When God is God worship is joy

From blogger Tim Challies today:

Each time I sin, I declare my own independence, my own desire to be rid of God; I declare that I can do better than God, that I can be a better god than God...

...When I am god, worship of God interferes with my plans, with my slumber, with my loyalty to pleasure, to socializing, to sport, to amusement. I hate the thought of worshipping another, but long to worship myself or have others worship me.

When God is God, worship is joy, it is nourishment, it is life. There is no greater joy than to gather with God’s people to bring glory to the Creator, to give thanks to the Redeemer.

A Lesson from NBC's "The Voice"

Some of you may be familiar with the NBC show "The Voice", a spin on the American Idol formula where the judges (who are well-known singers) actually coach contestants through the competition. One of this year's contestants is Anthony Evans, a gospel recording artist and worship leader and son of well-known evangelical teacher Tony Evans.

I was recently reading an interview with Anthony where he was talking about working with Christina Aguilera (his vocal coach) and the different approach he has to take on the show:

"The kind of singing Christina does is great and I love it, and I can keep up with her on a stage when it's about me. But in Christian music and leading worship, I have to almost think opposite of her; I can't sing like that when I'm leading worship. Even though I might have the ability to do it, I am trying to engage people into singing with me. I am not singing at them. The difference about being here at The Voice is that I am singing at people, and they want to be impressed. So my mindset has to flip, and that's been the hardest thing, thinking, Impress them. Do not engage them. You're not trying to engage their hearts. You're trying to impress them. That's my biggest challenge here."

I love the point that Anthony made - that when we lead people in worship, it's not about impressing them with our talents or giving them a performance to enjoy - it's about engaging them. As lead worshippers, we have to work against the cultural trends of American Idol and arena concerts where it's all about virtuoso performances to be enjoyed and applauded. Instead of using our gifts to attract attention to ourselves, we use our gifts to point people to Jesus. As Paul Baloche has said, "The mark of an effective worship leader is that they become somewhat invisible while God becomes the center of attention".