A few days later I led music at our church’s Sunday service. Everything went fine, I suppose, but I felt like the whole morning was weak. Underwhelming. In the back of my mind there was a nagging question: why couldn’t our Sunday worship times be more like what we experienced in the arena?
If you’re a worship leader, you’ve been in this place. You may even be there now. I pray this article will help you understand two distinct yet important worship contexts, and in doing so free you to unashamedly do what you are called to do in your local church.
Two Contexts
There are two large group contexts in which we worship: let’s call them “festival” and “congregational.” Here is what differentiates the two:
| Festival Worship | Congregational Worship |
|---|---|
| Unique or rare event: concerts, summer camp, retreats, etc happen once a year at most. | Weekly event: rain or shine, the congregation gathers each week at the same time. |
| Unfamiliar location: events are held outside of your regular stomping grounds, in less familiar places. This heightens the expectation level and excitement. | Same location: congregations meet in the same place each week. |
| Large group: often several hundred to tens of thousands in attendance. | Medium group: most churches have 100-300 people in attendance at a particular service. |
| Narrow demographic: many festivals target a particular age group or gender (think summer camps or Promise Keepers events). Elements of the event (music, visuals, etc) can then be tailored to speak more directly to attendees. | Wide demographic: men and women, newborns and old folks: most churches (and I would argue, the healthiest churches) have a wide demographic range. |
| Pro musicians: larger events employ professional musicians, equipment and engineers, leading to an album-quality musical experience. | Volunteer musicians: most (if not all) of the worship team members are volunteers with “real” jobs and semi-pro musical chops at best. |
| Well-known speaker: famous, highly gifted preachers/teachers are often brought in. They hold our attention because their names precede them, but also because they are new voices we aren’t used to hearing. | Familiar speaker: the same pastor speaks 90% of the time. He may not be the most highly-gifted speaker, but he loves and cares for his congregation and they know it. |
| Inspiration-focused: since festivals are one-time events, the general thrust is to inspire attendees to make a decision or take action. | Focus on discipleship: since there is an ongoing relationship between those in the pews and those on the stage the congregation can be taught the fullness of Biblical truth over an extended period of time, through all the messiness of life. |
We must be careful to avoid confusing these contexts and attempting to turn our congregational worship into festival worship. Doing so will lead to feelings of inadequacy and disappointment on our part, and it can also lead to burnt-out team members and a spiritually-weak congregation!
Instead of confusing our Sundays with our festivals we should embrace both contexts for what they are, because both are valuable. Syd Hielema says it well:
If the festival is like an annual banquet, the weekly worship is more like the regular dinner hour. Each has its indispensable place. The dinner hour is more predictable, but its regularity is crucial for proper nourishment.
Embrace Your Congregation
I want to encourage you as a worship leader to wrap your heart and mind around the purpose and possibility which congregational worship presents each week. We have the privilege of leading our friends and families in the worship of our almighty God! Will the musicianship and stage lighting be incredible each week? Probably not. Will everyone arrive each Sunday excited and expecting an incredible time of worship? No. But by God’s grace we can offer our best and watch as He works through us to do amazing things in our church communities.
As we lead our people in worship each week, over the mountains and through the valleys, we are taking part in their spiritual formation. The Church is edified as we use our spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7) as God intended.
So use your gifts, worship leaders, in your local congregational context. And may God be magnified as lives are transformed by the power of His word.
For more thoughts on this topic, as well as an in-depth look at two other worship contexts I didn’t even mention, read Syd Hielema’s “The Festival-Envy Syndrome.”
Worship Review // Vertical Church Band // The Rock Won’t Move
Eric! What a helpful article. I just sent this to my college team. Really good thoughts and very helpful to make the distinction that both are valuable but are also different.
Here’s a question. At the many churches I’ve played at, there have been some that praise as loud and fervent as a festival or summer camp worship on a weekly basis. And then there are other churches who seem to barely get words out, and it feels like the band and a few people are the only ones outwardly worshipping. In light of this article, is it wrong to want to have your church praising festively loud? I think of Revelation 19:6-7, where thousands of angels are praising God. Isn’t that not somethings we want to encourage and push our congregation towards? In my opinion, I think we need to push our churches more towards that. Thoughts?
That’s a great question, Danual. I certainly wouldn’t say that our Sunday worship cannot be loud and expressive, or led by pro-level musicians. If your church is blessed with skilled musicians and expressive worshippers, count your blessings!
The bigger issue (and the key difference between the two contexts in my opinion) is: what is the goal? Festivals are a great place to be encouraged and inspired, but Sundays should go deeper–they include discipleship in the content of ongoing relationships, through the ups and downs of life. Your song choice and even your leadership style should reflect that difference.
Does that make sense? What are your thoughts?
Are not festivals like Passion and Hillsong tours deep as well? I know they have speakers, down time, etc. Almost like TWLC here in CA did a few weeks ago. Crazy good rocking worship, but really digging deep with seminars and speakers. That being said, I think worship is a majorly key part to a Sunday morning. In my opinion, it invites people in to really digging into the word (Sermon), and then gives them the opportunity to respond after the message as well. That’s where I find festival worship to be something applauded, that people are so eager and excited to worship that they are opening there hearts/responding to what was heard, felt, etc with very great passion.
What I’m not saying here is that worship itself always needs to be rocking, lights, crazy skilled, etc etc. All churches don’t have that capability. Instead what I’m saying, is we need to get our congregation to be singing like they do in festival worship. To get our congregations rocking and crazy good. That make sense?
I hear what you’re saying–you’d like to see your Sunday congregation singing like they do in festival worship (passionately, loudly, etc). I think every worship leader would like to see that! But I don’t think that is a realistic expectation to have for every Sunday morning, because of the differences between festival and congregational worship listed above. The new location, the rare event, the narrow demographics, the excitement and expectations of it all…. even the comradery of getting a bunch of similar folks together who don’t know each other (so no relational baggage) contribute to an environment where people are generally more willing to be passionate and engaged in their singing than they are on Sundays.
Also, remember that people who go to festivals are going there for a reason–they’ve paid money, they’ve planned, etc. These are often “cream” of the worshipper “crop” so to speak. And it’s not just another Sunday morning for them.
Contrast that with a Sunday morning. Many folks show up distracted–some don’t really want to be there, but are there just because it’s what they do on Sunday morning. Some are there for the preaching, but they don’t like to sing. Sure, you’ll always have some on Sunday who are ready to worship passionately, but they’re a much smaller percentage of the “crowd” on Sunday than they are at the festival.
So there’s this healthy tension, I think, between encouraging your congregation to worship passionately, and understanding that it’s not a festival (and that’s ok). If we put the expectation on ourselves that our congregations should always be worshipping “Passion-style” then we’ll constantly feel like we’ve done a poor job–even when that’s not the case. That isn’t what God is calling us to, and it’s a recipe for burnout.
If we inappropriately push our congregation to worship more passionately (“Come on guys, sing louder! Don’t you love Jesus?”) eventually they’ll either be faking it to appease you, or they’ll get angry and shut down. We want them to worship authentically, wherever they’re at in their lives. A little bit of encouragement is OK here (give people permission to express themselves), but we really want the worship to be an authentic overflow of a life of discipleship and devotion–which is where Sunday mornings really shine.
Thoughts?
Great article.
Really nice article!
Eric, thanks for this post. Will absolutely be looking into the “The Festival-Envy Syndrome.” My worship team was just reminiscing about our trip to see Tomlin’s Burning Lights tour, we had almost the exact same response.