Getting the Congregation to ENGAGE in Worship?

[fmckinnon]

(Important Note: encouraging all readers and lurkers to respond. To respond, just scroll down to the bottom and click the "Post Reply button". if you're not a member, simply join by clicking the "connect with facebook" button at the top right, or the "Join the WorshipCommunity" link up top!" You can also just leave a comment on my blog (http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2010/05/18/why-dont-they-engage-in-worship/).)

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Hey Everybody,

Over the next 2 days I will be finalizing my discussion for the AllAboutWorship Retreat ... I'll be leading a breakout session on "Why Won't My Congregation Engage" - Tips for Worship Leaders.

I'd love to hear from EVERYBODY ... but especially those who may NOT be worship leaders.

As a worship leader - what do you think we can do to increase corporate engagement (getting the people engaged and involved during our worship).

What do you think we may do that DISTRACTS or DETRACTS from it?


As a worshiper who is NOT on the stage - what does the worship leader/team do that hinders your ability (or desire?) to engage?

Don't hold back - please answer, then tweet this thread, share it on facebook, etc., and let's try and get a lot of info!

Thanks gang!
Fred
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(Important Note: encouraging all readers and lurkers to respond. To respond, just scroll down to the bottom and click the "Post Reply button". if you're not a member, simply join by clicking the "connect with facebook" button at the top right, or the "Join the WorshipCommunity" link up top!" You can also just leave a comment on my blog (http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2010/05/18/why-dont-they-engage-in-worship/).)
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[davidpaulregier]

I have found it effective to step out of “worship mode” and actually teach songs to the congregation as I would teach it to a bunch of singers or the band. If I have to spend energy and thought teaching a song to trained musicians, why would I think that people who are completely untrained could just “pick it up” based on my performance?

Not something I’d do every Sunday, but if it’s a song I really want them to take to heart and sing as a congregation, I’d definitely go that way.

[budeades]

maybe I as a worship pastor/leader don't appear to be engaged?
Maybe I haven't spent the time praying for them prior to service?
It would be good to take time for people time to prepare for worship, rather than rush in.
I have seen people struggle with distraction? children, street noise etc
how about the World, Flesh and Devil?
Lets face it worship is work!

As a worship leader I can take all this on my shoulders as well, thinking that we need to do more, plead more, pray more, do a better job commenting, praying, sharing in between songs, writing better worship services/liturgy. But honestly none of us should come to worship thinking that we can switch from a life focused on self or others then wham, find ourselves focused on Christ! Some time would be well spent considering worship during the week, devotion to Christ daily, considering his presence now, as well as the hour or two we spend together in corporate worship.

[gbrast]

i've recently had the opportunity to be in a number of widely differing church environments and i've noticed something in each one that's got me asking this same question.

now, these would be places on average with the highest quality of music. the bands do a tremendous job. the experience is as enjoyable as it gets and i personally enjoy just opening up in these environments and letting loose.

but increasingly i'm seeing people who show no visible sign whatsoever of being moved by the whole experience. shuffle in, shuffle out. great band. yawn, yawn. unimpressed. great media. so what? it's a media world.

this has me wondering, what is this thing we call worship? and are we as worship leaders really leading others in it? romans 12:1-2 defines worship as the complete and total offering of oneself to God as a 24/7 living sacrifice that impacts our whole being. is this what we are calling people to at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, or has it become something less for us? a style of music? a religious duty?

what do we (as worship leaders) do that hinder it?
- come to the worship event empty of true worship ourselves
- over focus on technical and musical proficiency or underfocus on the
same... leading to a focus on ourselves rather than the presence of the
risen Christ
- modeling that we believe worship is a musical or religious event
- too many new / worn out songs
- singing too many songs that don't deal with core matters of following
Christ

what do we (as worship leaders) to to encourage it?
- come ourselves prepared to express hearts filled with worship and lives
lived as sacrifice
- striving to not call undue attention to ourselves but rather modeling
phililppians 2
- modeling that worship is a life of radical devotion
- strive to keep a balance in the pace at which new songs are introduced
- strive to use songs that help people express where they are in their
faith journey... aiming for theological accuracy and depth

beginning reflections.

further thoughts?

peace,

g.b.

[milepost13]

As a worship leader - what do you think we can do to increase corporate engagement (getting the people engaged and involved during our worship).

The best thing I've ever done is to invest myself in the other Sunday morning ministries of our church. IMHO, engaging people in worship begins the moment they drive onto our campus. A smile and wave from a parking lot greeter, a friendly hello from our First Impressions Team in the lobby, a warm conversation with Kids Zone staff member...all of these things help to set the mood for what happens in the auditorium during our "worship gathering". So, I invest myself into encouraging our other teams, in helping to train them, in making sure that they know how important I think their place is in our ministry as a church. Nothing else I've done has had a greater impact than this.

Nate

[Mike Chase]

Some ideas:

Recognizing the needs of all congregation members - Older folks have probably been used to singing mainly hymns the majority of their lives, youth today are often drawn more to the hip-hop, electronic world than to the rock/pop of modern worship. God can be praised equally through all forms of music; are we making choices that alienate groups that don't identify with our standard way of doing worship?

Somewhat similarly, mixing the old and new - sometimes the language of hymns can be difficult for us, but there are some really powerful lyrics that can help us understand different aspects of God's character from the typical modern worship song. It doesn't have to be the case where hymns become solo piano or organ pieces either; rearrangement of the chords can help take a hymn and put it in a modern format.

[betnich]

I have found it effective to step out of “worship mode” and actually teach songs to the congregation as I would teach it to a bunch of singers or the band. If I have to spend energy and thought teaching a song to trained musicians, why would I think that people who are completely untrained could just “pick it up” based on my performance?

Not something I’d do every Sunday, but if it’s a song I really want them to take to heart and sing as a congregation, I’d definitely go that way.

Very true - give people an opportunity to get involved. The same is true of prayer, a Scripture w/explanation or a short (non-hectoring) exhortation. I have noticed that people get more involved when there is less focus on soloists, etc.

Not all will enter in - people express worship in different ways, and there will always be some yawners and starers. But we can set the tone, encourage, and let God work in their hearts...

[NickAlexander]

I'm a Catholic, and I am full aware that, in many many parishes, there is a cultural tendency to simply not sing, and that is what I am fighting whenever I am called to lead the music for that liturgy. ("cultural tendency"=my parents don't sing, so I won't). I can write a book on the reason, but since there's already a book titled "Why Catholics Can't Sing" (which I half agree with), then I will defer to only those chapters of said tome that are actually valid.

That said, here's what I do to help the congregants engage in worship.

The first and foremost thing is, it's NOT about you. You can't change someone's singing habits anymore than you can change someone's eating habits. The best you can do is to find ways to make the transition as easy as possible--without compromising the actual context.

In light of this, if you do particulars to the best of your ability, you can trust and hope that the Holy Spirit can do His job.

1) Know what the context of the sermon is going to be, and pick songs accordingly. For those in a particular liturgical season, that context means everything: pick songs that convey the season of Lent, of Easter, of Pentecost, of Advent, of Christmas. Or, pick songs that convey the readings of that day (if St Patrick's Day, pick Irish-writ songs, for example).

2) Know your audience, your congregational-make up. If you know where they are coming from, you will know the sorts of songs that they are most familiar with, and use that as a starting point. If the congregation is truly a diverse one, then make an effort to try to hit as many common songs as possible.

3) If possible, try to incorporate the actual music notation in your resources. If working from a hymnal, make sure your hymnal uses easy notation. If working from a songsheet, learn to use formatting tricks to graft notation onto the page. If using overheads... well, I haven't learned how to do that yet. (I hope to). But the reason is, even though a sizeable number of people do not read music, there is a number that do, and you want to get them on your side.

4) If possible, pick songs that are easy to sing. This should be a no-brainer, but you can be surprised at the number of songs that have complicated melody lines, and artists who expect the congregation to know the same melodies note-for-note. Assume nothing. Aim for melodies that are repetitious or familiar. And many hymns can use alternate familiar melodies.

5) If possible, pick songs that are vertical, Man-to-God. People come to church to worship, not to sing to each other.

6) If possible, pick songs that sway away from the ambiguous "You" songs (which Charles Colson says could be sung in a smokey jazz nightclub to one's significant other), and pick those songs which are far more theologically sound. That is, unless your audience consists of single, love-starved twentysomething females, in which such songs can be a plus. (Don't tell me whether your church qualifies as such, and we'll keep it between ourselves, okay?).

7) If you know your congregation has a sizeable "seeker" contingent, pick songs that display the fullness of the Gospel message--Jesus came, Jesus died for my sins, Jesus rose from the grave, Jesus offers me a new life. We are to worship not merely with our emotions, but also with the substance of our words--our minds.

8) Use a non-seriffed font, like Arial. Easier to read so to sing, as opposed to reading for reading's sake.

9) If the congregation knows a solid set of songs (that have been beaten to death), then one way to get extra mileage out of those songs is to practice merging specific songs together. (Not easy to do with a hymnal, but what you can do with overheads or printing it out in advance). Make a complete list of all the songs your congregation may be familiar with, and sort by tempo, key, time signature, and then take note of each songs' direction (man-to-God, man-to-man, God-to-man), themes, etc. Combine the songs by effortlessly switching from one like-keyed/tempo'd/time-sig'd song with another, taking special note as to how the songs can best complement each other. This builds up extra confidence upon the singers, looking for extra motivation to resing some of these songs that had been beaten to death.

10) Pray, and listen. If you sense God is asking you to take a step out in faith, then do it. But note that if the step doesn't land as completely as planned, that doesn't mean God couldn't use it, or that there aren't fuller lessons to be learned from such a step. Learn from the feedback. Build upon it. Be humble to accept criticism, even if it stings a little.

Ultimately, I would hope that the application of these ten steps, along with the full recognition that it is simply not in your hands to convince others to worship or not, will make the experience for others to actually participate in the singing, the praising, the worshipping, and the interior decision to follow Christ. There's so many little things we can do that can be a distraction, that, if we knew them in advance, we would do everything in our power to lessen. But even so, God's grace is bigger than our own failings.

Nick Alexander
The Catholic Weird Al
http://www.nickalexander.com

[Shalon]

I definitely agree with lots of the great ideas already shared. I struggle with this too. Here are some quick thoughts or questions for thought that I have:

I agree that it is important to be sure to meet the congregation where they're at... to be 'relevant'. Not relevant as a synonym for contemporary but relevant as appropriate. I may like certain songs and a certain style of music and a certain way of expressing my worship of and to God...but those I'm leading may have a different opinion - not right or wrong, just different. But if I come at worship leading with relevance to MY opinions, that's not leading others in musical worship, is it? So if I want to see the congregation engage...perhaps I need to look at whether or not I'm being relevant. (Hmmm...And now I will be looking over my set list for next week... :)

Possibly also important is helping people understand what worship really is and teaching why gathering together to corporately worship is purposeful. If we want people to engage pesonally in musical worship and express their worship to God, why not just have everyone bring an iPod, Walkman, or phonograph such as the case may be, and for 30(ish) minutes everyone puts their earbuds in to worship God through their preferred choice of music, songs, styles, etc.? They'll for sure engage, but is that really the goal of corporate worship? Hmmm...I don't know about that. (?)

Perhaps helping others engage means choosing to connect with God through others preferred worship style, songs, etc, for a [mere] 30(ish) minutes a week. Not that that means we can't be contemporary, or forward thinking in our worship still.

These are tricky issues in the worship 'culture' the church has developed over the last while (the last few decades?) which is seemingly and unfortunately, for 30(ish) minutes, we stand in a room with our eyes closed, unaware of others worshipping, but so long as my personal preferences are being met...it's a 'great worship time'. Personally, I find this a struggle particularly with our multi-generational, multi- & inter-cultural church –-- ah yes…even more dimensions to add to the mix. :)

[ProphetCat]

As a worship leader, I think the biggest thing that we can do is to be worshipers ourselves. If we're just up on stage singing and playing but not worshiping, it's just a concert. I find myself doing this more than I'd like. We get so concerned about making sure the music sounds good, that we're not interrupting the flow of the service, and thinking about what comes next that sometimes we don't take the time to worship. I think our congregations know when we are worshiping and when we are just singing.

I'm going to blatantly steal this from Bob Kauflin, but as congregants one of the most important things people can see is the pastor worshiping as well. It's amazing this difference this can make. When people see the pastor worshiping, they tend to follow suit. When the pastor is busy with other things before the message, people also tend to get distracted.

My $0.02.

[DaveG]

A few points...

People have to be taught it's ok to worship. Some want to sing and dance and clap - but if they're the only ones...they won't. Some people aren't singers (see Nick's post). People have insecurities that keep them from singing and if they feel they are the only ones around them singing you'll have an even harder time. And if one is singing full voice with arms raised - do we assume they are worshipping?

Also, you have to figure we've practiced these songs a few dozen times and know them pretty well. We've had our time to slow down from the morning rush - we're expecting people to run into church 30 seconds before (or after) the service starts and be ready to worship. I would love to extend a challenge for people to show up 5 minutes early to prepare for worship. Either through prayer, or just taking the time to clear your head from the stress that's already happened that day. None of us could ever know what keeps people from worshipping through song – all we can do is pray they find God that day and every day.

People love to sing songs they know. No matter how annoyed we are with the song we need to give the same 'energy' we do to our favorites. You figure we've played/sang the song several dozen more times than most people have ever heard it. For some it could be the first time - and God deserves it.

On days we aren't leading we need to find a way to worship. I heard an interesting term - lead from the congregation. Just because we aren't on stage doesn't mean we get a pass on worship for the day.

[kbontrager]

So many great comments have been written already.... I guess I would just emphasize the importance of really knowing who you're leading. (This assumes a context of consistently leading within the same congregation.)

Know, for example, whether the congregation is wired for super-celebrative acts of worship, or whether they respond better to more quiet settings. Do they need an extended time of music in order to focus, or do they rely on a more 'traditional' worship service format? This doesn't mean you're designing worship just to keep people happy; the goal is engagement and corporate participation, so you can't completely ignore what the people in the room prefer. Worship style & format preferences are almost like a language; don't make me worship in Japanese all the time if I'm a native English speaker.

To do this with integrity, it is also important to know your own preferences, and the preferences of your musicians; how do you, as leaders, differ from the group you're leading? Keep an eye on that... be sure that if you choose to push the congregation out of their comfort zone, there is purpose to it beyond getting closer to what you prefer.

Great discussion!

[erikas_boy]

Familiarity is king when it comes to most congregations singing along. Praise leaders hate it, because we all want to do new, exciting, musically complex songs. Unless your congregation is way more musical then *any* I've ever been in, though, they won't be able to sing along. I went a whole year without teaching a new song. Ideally, one per quater is reasonable, if you play it regularly. If you lead in a church with multiple praise-leaders who rotate, make sure other leaders know it and are willing to reinforce it as well. Do this in return for the other leaders.

Another idea (and I'll happily admit to be totally riffing on Robert Webber), is try to move to a more liturgical service. When you provide a variety of ways for the congregation to tangibly take part in telling Christ's story, you allow for different people's gifts to be used. A person who wouldn't dream of singing out loud might happily and with gusto respond to a communal responsive reading of a Psalm. Shifting the focus off of one (or a few) people, and returning the liturgy, literally the work of the people, to the people is empowering.

Lastly, when joining together in corporate worship, there are two important words to remember: "corporate" and "worship". Songs that are sung are better when they're inclusive. Feel free to use songs you like but change lyrics if it helps (I do it all the time) Anytime you can change "I" to "We", do it. Also, songs that worship what we feel or what we're doing simply aren't worshipping God, and aren't benefiting the spiritual growth of the congregation. Songs about falling on our knees or giving all we've got can be okay occasionally as resposive songs, though generally I find the people singing don't actually fall on their kness or give all they've got, which is confusing.... When a praise set is made up entirely of songs about how I feel or what I do for God, I generally spend most of it texting friends or getting caught-up on work e-mail.

[RyanDC]

Don't sit in a back room and be a diva, only to turn it on, smile, and talk worship talk with your worship voice for the 25 minutes you're onstage. Be yourself and realize that you are an ambassador of Christ offstage as well. If being yourself turns people off, you may need to look in the mirror and ask if you're who you need to be in Christ.

People can see right through fake. They know when you're performing instead of worshipping.

I will say that with some of the pressure placed on worship leaders by certain churches to have the coolest, tightest band with the catchiest, nailed-down songs, no wonder some worship leaders feel like they're working or performing.

As you lead, you might want to consider being led yourself by this really awesome guy named God the Holy Spirit.

[betnich]

As a worship leader, I think the biggest thing that we can do is to be worshipers ourselves. If we're just up on stage singing and playing but not worshiping, it's just a concert. I find myself doing this more than I'd like. We get so concerned about making sure the music sounds good, that we're not interrupting the flow of the service, and thinking about what comes next that sometimes we don't take the time to worship. I think our congregations know when we are worshiping and when we are just singing.

I'm going to blatantly steal this from Bob Kauflin, but as congregants one of the most important things people can see is the pastor worshiping as well. It's amazing this difference this can make. When people see the pastor worshiping, they tend to follow suit. When the pastor is busy with other things before the message, people also tend to get distracted.

My $0.02.

Yes - we should definitely be worshipping. In fact, that comes first - before one touches the strings, sticks or keys...

[betnich]

Don't sit in a back room and be a diva, only to turn it on, smile, and talk worship talk with your worship voice for the 25 minutes you're onstage. Be yourself and realize that you are an ambassador of Christ offstage as well. If being yourself turns people off, you may need to look in the mirror and ask if you're who you need to be in Christ.

People can see right through fake. They know when you're performing instead of worshipping.

I will say that with some of the pressure placed on worship leaders by certain churches to have the coolest, tightest band with the catchiest, nailed-down songs, no wonder some worship leaders feel like they're working or performing.

As you lead, you might want to consider being led yourself by this really awesome guy named God the Holy Spirit.

There's more than one type of pressure in the church. For many there's often a crippling pressure to conform, to be a Super-Christian rather than a mere sinner saved by His grace. As an introverted type, I find the pressure to be "on" and glad-handing people disabling.

I can work to improve my interpersonal skills, but I will never be the perfect politically attuned "people" person. I can play, sing and sometimes God uses me in that to minister to people from the platform. But sorry if I would rather be in the back praying or with my nose stuck in the Bible before service...guess each of us has our gifts...

[danielled]

So many great comments have been written already.... I guess I would just emphasize the importance of really knowing who you're leading.

I would definitely agree that this can be a key aspect. The congregation of the last church I led at was coming from a totally different background and culture than the one I currently lead at. The songs that they will engage with are often different from the ones that really clicked at the last church. A congregation that has been through a lot will likely engage with songs of God's faithfulness in times of trial. Congregations that have a lot of people who have been set free from addictions will engage with songs focusing on the freedom found where the Spirit is, etc, etc. Of course we don't just focus on one or two aspects of God's character, but it's helpful to know where people have come from.

In the same way it's important for leaders to know the congregation I think it's really important for the congregation to feel that they know the leader (and worship team). One of the things that has hindered me when I'm not leading from engaging in worship is if the leader is someone I don't know, or more importantly, I don't feel I can trust. When we create personal connections with people they can see we're real and we gain their trust. If they trust us, they will follow where we lead.

I think teaching about worship-what it is, why we do it, and some ways we do it is another way we can help people engage. There may be a lot of unchurched people in our congregations that don't fully understand why we sing songs every week. Those of us that have been a part of a church for a long time sometimes just need a reminder of what worship is all about.

[Wannabe a Worshiper]

I'll keep mine short and to the point.

Too many new songs; not giving people time to become familiar with one song before moving on to something new.

Give them a song they know, and they will sing.
Tom

[liveGLAD]

It takes a long time to move a faith family from disengaged in worship to engaged. It takes lots of patience and it's a journey.

I'll add one point to this discussion that doesn't seem to have been touched on. As a worship leader, I've found it important to make sure that the worship team is actually worshiping with the songs themselves in the "worship practice" prior to bringing new songs to the church family. Meaning that the worship team has gone passed the banging out of notes to actually worshiping to the song. If your not to this point with the song, it shouldn't be used in the worship service yet. Otherwise the new song could be a hindrance rather than a help towards engaging your faith family.

This point assumes that the worship leader is engaging in worship with his/her worship team as part of the "worship practice".

[rkweblog]

The hindering by the worship leader?

My #1 pick - lack of preparation--education, spiritual, leadership, musical, etc....so many times the church is ill-served by worship leaders who either are out of tune on their instrument or their leadership as well as character. Prep is both a life-long goal and what you do each week.

What helps?

A church that is mature and unified (one in the same, of course). This kind of church simply needs someone to say "time to start"!

[russhutto]

Quit trying to compete with the world (we'll never win...pop culture has waaaay too much resources). Imagine a congregation that watches and listens to what culture has to offer and then comes to church to see lame attempts at relevancy.

Relevance is more about WHO WE ARE than who we're trying to be like.

To me that's a huge distraction. If people see that the focus is on being the Church and on representing Christ to the world collectively, instead of on trying to represent the world's culture to the world, I think connection and "engagement" will naturally (supernaturally, even) happen.

[merry]

Quit trying to compete with the world (we'll never win...pop culture has waaaay too much resources). Imagine a congregation that watches and listens to what culture has to offer and then comes to church to see lame attempts at relevancy.

Relevance is more about WHO WE ARE than who we're trying to be like.

To me that's a huge distraction. If people see that the focus is on being the Church and on representing Christ to the world collectively, instead of on trying to represent the world's culture to the world, I think connection and "engagement" will naturally (supernaturally, even) happen.

Agree 100%.

There are so many great comments in this thread. I want to print this whole thing out and give to our new worship minister who doesn't seem to understand many of these concepts. I'm trying to be patient on it, but I'm not really succeeding right now :)

[hforbis]

Great comments!

It's a difficult task we've been given as worship leaders, but one we've also been given the grace to accomplish by Him Who is in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

This may sound overly simplistic, but I think a real key is that our own purpose in what we're doing is always first to engage God - to create an atmosphere that's pleasing to Him, honoring to Him, welcoming to Him - intentionally drawing near to Him personally and with our worship teams, so that He will fulfill His promise and draw near to us.

If we engage Him ourselves, then we reach out to our friends to bring them to Him - with music, with exhortations, with teaching, with illustrations, etc. It's a priestly, mediating role of reaching one hand to God, and one hand to those who we are seeking to see joined to Him.

Sometimes, if we're not thinking about it, we get excited about engaging people in the new song we've just learned, or other aspects of our own ministry, and we forget that our assignment - our calling - is to point to Him and back out of the way as people begin to apprehend that for which they've been apprehended - Jesus!

[respecthonor7]

Worship is a life style...not just an event. Worship leaders need to TEACH their worship team members...about what worship is and what it is not. To many teams have people on stage that don't deserve to be on stage. They're on there because they're good instrument players or vocalists. How can they expect to lead others into worship when they themselves have no clue what worship truly is? Getting the congregation to engage in worship...it helps if the worship team knows AND has a life of worship. As for the congregation...MOST of becoming engaged in TRUE worship is on them. The worship team only facilitates worship.

[yod1948]

Great comments!

It's a difficult task we've been given as worship leaders, but one we've also been given the grace to accomplish by Him Who is in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

This may sound overly simplistic, but I think a real key is that our own purpose in what we're doing is always first to engage God - to create an atmosphere that's pleasing to Him, honoring to Him, welcoming to Him - intentionally drawing near to Him personally and with our worship teams, so that He will fulfill His promise and draw near to us.

If we engage Him ourselves, then we reach out to our friends to bring them to Him - with music, with exhortations, with teaching, with illustrations, etc. It's a priestly, mediating role of reaching one hand to God, and one hand to those who we are seeking to see joined to Him.

Sometimes, if we're not thinking about it, we get excited about engaging people in the new song we've just learned, or other aspects of our own ministry, and we forget that our assignment - our calling - is to point to Him and back out of the way as people begin to apprehend that for which they've been apprehended - Jesus!



I really loved that response, Harold. a big AMEN from this corner!

I believe it is important to publicly invite the Holy Spirit every time we play. As we humble ourselves in worship to The King, others will receive the liberty to do so more easily. A spirit of freedom will fall on the gathering, if we collectively do this in spirit and in truth.

Though any assembly of His true followers should need no such incentive, this is often where "ice breaks" in corporate gatherings and people know where to start.

As a matter of habit, I try to remember to invite the assembly of the saints to bring all their gifts of worship to the Lord as the first song is beginning. I realize making this much noise wouldn't be appropriate in some places, yet where it is possible, I encourage people to bring shofars, tambourines, banners, shouting, clapping, dancing, and singing to the Lord. Let the praise loose!!!

And if that doesn't work, I'll try to remind them that praising Yeshua isn't a spectator sport; and when that doesn't work, I don't mind being the only person in His audience.

Either way the people respond, it's still always great for me to come into His presence!

[Theosdaughter]

Lots of good stuff has been said here.
I really agree with the point of too many new songs, too quickly.

Its hard as a worshipper in the congregation, to worship, while struggling to learn a new melody and words, and just when youve picked it up, its on to the next one, and the cycle starts all over again.

Another thing is the melody. Simple is really good, where you can kinda anticipate where its gonna go. Some new songs are so different and changeable in the structure it just doesnt flow and its not easy to follow.

If the song writer/worship leader has a 5 octave range, thats great, but most of us dont. So we cant follow.

Also, i find it hard when a worship leader tries to drive the song, (as opposed to lead) and the congregation, by singing louder, playing harder....etc, ( when its not working) it just sounds brash and forced.

Also, sticking to the song list no matter what. If youve got a song thats really working, and people are engaged and the Spirit of God is manifesting, dont rush to finish that song, so you can do the next one on the list. Maybe just keep on with the current one and drop the other one ?

Sundays worship should be an overflow of what youve lavished on the Lord in private during the week.

:)