ignite old debates over musical structure and syntax (or hymn versus the chorus!), but let’s think again about how to communicate the “Gospel Truth of old” to the people that haven’t yet heard the message.