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I’ve written before that I strongly believe that the primary sound during a church’s worship time should be the people singing, and I was privileged to experience that Sunday at Woodland Bible Chapel, a small church in rural Lake George, Colorado.
By contrast, professional worship leader and author Danny Byrum just wrote an eloquent blog decrying the practice of many churches, where leaders are designing worship services that effectively eliminate the people singing. Here’s some of what Danny said:
Millions of dollars are spent to remodel sanctuaries, build new ones, purchase gear, keep up the latest trends in stage production – live video capturing – and worship song-set automation software. Yet, many who attend services find themselves standing in silence, watching screens, and observing performers on a platform.
He continued:
C.S. Lewis recognized this problem over 70 years ago: “The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of. Our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this.”
Instead of trying to emulate the big churches, the folks at Woodland set up their small worship ensemble at the back of the room. We used either the hymnbook or looked at words on the screen. And the primary sound was the people singing. Refreshing. And decidedly NOT professional.
I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. (Psalm 104.33, NIV)
Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of his faithful people. (Psalm 149.1, NIV)
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. (Colossians 3.16, NIV)
By the way, you can listen to the sermon on Indifference I preached there on June 9, 2019, here.
I have always like the way the Lutheran Church service was in Germany. The choir, in which I actually sang, was up in the back, making sure that the “show” was our Lord in front and not the performance of the choir or a worship band.
For that reason, I still have a hard time to applaud for any performance or singer up front. Their job is to help us to praise God and that’s it.
Good word, Wolfgang. We didn’t have choirs in the back, but we never applauded for a musical performance. I don’t know when that changed.