It’s funny how almost everyone considers me a rather jovial person. I’m sure they think my sense of humor comes easily and that cutting up and being silly are second nature to me. If they only knew how hard I fight for my joy.
My wife knows it. She’s watched me battle with seasons of discouragement off and on for years now. I grew up in a family where negativity was the default outlook. Also, as a creative person, being self-critical is how I’ve become good at the art I do. But not knowing when to turn that searchlight off can make the artist want to destroy himself.
So, when I hear how many people today struggle with depression and other mental health issues, I’m amazed at the worship services I watch in person and online. They are ignoring the one thing their congregation needs more than anything.
Joy. They all desperately just need a little joy.
But instead, one worship service went like this:
After the countdown video, enter moody stage lighting. A wispy young lady dressed in drab tones sang a medium-tempo song about God’s “Gonna get us through no matter how hard things are.”
Okay, that’s a valid message. It’s not necessarily the one I want to hear right after dropping the kids off at Children’s Church and rushing to the sanctuary. But hey, I’m running on fumes to get to church. I’m glad I brought a cup of coffee from the lobby. I’ll need it.
Now, on to the next song, connected to the previous one by a droning synthesizer hum sounding like the underscoring of an 80s slasher film. I somewhat expect someone to jump out of the shadows onstage with a knife.
But no, that would have been exciting!
This second song is a slow one. Terrific. Everything it says about God is true. There’s nothing wrong with the theology. But it’s how they sing it. I believe the best word to describe it would be “perfunctory.” It’s like they were saying, “Here’s what God’s like. Hurrah.”
These beautiful young people onstage, most with less than 15% body fat, never looked happy to be there. In fact, they seemed rather non-plussed the whole time. You certainly wouldn’t think they were overwhelmed by God’s presence.
You’d stretch it to say they were even just “whelmed.”
Thankfully, a staff member broke up the monotony to welcome everyone. He wasn’t the actual pastor but a “mini-pastor” who does the stuff the real pastor doesn’t want to. In somber tones, he said, “Welcome to our services.” The synthesizer droned on.
“Maybe he’s the Slasher!” I wondered to myself.
No, he’s just there to restate once more the church’s motto: you know, the one on the screen, and on the bulletin, and on the visitor card, and on the banner as you came in the lobby, and on the billboard on the way to the church, and someone had overdone the branding message.
Once the Slasher, “mini-pastor,” had left the stage, we were treated to one more song—even slower than the last one. The lighting grew even moodier, if that’s possible. All the young, beautiful praise team members hung their under 30-year-old heads, bowed either in prayerfulness or perhaps they had just lost a contact lens.
What in the name of Dwight L Moody is going on with this? Why is it “unspiritual” to show positive enthusiasm in God’s presence?
Sure, I get that encountering God’s Spirit can bring conviction of sin. I’m all for that. But worship, when it’s most effective, takes our thoughts off of ourselves and on to the wondrous God we serve! While repentance should be a part of the service, shouldn’t joy and praise be part of it first and foremost?
It may all come down to misunderstanding what “authentic” worship is.
Some of today’s worship seems to be a reaction to the overly “happy clappy” worship of the 80s and 90s. Integrity Music produced a series of worship albums full of energy and peppy choruses, all blending one into the other. Some of those albums probably lacked depth, though you would never accuse prophets like Keith Green of soft-selling anything about the Gospel. But I get where the pendulum might have needed to swing back in the other direction a bit to show a fuller spectrum of worship.
However, “authenticity” does not equal looking defeated and singing songs that sound like they all came from the book of Lamentations. It’s as if all the “emo” bands of the 90s had kids who grew up to lead worship! If you are consistently depressive in the presence of God, you need to seek some counseling.
I’m not joking. That is not a spiritually or emotionally uplifting way to function on a church platform.
Some may argue that joyful, high-energy songs fall on deaf ears for people dealing with depression. But as someone who fights with seasons of discouragement, one of the best things a worship service can do is remind me that regardless of what I’m going through, God is good! My circumstances may not be good, but God still is! So joyful worship can take my focus off myself and back onto the God who deserves it.
All those times we were told in the Bible to “magnify the Lord” in worship meant we were to focus solely on Him. When we bring Him frontmost in our line of sight, we realize how small our problems truly are.
We shouldn’t take it lightly when the Bible says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). If I’m your enemy and want to destroy you, I’ll strategically attack your joy. If I can first drain you of hope, I won’t have to fight you—you’ll give up on your own.
The smartest, most strategic thing any worship leader should do every Sunday is, no matter what other songs you do, lead at least one or two songs upfront that speak faith over your congregation. I’m not talking about silly “name it and claim it faith,” but faith that stares reality square in the face but trusts a good God is still in control!
A stubborn faith that shines a wide-open smile into the abyss and uses praise as the weapon of spiritual warfare it was meant to be.
There was a good reason Jehoshaphat put the choir in front of his army as he went into battle. When you want God to fight for you, put down your weapons and put your praise out front. And when you want to help your people fight this dreary world and their demons, joy is the prescription they need most!
So be authentic, but authentically joyful. Before you head onto the platform to lead, crucify your selfish feelings, get over yourself, and focus on the God who can lift you and your congregation above it all!
-Photo by Kristina Paparo on Unsplash
- Underwhelmed in Worship - September 10, 2024
- Lights Out: Who Is Turning Off the Church’s Lights and Throwing Away Its Key? - July 19, 2024
- Broken: If You Want to Be Used by God, Prepare to Be Broken - June 28, 2024
