Leading Worship
Joshua 24, McLuhan and the Already/Not Yet
In my Worship Foundations class, we were asked to answer these questions: Who are you as a worship planner/leader/minister? What is it to be a worship planner? a worship leader? a Minister of Word and Sacrament? Who are you, and what are you to do, in such roles? How are you to conceive of yourself in each role?
What follows was my response...
WHO.
Worship leader, worship planner, lead worshiper? The terminology that we use to define ourselves when entering a space of worship towards the Divine speaks volumes into the posture we have both personally and corporately. Lately, the term worship facilitator has risen to the top of terms as of late, meaning – one who invites a group of people to understand their shared place in the unfolding story of and with the Creator; assisting individuals and communities to engage and remember, challenge and celebrate how and where Christ’s kingdom is bursting into the here and now. Popular Christian and church culture will typically associate the term worship with the individual who leads a community in song and praise, which it rightly should. Yet as we find our place in the stories of our ancestors, we see individuals like Joshua who put forth a way of leading a community to engage the Most High through word and deed.
HOW AND WHAT.
In many ways, Joshua 24 can serve as a direct ‘how to’ for worship, for the liturgy and life. Instead of using this as a static method or absolute, it could serve a community well to use it as a framework or skeleton. Holding his words well, as a facilitator using them to spark the creative to best engage and be embodied in and by individuals and communities.
-There is power in the stories of our past, and the journey where we have gone before – for in that we see where Christ was and is at work and how His will is being done here as it is in heaven.-There is power in reminding each other of what Christ has called us into, that He has chosen His bride, His Church to be those who usher in this new reality, His kingdom.- There is power in the way Joshua reminds us that how we live outside of the sanctuary and that we come together to then pour out the kingdom.
As worship facilitators we take all of these into account and the environment we engage them in. With the words of modern day prophet Marshall McLuhan, who so brilliantly stated ‘the message is the medium’. The medium is the message, reminding us that Christ’s kingdom invades all aspects of life – how and where we sit is as powerful a message as the words we choose to use. Our awareness of the Divine in the daily, in the simple and overlooked is just as important as the praises and Scripture we use to invite others into.