It's a phrase I crafted after watching this helpful video from Jeremy Riddle on Bethel's WorshipU. (he's the guy that wrote This Is Amazing Grace, Furious, and Sweetly Broken) Here's the link to watch it. He gets into it at about minute 7.

 

In the video, he shares that you need at least 4 things to create a culture of worship:

 

 

Let me unpack each of those.

 

Musicians, yes. Servants (read: volunteers), sure. Artists, yep. But first. Please first, we must be worshipers. This drives us. There must be a growing, noticeable evidence that we are primarily worshipers who spend time before the Lord in private, where no man can see us or praise us or thank us for our gift. Like David, we sit for hours on the hillside, playing and singing to a Singular audience. We can't, after all, have a culture of worship without worshipers. This is probably why so many churches have a culture of entertainment, rock and roll, four-part harmony, relevant music, or whatever rather than a culture of worship, where it doesn't matter what's happening at the front, the congregation is worshiping. (wouldn't that be beautiful?)

 

 

I love starting with this one because it takes a couple things out that really kill a great worship ministry: Isolation, competition, politics, bureaucracy, and corporation/business. Replace those with these: home, trust, relationships, commitment, laughter, working together, being together. (And God, for those of us who have never experienced this in our own families, please renew our minds with Your design and intent for family.)

 

This means we get to know each other, we support each other outside of our rehearsals and services, we pray for each other, we eat together...I mean, for Christ's sake, eat together! Even research outside the church is clear: the family that eats together is healthier.

 

 

This was an interesting one for sure. Jeremy pointed out that "Without faith it is impossible to...what? Please God. And pleasing God is the heart of worship." (Hebrews 11:6) Stop the tape right there! How much would change if we as a worshiping community would have at the very forefront of our intent to "please God." I don't mean that we should ignore people and negate our role of leading people. But there's certainly a lot of people pleasing that goes on in worship ministry. We are to love and serve folks while we please the Lord. So we need to be full of faith. And faith always, by definition, leads to action. What kind of action?

 

 

God-Action. You can always tell when the Spirit of the Lord is present and at work. That's right. There's freedom. Freedom doesn't mean "casting off restraint." (that's one of the translations of what visionless people do: perish - Proverbs 29:18) I think of freedom as the liberty to engage in activity against which there is now law. (Galatians 5:22) You know...walk in love, joy, peace, patience...the fruit the Spirit. Or as The Message reads: "...things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely."

 

So what would it take for our worship ministries to become more of a family of worshipers full of faith to walk in freedom? By God's grace, may we walk that way more and more!