Musings On Worship Part 3: Worship and Excellence

Prologue
It is so hard to worship beyond the music when you're used to performance. Worship is more about total surrender than it is about perfection; because after total surrender comes perfection, God's perfection, and not an individual's. God's way of wanting us perfect is almost always very different from ours. 

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Sometimes I gaze at the team I have been leading worship with every Sunday for the past so many years and I just smile.

I smile because I understand our imperfections: they are too many...

We are not that musical: any musician would give us a 4 out of 10 if they were to look at how "musical" we all are.

We are not so refined vocally. Yes we try, but we ain't "there" yet: we almost always blunder with our vocals, we stutter, we struggle with breath control, we "ahem" between gasping and singing. Our voices stabilize today and miss the mark sometime later, we are threatened by high notes, there are less ornamentations in there, we smile less. Yes we try, but we are always failing. We miss tempos, flip keys, skip lines... 

We have had great times when we feel "we nailed it today", but we judge ourselves so low mostly. We have every reason in the "singing book" to conclude that we are imperfect. 

Our imperfections are too many.

So if I were to judge us as a worship team according to our imperfections, I would say that for the past many years we've been leading people in singing as a form of worship, we have failed at least seven times out of ten. That's imperfect, right?

But, again, I've been asking God if we are doing well, and He smiles. Every time. He says that He's looking deep within. He searches deeper and knows our hearts, and at most, our hearts (at least most of us) are in the right place. And that's a good thing.

Psalms 139:1-4 (ESV) O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.

If the Lord understands that we are imperfect and that we try to improve in areas we aren't so good at, He says it's okay. We don't need to worry about being "all-round perfect". Not so much. 

You see, according to this article (10 Tests of a Good Worship Leader) even as imperfect as we are, if as a worship team we manage to...

1. Make the congregation to effectively sing along,
2. Inspire the congregation to worship God with us,
3. Help the congregation grow in their worship of God,
4. Adequately prepare the worship band,
5. Ensure that the worship band is growing and improving,
6. Continuously worship as a band (stay deeply instilled in the Lord during singing),
7. Train up new worship leaders,
8. Inspire the pastoral staff to worship with us,
9. Manage to spend regular time with God in Bible reading and prayer (even with the busyness that is accumulating),
10. Worship God both in private and on stage,

We're doing well. We should keep going.

And I'm encouraging you too: if your hearts are in the right place and that your chase after God is sincere, God will use the imperfect you's to do His will in your congregation. 

You may not be perfect in your musicianship but that should not be an excuse for not pursuing excellence in the things above (most of which are spiritual).

Now, I'm not saying that performance is a bad thing but that dipping your heart into Jesus' blood and soaking your soul in the Holy Spirit as you minister are far greater ways to seek excellence than struggling to become a better vocalist or instrumentalist. Once your spirituality and worship has been perfected, I assure you that everything else will fall into place.

When we totally surrender to God, our voices and artistry may lack polishing but our hearts will be strumming the kind of music He desires: music done from the heart to the King of kings and Lord of lords. This kind of music - done by weak vessels to an Almighty God - is what He wants. 

We may remain imperfect in our own eyes and to others but in His eyes, we will be just as perfect as He wants us to be. 

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Epilogue
Seek excellence in worship, especially the undivided devotion of your heart, body, mind and soul to God. This is better than any other kind of excellence you can ever desire. 

Note: Read Parts One and Two in this series of blogs here: Musings On Worship Pt. 1: What Is It All About? and here: Musings On Worship Part 2: Resilience. 

God bless. 

Bonface Morris.