"Church-Led" Worship

This week was my rotation week for the Sunday night worship teams. It has been a few months now since we first started playing together, and we have gotten more comfortable together as musicians and people. This week, we were asked if we could meet with our worship leader early to have an extended practice. This year, the leaders of Rock Harbor's worship community have set goals to begin training their musicians to experiment with worship music on a deeper level.

Trevor, our worship leader for the night, explained that the leaders of the church want to foster a stronger vision of "church-led" worship. The idea was sparked after the head worship pastor, Caleb, visited a church movement in Redding, CA, at Bethel Church. The leaders there felt that God was calling them to teach their church how to worship through songs in a new way, and out if this was born what they call "Jesus Culture." In essence, this movement reflects a free-flowing worship style in which the worship team plays a prepared song but then transitions into an extended flow of refrains, following wherever the Spirit may lead. What impressed the leaders at Rock Harbor the most was the attitude of the church congregants. They had fully embraced the idea of leading worship as a church and many times played an active role in what direction the songs were going.

The leadership at Rock Harbor wants to facilitate that same essence into its own congregation, encouraging them to take a more active role in worship. The main purpose of this extended band rehearsal was to help us experiment with how that attitude would pan out musically. We practiced two of the songs that we were playing that night, but we intentionally prolonged them and swelled in and out of refrains, choruses, verses, and bridges multiple times.

I personally felt that this idea is a very creative step in the right direction for Rock Harbor's worship ministry. The church has well-established and high-quality method of ministry, which is excellent; however, it is nonetheless a system and sometimes runs the risk of feeling too controlled or produced. The fact that the leadership is willing to rethink their format and encourage those serving in ministry to push beyond their own boundaries is impressive to me. I also absolutely agree with the idea that the church body should be encouraged to have an attitude of active worship during the entire services. The shift in thinking from "being led" to "leading" is a significant and will take time to be rooted in the congregation; however, I believe that it is a bold and spiritually beneficial move, and I am a supporter of it.