CONVERSATION AND COMMUNITY
BY PAUL BALOCHE 4 MAY 2010
Lately, I’ve been chewing on these two words and asking questions like “did our worship time feel like a conversation with a Living person-with God, or did we just contrive a spiritual performance? Did our time of worship foster a sense of community within the church or are we just enabling people to have a solo “experience” with God?”
This has been one of the busiest years of ministry in my life. Conferences, festivals, touring, writing and producing a new worship project, on top of keeping my local church worship scheduled properly, and being a husband, dad, a son to aging parents, etc. You can relate. Many of you have similar roles and schedules to wrestle with. On one hand we rejoice and are energized by the opportunities - on the other hand we can hit a wall of exhaustion that leaves us numb down deep in our souls.
I’m grateful that there is some light (and a vacation) at the end of the tunnel coming up soon. But here are a few things I’ve observed lately. One thing I have noticed in the past few months is that many of us attend these wonderful events and are greatly inspired by the nights of worship, concerts, and performances. We experience high times in the presence of God with believers from extremely diverse backgrounds and denominations. A very powerful sense of community occurs in such a short time because of several factors including the grace and presence of God, the spiritual hunger of the participants, and the skillful leadership of many of the presenters.
But then I go back to my local fellowship and inadvertently, try to impose a concert experience On my 8:30 am service, it falls flat. They look at me like “what are you doing?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come back from a conference pumped and instead of letting that encounter seep out from the inside, I end up trying to copy the David Crowder Band, or Hillsong United, or whoever, and I’ve come to realize that the concert experience doesn’t translate to most of our churches on a Sunday morning. Worship concerts are a completely valid and exciting event but they usually don’t translate to Sunday morning. Sunday mornings are more of a “un-concert”.
I confess that when I travel with my “road band”, they are all professional musicians who have been making a living at playing music for many years. But when I return home to my “church band”, they are made up primarily of talented volunteers who serve selflessly and do a great job every week of leading our local fellowship. But they’re not full-time pros.
For many of us who get to lead, our hope is that after 30-40 minutes or however long…. there is a sense of connection between the congregation and the Lord and a connection with others in the room. To facilitate a conversation between the believer and their God and to create an environment that feels “safe”, where they’re not worried that the worship leader is going to ask them to do all sorts of unnatural, embarrassing actions (depending on the tradition or denominational expression)
Our job is to help others worship, specifically the people that we are currently serving each week. Asking God to give us HIS heart for the community that we serve. The people that attend my fellowship don’t want or need a performance. They need connection- with God and with one another. Our job is to facilitate that as best as we can.
Paul Baloche Paul is the worship pastor at Community Fellowship in Lindale, Texas, and is married to Rita. His songs include ‘Open the eyes of my heart’, ‘(Hosanna) Praise Is Rising’, and ‘Our God Saves’. For more info, visit www.leadworship.com
