just like a glorified karaoke band , and we could go down to Broadway and make a lot more money doing that here in Nashville .”
I ’ m just not actually interested in that . I ’ d rather be at home with my kids and my wife ( on a Tuesday night , especially ). But if we ’ re actually going to come and invite the presence of God to be poured out and see people ’ s lives changed , our lives included , we ’ re not removed from that . My life gets to be changed as well , even when I ’ m leading ... I ’ m all in for that experience , and I ’ ll sacrifice whatever it takes to be a part of that because my life ’ s been changed forever because of that . And so , I think it ’ s that realization of thinking , “ God , I know people are here who need a touch from heaven and need to meet with you .” And that is the mystery of God — that he chooses to partner with us humans to bring His kingdom to the earth .
I ’ ll never fully understand that . I don ’ t think any of us will . But not taking that flippantly , but actually taking that seriously and understanding the weight of that , the responsibility , and the privilege of that . So that keeps me going . And I think that ’ s why we have to stay in that space . It cannot become just “ doing church as normal ” because this world that we live in right now needs people who will actively partner with heaven to bring the kingdom of God to the earth . That ’ s what we get to do as worship leaders every single week .
[ WM ] Right on .
[ Hope ] I also think we don ’ t treat the production team , the camera team , the audio team , and the worship team as a tiered system . We ’ re all one team , and when we are working in tandem together , it allows us to be able to approach everything sonically , visually , and spiritually from the same place because our desire is to eliminate distraction so that people can walk into that place . And then there ’ s not all of these random technical things that are getting in the way . The only way you can really do it is to work together as one team . We benefit from hearing from the audio team , and we benefit from hearing from the camera team , and vice versa . And our team is so beautiful about that .
We are all together . It ’ s not a separate thing . We all have separate responsibilities , but we do come together as a team to think about this holistically .
And I think it ’ s just easy in church life to separate it out and then wonder why there ’ s this disjointedness . Or there can be distractions that are happening that you could easily eliminate if you were all working as one . And I would just really encourage worship teams to think about it from a broader perspective and allow those conversations on the technical side to become an expression of worship , to eliminate distraction , and to allow people to be able to step into your service and easily step into the presence of God , versus dealing with a lot of technical distractions .
[ WM ] Well said ! Wow , thank you both for your time .
[ Andrew and Hope ] Thank you , Bruce .
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20 February 2024 Subscribe for Free ...