Music Matters to Pastors-Part 6

Music Matters to Pastors-Part 6

            If music is going to help accomplish the purpose of public worship, it must be a valuable concomitant of preaching and it must be carefully coordinated with the rest of the service.  Many pastors are so busy making sure that public worship does not become formal that, in an attempt to be folksy and familiar and thereby supposedly attractive to the audience, they allow a worship experience that has little or no structural form or direction. If a ministry staff does not coordinate all that takes place in the worship service, their attempts at achieving free worship turn in to haphazard worship experiences. I believe that pastor’s who hope for something spontaneous to light a fire under a sleepy worship experience, normally receive what a lack of careful planning usually brings to worship—little or nothing of lasting value at all.

             At this point, I want to make it very clear that the pastor and the music ministry team must be willing to give place to the moving of the blessed Holy Spirit.  However, it doesn’t have to be either or when it comes to the moving of the Holy Spirit.  The worship service that is well thought out and has structure in no way inhibits or prevents the moving of the Spirit.  The key too Spirit filled worship is, in my opinion, a willingness on the part of the pastor, music ministry team, and the congregation to get out of the way when the Holy Spirit begins to move in the worship service.

             As I have said before, the senior pastor is the key person in the development of a concept of worship that gives preeminence to the Holy Spirit.  Although the pastor in many situations may not be the one who is on his feet leading the worship experience, he is the one who must philosophically be the leader of organization and structure and the leader in letting the Holy Spirit have right of way at any place in the planned worship experience.