On a past vacation, my wife and I became “not so popular” when we informed our three young daughters that we would be attending church the next day. As a worship pastor, I would make it a habit to worship at a local congregation anytime I was away from my home church. I can't say that my motives were always pure, as it was often a covert work operation as I transformed into “Secret Shopper Sean.”
At one point, my daughter looks over and says, “Do all churches look alike?”
After checking our youngest daughter into this church’s version of Kid Church Disneyland (wish I had that when I was 7), we made our way to the auditorium. By then, we were a few minutes late, so I was quite impressed when I realized I was listening to the worship team through the distributed speaker system throughout the outdoor courtyard. Nice touch, I thought.
We entered the worship center and made our way to some open seats, not too difficult given there were less people than normal. It was New Year's Day.
I started taking notes. Well to be honest, I wasn't taking sermon notes, but tech notes. You know, lighting design critique, FOH booth configuration, stage design look, song lyric style, IMAG choices, yada, yada. Don't tell me that you don't do the same thing!
Authentic or simply copied?
At one point, my daughter looked over and says to me, “Do all churches look alike?” Hmm, that was quite revealing. I guess it didn't take an 11-year-old much time to notice that it's possible we might not be so creative, but rather good at just copying others.
Now, lest you think I'm merely pointing a finger at others, it really is an indictment on myself—the one who should have been worshipping instead of critiquing. I know better! But this church really had it together—excellent production values and a great sermon, too. The notes that I was taking on my phone (no, I was not doom-scrolling) were a long list of things that they were doing well. In fact, the list included many items that my own church could improve upon.
I have nothing against learning from others; I do it all the time. In reality, my own creativity is often fueled by others' ideas. My exhortation, however, is that we don't lose the identity of our own congregation in becoming like another. It's really tempting.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. - Colossians 3:23 NIV
Getting priorities straight
As the pastor of worship and creative arts at my church, I was entrusted with not only the service architecture of our weekend worship gatherings, but also the leadership oversight of the music and tech staff. Regardless of your church's personnel structure, your music and technical teams have ongoing interactions, and they play a key role in planning the experience people will have when they attend our church services. Ultimately, we believe and trust that they will be impacted and transformed with the message of the Gospel, whether through song, testimony (yes, a really cool life story can hit home), sermon, or gathering at the Lord's table. And wouldn’t it just be icing on the cake if those same people took less notice of whether we were using a massive LED video wall, the latest trend in stage lighting, had 10k IG followers, or if the worship leader had skinny jeans and tattoos?
