Worship and the presence of God
I wonder whether it’s time to stop describing the worship leaders role as ‘leading people into the presence of God’?
Don’t get me wrong.
I’m a fully-fledged card-carrying charismatic (at least I think I am).
I have been ever since my experience of the gifts of the Holy Spirit amongst some Catholic friends in my early twenties. I sometimes despair at some of what is attached to that word ‘charismatic’, but that has never led me to stop describing myself as such, or stopped me being totally convinced of the need for God’s Spirit in my own life, and of being open to His power and grace and gifts and fruit in me and in the life of the Church.
And I continue to love and treasure the times when the Church gathers together to worship, when the Spirit seems to move in all His beautiful messiness.
Healing.
Changing.
Revealing.
Convicting.
Speaking.
Breaking chains.
And as a charismatic my first response when I see this happening is to lean into it, embrace it, pray for more of it — possible even a little recklessly at times. But then I think my theological brain kicks in and I want to go back to the Bible and check it out. Not to dismiss the experience, but to ground the experience so as to become more confident and rooted going forward as I long for more.
When I started to see some amazing life-changing things in worship in the 90’s I searched scripture and settled on the dedication of the Temple as a pretty good description of what was happening. People worship (sing), the presence of God ‘comes’, people fall on their faces (or laugh or cry), and everything we planned to do doesn’t get done.
Pretty exciting stuff.
Beautiful and messy.
It pretty much described what seemed to be happening. It became a good model of worship for me. Coupled with the idea that when we worship we go on a journey from the outer courts, into the inner courts, even into the Holy of Holies, my ‘theology’ of Charismatic worship was taking shape.
I then began to understand my role as a worship leader in one (or both) of two ways:
I, as the worship leader (or maybe, we as the gathered church) ‘usher in the presence of God’ in a dedication-of-the-temple sort of way through worship (singing).
and/or
I ‘lead people into the presence of God’ (or maybe together we journey) in a pilgrimage-into-the-holy-of-holies sort of way.
Yet I now question my language. Firstly with a voice of reason.
Do worship leaders now feel too much pressure to ‘usher in the presence of God’ every Sunday. And if the presence of God doesn’t ‘come’, then it’s the worship leader’s fault, right?
That’s quite a burden to place on a worship leader isn’t it?
Equally, the concept that a worship leader ‘leads people into the presence of God’ is problematic. Is there the temptation for a worship leader to feel that they need to drag and coerce a congregation to a place that they are reluctant to go, or give the impression that they need to ‘keep up’ and not ‘miss out’.
And it starts by going through the outer courts of praise. So that means I start with a fast song right?
How many times have I done that in my own church?
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, I now challenge this language theologically.
I see the dedication of the Temple not as a model for worship, but a one-off event, a prophetic anticipation of Pentecost the Spirit’s birthing of the Church (Acts 2).
Which means we are not governed by an Old Testament model that we need to somehow recreate every week, but by a New Testament truth that has forever changed the nature of our relationship with God and shaped our identity as the Church.
Likewise, hasn’t Jesus has already ‘led us into the presence of God’ (Hebrews 10) in a breathtakingly complete way. The ‘grace’ is not that we get to go there once a week. The ‘grace’ is that we have already been taken there, permanently.
He is ‘here’ with us, and we are ‘there’ with (in) him.
Why expect a worship leader to do what Jesus has already completed?
Yet something very real and powerful and wonderful happens when we worship.
What is that? Because whatever it is, then I want more of it.
Surely it is that as we sing we are becoming increasingly aware of his already-there presence with us and in the church, and that we are ever more surrendering to his kingship and work?
Awareness and Surrender.
Awareness, because there is always more to know and see and experience about God.
Surrender, because I need to be increasingly open to his Spirit’s work in me — whatever that may look like.
If this is true, then this then shapes the worship leader’s role. The worship leader’s role becomes about helping our congregations become ever more aware of His already-there-nearness, regardless of their own situations, ever more aware of the already-completed-work of Jesus, and to encourage an ever deeper sense of surrender to the Spirit’s moving.
If this is the case then my posture as a worship leader changes. It’s not that I don’t need to be a leader. It’s just that my leadership looks different.
I am not burdened with ushering the presence of God, but I am content to be gathered alongside my fellow worshippers around the cross, helping us all become increasingly focused on The One who has already brought His presence to us. Together we are no longer outside, fighting our way in, but already inside, welcomed and embraced.
I am less concerned about my own (stage) presence, but more infatuated with his (everywhere) presence.
I am less concerned with giving voice to my own song and more concerned with giving voice to the song in the room.
There is still a journey to go on. But it’s not a journey ‘to’ a distant God but a journey ‘with’ a present God.
And when there is stillness, or silence, or weeping, I am not worried that I haven’t done my job properly because I am not so much delivering an experience that ‘works’ but following a person who keeps moving.
I am hoping that this isn’t about being non-charismatic, but about being more charismatic. Maybe even, as one of my friends said, being truly charismatic.
Some would say that a church should judge the success of it’s meetings by whether God shows up. But surely it was God showing up that made the church the church in the first place?
The Holy Spirit is not a commodity to be delivered by a few anointed experts to the waiting masses, but a person who is to be celebrated and yielded to within the church en-mass. Surely that is what being a charismatic means?
