Worship Anywhere

This past week, I've had the opportunity to participate in worship in a number of different settings. To take my cue from my Christmas solo, I wanted to review the different ways that I worship the King of Kings, especially since it's Christmas day today.

Christmas Choir
I was able to worship as a member of the choir in the tenor section and as the lead soloist for the song "Majesty." This can be a little tricky since the choir has to be expressive without being distracting and we need to focus on the choir director, but it has the benefits of including a very high level of technical skill. As the soloist, I had more freedom to act out my love for God. I think that we were successfully able to get past the restrictions of a "performance" and get to the heart of worship for some of our songs.

Recording a CD
I've done this in two ways. Most recently during the summer, I played percussion and sang backup vocals for the latest CD from my church. We did most of these songs in small pieces according to a regimented plan. I think that the final CD came out well but the process doesn't lend itself easily to passionate worship. Before that, I have recorded two personal worship CDs. In those cases, I purposely did both instruments and vocals all together. This lent itself to more spontaneous worship at the cost of some technical skill.

Worship Team at GTA
This is where I most frequently get to lead worship as part of a team. I play percussion most frequently and I sing backup tenor vocals a little less often. Generally speaking, we only do three or four songs in any given service, which contrasts greatly with a church like Open Door that can easily spend forty-five minutes in worship. I've done both of those styles for years at different times in my life. Despite the more limited time, I still put my whole self into the worship. I almost always dance around as I'm playing the congas and I sometimes even play congas with one hand while lifting my other hand up to God.

Worship with the Young Adults
Because this is a much smaller group, playing percussion and singing in this setting tends to be more intimate. Fortunately, our group is particularly active during worship and people will frequently stand up or dance or whatever without specific instructions to do so. Playing worship at camp site during the summer is always memorable. One time, I was even able to lead an "experimental" worship set with everyone using percussion only.

Leading Worship
I do not get to lead worship very often anymore as the primary leader. I did get the chance to do so last month for Young Adults and I relished the chance to dust off my piano and play by myself. I usually like to prepare a set of potential songs and then I'm flexible during the worship time to discard songs as I prefer. I like the chance to lead because it allows me more freedom to do some free-flow spontaneous stuff, though this is sometimes restricted depending on the band that I have with me. My absolute favourite time to lead worship is after a service when people are praying. At times like that, I get the chance to minister to people in song without the focus being on me or the music.

Teaching Worship
Back at FCCC, I led and taught the youth worship team for about two years. In this setting, I intentionally pushed people on the technical side and on the spiritual side. Learning the listen to musical cues was important but so was listening to spiritual cues from the Holy Spirit. I used a variety of different methods as experiments, tests and training, with the goal of allowing them to eventually lead worship without me helping in any way.

During this time, I also gave little two-minute talks showing some of the principles of worship from the Bible. Back at LGT when I was twenty years old, I was involved in the Discipleship Training School (DTS) as a leader. During this time, I led the preliminary worship with CD music and then I had a five minute teaching session about worship. Unfortunately, I lost most of my notes from that era but some people have come up to me years later and told me about certain parts of those lessons that they still use to this day.

Member of Congregation
Funny enough, I probably do this less often than any other form of worship. I'm usually participating in a worship team so it's a rare thing when I can just sit with the crowd. When I do get the chance to do this, I sometimes prefer to sit and worship without singing, just as a different way to express my love for God.

In My Van
Since I live in Dorchester, it generally takes me twenty minutes or more to get to most locations in town. I have plenty of time to listen to praise and worship music. This past week, I have been listening to Kirk Franklin's "Hero." There's one part in which he tells the listener to keep one hand on the steering wheel and raise the other hand up. You can often find me doing just that, or sometimes I'll use my steering wheel for percussion and sing rather loudly. People driving beside me probably think I'm a little weird.

In My Bed
Once in a while, I finish dreaming and I wake up with a new worship song in my head. Due to my sleepful state, I don't always manage to get up and record the new song on my tape recorder but I try to do that. Beyond that, I will sometimes raise my hands to God while lying in bed. A little one-on-one can be pretty powerful.