What is your worship style preference? Does that match up with your team, and your congregation?
In nearly 30 years of leading corporate worship services of group of 1 or 2 all the way up to thousands, I’ve experienced my fair share of criticism as well as praise for the services I’ve led. Early on, I once was identified in my church as “that crazy guitar guy”. I’ve also experienced the all too familiar interaction with a person from the congregation letting me know their critique’ of the worship music on any particular Sunday. “Not enough of this, too much of that, etc, etc.” Worship services in churches throughout history are evaluated by any number of scales or standards, along with the hard working servants who are assembling those services week after week.
Whatever criteria we’ve used to gauge whether a church service was “good” or “not good”, “powerful”, or “lifeless” —most of this simply comes down to personal preference.
“Wow Charlie, that is “tweetable”… Click here to tweet that statement!
Is personal preference bad? Who is the ultimate judge of whether our worship is acceptable or not? Except through the eyes of God, I’m not sure we are able to rightly judge anyone’s worship. Thus the “worship wars” may rage in a church setting. As long as there are people in our churches, we will have personal preferences, and along with that the possibility for conflict or disagreement about direction, vision, and execution in our services.
Much like personality, mindset, or even “love languages”, we all have personal tendencies and preferences that drive how we think, see, feel, and do in the world! If we can identify those predispositions, allow space for each other, we can have a peaceful and fruitful conversation! Giving grace and having patience where our preferences don’t align, or even are at odds, is Gods desire for our fellowship.
I have created a simple tool to allow you as a worship leader to assess first your own worship style preference— then assess your perception of your congregational preferences. The assessment is a nice starting point to begin a discussion on worship styles. There are no “right” or “wrong” answers. This handy, and brief tool can get you started on the road to a peaceful and diverse, rich expression of worship.
Feel free to take the survey HERE (I ask for your email, and may contact you occasionally, but will never share any personal information with anyone without your permission)
In my work with churches, this is one of the first tools I would implement with your whole worship team. Drop me an email and we can discuss how I can come alongside you to enrich and deepen your work!