How to Remedy Stand and Watch Worship
Have you experienced a worship service where your team is pouring out their hearts playing and singing while the congregation responds by only standing and watching?
While some churches have purposefully chosen a non-participatory strategy for their worship services, many churches value congregational participation for their services, and more than a few would like to have increased crowd engagement in their services. Unfortunately, there is a lot of Standing and Watching in worship services designed to be participatory.
A Different Location Each Week
For the past 5 years, I have been leading worship in a different local church almost every week. Many worship leaders and pastors express to me their concern about the lack of congregational participation in their services. Some churches have developed a participatory culture and others have not. Personally, I love hearing the congregation sing: it’s my favorite audible sound of worship.
Before we look at some practical ways you can increase your congregation’s participation through singing, I want to make a disclaimer: Good congregational singing is not the key to worship or to church growth. Biblical worship is faith expressed.
Romans 12:1-2 says, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out” (Message).
This verse emphasizes Biblical worship is much more than singing, it is important for Worship Leaders to promote worship in all forms: singing is one of many forms believers can use to express faith in God. Paul’s point about culture is not to discard its relevance to communication but to study culture. We should never worship our cultural preferences but we should be students of surrounding culture so we can communicate the Gospel (not art forms) effectively.
Our Goal Is Spiritual
Our goal in ministry is spiritual, not cultural. Understanding a culture is very important to reaching a culture with the truth of the Gospel. Jesus used cultural context (Parables) to communicate the eternal truths of Scripture and so should we while resisting becoming so well-adjusted to our culture that we fit into it without even thinking! Churches that honor God are Spiritually (Scripturally) driven not culturally (commercially) driven. Note how Paul understood the place, priority, and purpose of pairing culture with ministry:
“To the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings” (1 Cor. 9:22-23).
Music has a high value in today’s culture: second only to Technology. We should carefully consider using music in a culturally appropriate way, as a means for evangelism and connecting people to God in the church service. Let’s look at some common reasons congregations stand and watch instead of participating in singing and then consider practical ways to increase participation… “for the sake of the gospel!”
Common Reasons Congregations Stand And Watch
There are many reasons congregations stand and watch instead of participating: songs are unfamiliar, songs are too high, attendees are influenced by the perception that others are not participating, volume is too loud or soft, songs are not congregationally-friendly, tempos are too fast or slow, worship team is distracting (not prepared, overplaying, body language, poor musical quality), poor sound quality, the worship teams stage presence, worship service flow, worship team’s leadership, service time, language, terms, and vocabulary, the teaching pastor’s example, technical issues, room temperature, congregation’s spiritual temperature, a number of first-time guests, poor fellowship and distractions in general.
Practical Solutions
Here are a few practical solutions.
- Choose songs that are congregationally singable, scriptural, easy to learn and hard to forget.
- Choose a musical style that fits your church’s philosophy of ministry, the crowd you want to reach: congregation and guests
- When planning and leading the music think of God and others. Resist programming for your own personal worship preferences.
- Spend time with the congregation before you take the “stage”.
- Be musically prepared. When you are leading, you should be able to focus on people more than the music.
- Prioritize excellence in sound, lighting, lyric projection and video as these teams all lead worship and are critical to crowd participation.
- Lead enthusiastically and with authenticity. There is no substitute for being devoted to prayer in your preparation and leading.
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Rick Muchow graduated from San Jose State University (B.A.), attended Golden Gate Seminary and is working toward his Master’s in Worship at Liberty University. He served as an intern at Foxworthy Baptist Church and has been a worship leader at 3 churches: Warm Springs SBC, Gilroy FBC and Saddleback Church. He also served at Magnolia Ave and Immanuel Baptist as an an interim worship leader. As the founding Worship Pastor at Saddleback Church, serving alongside Pastor Rick Warren for nearly 25 years, Rick built a worship team of more than 1700 volunteers serving 20,000 attendees weekly. Rick has coached over 150,000 pastors and church leaders from 60 denominations from over 100 countries. Rick is currently serving as the Director of Worship Practicum at California Baptist University, coaches local Pastors and worship leaders while leading worship at different churches and events. Rick has written and published worship music since 1979. He is a columnist for Worship Leader Magazine and is the author of two books: The Worship Answer Book and Trusting 1–2–3. Rick is married to Laura (35 years) and has 5 adult children, 2 daughter in laws and 2 grandsons.