A Few More Thoughts on Powerful Moments

Last week I wrote about an experience I had where I found myself pursuing powerful moments more than I was pursuing God. I discussed how powerful moments can be a dangerous thing for worship leaders. My intention was to encourage you, and to remind myself, to check your motives, look at what your worshiping and steer clear of idols. (YOU CAN READ THAT POST HERE!)
 
Later, I got an email from a worship leader who has been following WLC for some time. She said this (I’m paraphrasing a bit):
 
I had a similar experience recently. One week we had such a powerful time of worship and the next week was just normal. It was fine, but I was expecting the same thing to happen again and was honestly frustrated when it didn’t. I’m such a feeler and that can mess with me at times when I try to determine how powerful a set was and what God was doing in the room by how it felt. I’d love to hear your thoughts on overcoming this.
 
First of all, let me say this: I get it. It can be really difficult to go from an amazing service to a not so amazing service. But there are a couple things I’d encourage you to keep in mind:
 

Don’t evaluate your worship service based on feeling alone. 
 
Don’t get me wrong. Feelings are important. You should pay attention to your gut. But be careful that it’s not all you pay attention to. Especially when it comes to a worship service. You may have a bad feeling about a service because of how YOU performed. For instance, before I had some training I had a very difficult time with my voice and I wore it out easily. There were Sundays when my voice was tired and I hit some bad notes. I never felt good about those Sundays. At times I’d walk away thinking the whole service was a wreck. But the truth is a bad note has never stopped God from moving. 
 

Instead, use some other marks to determine how your service went.
 
Here are a couple ideas:

1. Listen for Testimonies
Ask people in your congregation about how they experienced God. Find out what God is doing in their lives. That’s one of the best marks I know for evaluating a service.

2. Evaluate Your Performance 
I know, I know. People get all weird when you use the word “performance” relating to worship. I just mean you should look at how you performed your function as a leader. Ask yourself, did I lead in a way that people could follow?

One way I evaluate my performance is by watching what I call “game film.” HERE’S A POST ALL ABOUT THAT! Evaluating your role will help you to see if you’re leading at your best.  


Then, realize that the less powerful moments matter too. 

As a worship leader, I’m guilty of brushing off the less than glamorous moments too often. I don’t talk much about the “bad” Sundays where no one showed up. Or the Sundays when everyone showed up but still no one participated. Those aren’t any fun. But those Sunday’s matter too. Those moments matter. They’re great opportunities for leadership. 
 
Before the powerful moment I wrote about last week where dozens of people were singing at the top of their lungs, there were a lot of less than powerful moments. About an hour before that moment our lyric computer froze. The day before that I introduced a song and no one seemed to care. For several weeks before that I saw Wednesday evening after Wednesday evening of blank stares. 
 
Here’s the thing: The not so powerful moments were opportunities for me and my team to teach our congregation about worship – about singing new songs to the Lord, giving thanks, and learning to worship without pre-written lyrics. They were also opportunities to show our congregation how to worship – we modeled it. They were giving us blanks stares, so we gave them something to stare at! THEN, later on, they worshiped. 
 
In my experience passionate worship comes when people are pastored in worship. Showing the church how to worship and teaching them about worship led them to worship.


Lastly, remember that worship is about glorifying God. 

Sometimes people don’t like it when I say this, but ultimately, worship is about glorifying God. It’s not about us. It’s not about God fighting for us. It’s not about fixing our issues. It’s about ascribing worth to Him. 
 
I do believe that when we worship, we benefit from it. I believe God fights for us. I believe there’s healing in it. I believe all those things. But I think sometimes we enter worship with those things on our minds rather simply telling Jesus we love Him. Set your focus on glorifying Him first. If you’re able to do that and to lead your church to do that, then you’ve led worship well.