Coming back to worshipping in Spirit and in Truth, I’ve been reflecting on how I find it difficult to worship corporately, unless I’m playing an instrument or singing hymns. While I’ve joined the praise team at my church, outside of playing the guitar, I wouldn’t attend our contemporary service unless I was needed in the tech booth.
Playing the guitar, I can focus on the chords and the rhythm, and sometimes when I’m ‘in the zone,’ it may actually feel like real praise & worship. It’s not really about my emotions and feelings, but how do I differentiate that (emotions & feelings) from the Holy Spirit moving?
Years ago, when I was younger & more foolish, I was feeling out what “being a Christian” was all about. Through friends and family, I was exposed to a variety of worship styles via various denominations: Presbyterian, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, non-denominational. These carried with them not only a variety of praise & worship styles, but different ways of praying, different liturgies in services, and different sermon styles.
Taking all of this in, I started to copy the styles I liked the best. These usually ended up being the ones that played best with peoples’ emotions.
Prayers that were dramatic, wordy, and delivered enthusiastically were smiled upon, sometimes even congratulated with a comment of “good prayer!”
I started turning into that thing that Jesus warned against: “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get,” (Matt. 6:5).
When I was in college and was working with the youth group at my church, our youth minister had a worship leader come to work with our praise band.
As he described how to craft a set to start off upbeat, then settle, then build up in such a was as to stir peoples’ emotions, the whole experience seemed less like worship and more like emotional manipulation.
This led me to wonder: how many times that I’d felt that I was worshipping in Spirit and Truth had just been a response to emotional manipulation by a savvy worship leader? If I feel the Spirit is moving me, is He truly, regardless of whether my emotions are being manipulated by a well-crafted worship set?
Since being convicted of my manipulative ways, I’ve changed how I do things. I don’t like to pray publicly, and if I do, I try to keep it sincere, brief, and to the point. My most passionate prayers stay inside my own head or, if said aloud, are spoken when no one else is around.
When I’m playing with the praise team, I’m not crafting the worship sets. My focus is on doing my best for the congregation, so they might experience something that feels beyond my grasp.
These days, the times when I feel closest to worshipping in Spirit and in Truth happen when I’m by myself, practicing songs and becoming familiar enough with them that I can get comfortable enough to open my heart to Him.
When I’m in front of the congregation, I’m there to serve. I take my cues from the worship director, and hope I play well enough that my mistakes don’t throw the congregation off.
Recently, at a church retreat, I was playing for the first couple of our sessions, but not for all of them. Standing and singing would have felt wrong and fake to me, but sitting and silently praying for the congregation felt right.
For me, worshipping in Spirit and Truth is a journey: finding ways to serve others, pushing myself to feel compassion, hoping and praying that God will continue to turn my heart of stone into a heart of flesh.