4 minute read
A Worship Leader Learns To Worship
A Worship Leader Learns To Worship
When Jesus came, He taught us a radical new way to view worship. It is not confined to a “holy” place or time. Instead, it must be “in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). With all the trends and our own personal preferences in worship, it is easy to forget who or why we worship. Our deaconess and worship leader, Sharon Ngoo, shares her experience of worship from “the other side”. What has she learnt about worship through its leadership? Let us read her very candid sharing.
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I have a confession to make… I don’t really know how to lead worship. Sure, I’m sometimes referred to as a “worship leader”, and once every few Sundays, I stand on stage and “lead worship”. However, in all honesty, making people worship God on Sunday is something that I am powerless to do because I have learnt that worship is not the same as singing. Worship is so much more than that.
Worship is a Response
When I started out as a worship leader, I used to feel discouraged when the congregation sometimes seemed unresponsive. I would get irritated or conclude that it was somehow my fault - that if I could just try harder or make the music better, I could somehow encourage them to “really worship”. But then again, even if I could get everyone to behave as I hoped for, could I be sure that that the “ideal worship behaviour” meant that everyone was truly worshipping God?
I have since learnt a little more about worship. Indeed, singing, clapping and raising our hands at Sunday service is worship, but true worship goes beyond those actions. Romans 12:1 tells us to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God” because that is our “true and proper worship”. Worship is “our heartfelt response to God and His goodness”. It involves not only what we do in church on a Sunday, but also what we do from Monday to Saturday. Selwyn Hughes puts it well: “In church on Sunday, the individual worship given to God from Monday to Saturday is brought together in a corporate act” 1 .
1. See the September/October 2013 issue of “Every Day with Jesus” on the topic of “The Heart of Worship”.
If we understand that worship is not confined to 30 minutes on Sunday morning, then we stop seeing worship as an event but as a way of life instead. God, our loving Creator, certainly deserves much more than 30 minutes worth of “singspiration” a week.
Here are some key lessons that I have learned about worship from the “Worship as God Intends” sermon series in September 2013:
1. Worship is expressed in different ways – The people in the Bible worshipped God in different ways – for example, Mary, Martha and Lazarus each expressed their love for Jesus differently. Mary adored Jesus in a lavish display, Martha served faithfully and Lazarus testified about what Jesus had done for him. I have learnt that arranging the chairs in the sanctuary is as much worship as is playing in the worship band. The choice of expression is not as important as knowing that I need to worship Him with every part of who I am.
2. Worship involves sacrifice – Worship is a choice. In choosing to honour God, we often have to make sacrifices. If we choose not to worship God, we are worshipping something else – our preferences, other people, our pastimes, ourselves. To worship is to honour God above all else, to give up or lay aside lesser things in favour of honouring Him. Like David, I have learnt that I cannot give God something that cost me nothing and have the audacity to call it worship. The word “worship” also means “attributing worth” to something. In other words, how much I am willing to sacrifice for God is an indication of how much I think He is worth.
3. Worship is for an audience of One - Sometimes I catch myself thinking “I cannot worship” because the music isn’t right, or because I am distracted or self-conscious. Whenever I think this way, it is because I have forgotten that everything I do in worship is for God’s pleasure and not mine. I have learnt that if I want to worship God as He deserves, I must constantly be asking “God, what do You like?” instead of asking myself “What do I like?”. It’s so easy to slip into my personal comfort zone and give God routine, half-hearted or flippant worship.
4. We must also worship in adversity – There are times when I do not feel like worshipping. Often, these times arise out of difficult circumstances. Yet time and time again, I have found that when I choose to worship, my eyes are turned away from my circumstances to focus on God who is above all and in-charge of all circumstances. The difficult circumstances don’t always change or get easier, but my perspective does a 180° turn. When I choose to worship God despite my circumstances, I live out what I believe and the Source of that belief. An additional bonus is that it also encourages those around me when they see my faith in action.
5. Worship is warfare – We live in enemy territory and because of our sinful nature, we often find ourselves having to fight in order to keep our focus on God. I have learnt that I need to lift God up high as my banner, to declare how Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross has saved and cleansed me, so that the enemy cannot have a foothold in my life. Worship helps me to do that because when I worship, I am declaring to the enemy that God is on my side and through Him, I have victory.
Most importantly…
The depth of my worship starts from how I see God – who He is and the wonder of what He has done for me. If my relationship with God is perfunctory and distant, my worship will be too. Worship is directly correlated to our spiritual health and flows naturally from a grateful heart that is in awe of who God is.
As a worship leader I have given up trying to “make” people worship. I can’t force anyone to love God but I can keep pointing others (and myself) to the “King of Wonders” we worship so that the more we see Him for who He truly is, the more we will truly worship.
