Last night I was afforded the opportunity to be a part of a service that made me realize a whole lot of things. 

Lately the Wesley Foundation from MSU has been providing the music for our Sunday evening services.  They have brought an entirely different feel for worship in the evenings in a good way.  They have introduced us to new music, or even some of the same music sang in a different way.  I think this is an extremely important part of our worship development.  Understanding that just because we sing a song a certian way does not mean it MUST be sung that way. 

Yesterday however they were not able to be there.  They were recouperating from an exhausting mission trip(which they used their spring break for).  Traditionally we would just prep the morning team to put together an evening service.  But of course that did not happen.  We did something a little different. 

I’m going to title it a “Black Out Service”.  We’ve done it as a worship team once before with a certain level of success.  While I was sure it would fall flat on its face, God had other plans for last nights service.

What is a “Black Out Service”?

The ultimate purpose of this service is to create a very personal environment for worship.  We dim the lights to the point of being as close to pitch black as possible.  The purpose being to allow the worshippers to express themselves in the way God wants them to, without having to worry about someone seeing them do it.  It’s not a matter of shame, but enabling the individual to get past their own insecurities to freely and openly worship God.  Beyond that we used canned music that was tied to a video.  The music came straight off a CD without any level of live performance.  The volume was at a level that you could probably only hear yourself singing.  This frees those who have confidence issues with their vocal quality to belt out the chorus in a way they have never before. 

The biggest fear I had was the inability for us to improvise and change on the fly with the music.  Once the song had started there was no repeating a chorus or any level of modification.  It was up to the song and video to do all the heavy lifting.  Another question that brought on another level of fear is would the people respond to a video?  Without anyone to actually lead them will they worship? 

But the biggest problem I had last night? 

Not trusting God to handle everything. 

Why should I assume that God can only speak through live performances?                       

Why should I think that the Holy Spirit will not be present unless our lead singer invites him? 

Who am I to put God in this kind of a box? 

I learned a few things last night. 

1. Our congregation wants to worship so badly that it doesn’t really matter what we put in front of them.  It’s about the worship, not the music.  And for that we are incredibly blessed. 
2. Our leadership shows a level of trust that could only be from God.  There is no reason the service should have worked.  It seemed like we were really phoning it in on the service, but our pastor trusted that God would be behind the service regardless of what we were doing.
3. We have truly been blessed with a worship team that would be more suited for a congregation twice our size.  Churches with our average attendance usually have musicians that aren’t half as good as our team.  The level at which they play and exhibit worship is something to truly be thankful for.
4. No matter what I think, God can work wonders with things that I think will never work.
5. Sometimes it’s ok to jump off the diving board without knowing where the water is.  God will take care of it.

I enjoyed the service enough that it will probably be seen again at some point in time.  There is something to be said for being able to worship corporately while worshipping alone as well.

Our church has adopted the communal prayer to be the church that is needed in our community. To be the refuge for the broken. To be the sanctuary for the outcast and downtrodden. It seems like a given that any church should seek this, but it is a conscientious prayer for us.

There is one problem with that though.

We pray to be the church that is needed in our community.

When we ask this, most of the time we expect that God will bring them to our church and we expect the sermon or the worship team or youth minister, or some other member of the ministry team to do the heavy lifting.

We have to realize that when we ask God to do something like that, we might have to be the people that bring God to them outside the doors of our church.

We might have to be the kind of people that don’t expect the pastor to do the heavy work.

We have to be prepared to share the message that God has shown us that is so important in our life.

We are responsible for the growth we expect to see in our church.