Prophetic Worship In Today's Church Culture
From the Director of RIHOP
I’ve been having conversations with some of the worship leaders, singers, and musicians in our city and I’ve noticed some common themes each time I listen. I'm hearing hearts that are simultaneously feeling wounded while carrying deep hunger. There is a reach for something more than what they are currently experiencing in their role and church worship environment.
As I listen to them share with an effort to articulate what it is they truly want and need, I’ve picked up on at least two contributing factors to the discomfort or frustration they find themselves in. The first factor is the impact that Covid/Quarantine has had on the current church expression. I can’t discount how a global pandemic and massive cultural adjustment has impacted the church worship expression. The second factor has been around for a long time: the perceived limitations that Sunday morning structures place on the creative and prophetic expression as well as the worship leader and their team’s ability to “freely follow the Holy Spirit.”
While I do not have all the answers to the things causing creatives to come to me and express some measure of pain, I feel I may have some insight to offer derived from my own history as well as from the culture of how we are building a day and night worship and prayer community for our city of Richmond, VA.
Both of these factors are realities that I truly believe God is using to awaken us to something within His heart that He wants us to get. Our hunger and dissatisfaction with the way things are can be a gift of grace from God even when it’s produced in discomfort and pain. Our discomfort can be received as a nudge from the Holy Spirit to lean in and listen to what God is saying. We may well find that it is in fact His desires that are being formed in our hungry hearts.
I’ll address the first factor: Covid/Quarantine. I’m not going to rant about masks and toilet paper or offer a suggestion that the church is moving into some kind of virtual age. The lifestyle of the Body of Christ has been and will always be meeting together in person; centered around the Person and Presence of Jesus; singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; discerning His voice, and feasting on His Word to us.
When the Church had to go virtual, it had to re-evaluate the central purpose of corporate worship. This opportunity to re-evaluate was a gift from God. Some worship leaders became disheartened and discontent to simply record video programs to be sent out through the media. Why? Because we were made to gather together around the person and presence of Jesus in a corporate worship environment. The worship leader’s role in part is to facilitate this. Some others became disheartened because they found they actually don’t know how to worship when there isn’t a crowd to engage and lead. This is a dilemma I will address when I discuss Sunday morning structure and schedules. Either way, I believe this new “zoom call” dynamic was used to expose the heart behind the ministry role and left many wrestling with the definition and application of their assignment.
Some questions rose to the surface. For example: “Are we performing a production for people or we are ministering to God’s presence?” As a result, some were driven into better production and performance to maintain the influence with people yet lost the plumb line of the purpose of the worship service: corporate ministry to the Presence and Person of Jesus. When people were not in the room, they became focused on producing something primarily for people or were at a loss on how to worship if they weren’t singing to a crowd. They had lost or never found the ability to simply sing to the Presence of God.
Others were left aching and empty with the realization that, though worship is all about Jesus, they missed experiencing God’s Presence together, seeing and hearing Him, not what is offered the crowd on Sunday morning. They were hungry to minister to Jesus with spiritual family and began to see the privilege that perhaps was taken for granted: to gather freely in His name.
While I firmly believe God’s long-term plan and intent is for us to gather in person, the issue is not “to zoom or not to zoom” necessarily. For example, we at MAPS Global hosted a virtual 50 hours of unceasing worship and prayer joining with believers from 50 nations during the quarantine. It was indescribable for me as a worship leader to be gathered with believers from all over the globe while I sang in our prayer room. I was with a few others and a camera connected to a computer connected to the nations. I listened as multiple languages came through the sound system in worshipful adoration and prayer agreement. This was no empty production! The tangible presence of God transcended nations through computer calls focused on His Person and Presence. It was a monumental gathering as we hosted God’s presence on a corporate and global level!
The issue is not necessarily the means of worship but the heart of worship. During quarantine, this was exposed, and people had to wrestle with the way things are. Some left their churches because their role of worship leader got removed or redefined. Some stayed and either created a presence centered culture or a production centered culture. Without a doubt, this impact left its mark on hungry worship leaders. The result God is after is for Him to be at the center. Thus, dissatisfied worship leaders are returning again to the true heart of worship.
Now, for this second quandary in the hearts of creatives: the felt limitations of Sunday morning church. My thoughts may surprise you as I will not focus the attention on the schedule, format, or structure as a problem. I am certainly all about freedom of creative expression and surrender to the move of the Holy Spirit, but I will not blame a Sunday morning structure for the dissatisfaction in the heart of a worshipper. Here’s why: the problem is not Sunday morning.
Consider that the problem might be that those with this assignment to host God’s presence personally and corporately are becoming embittered and frustrated because they are trying to squeeze and fit the totality of this assignment into fifteen, thirty, or sixty minutes on Sunday. They becoming embittered over stifled creativity and ache for more in the worship encounter.
Worship leaders, please hear me: I am well acquainted with this ache. I do wish that all of our congregations would learn to simply linger long in His presence, remove personal agenda, and follow Him without restraints and time restrictions. However, I want us to look from a slightly different perspective. What if we saw Sundays as only a very small part of the actual fullness of the assignment and in doing so, became free from bitterness and expectation for it to meet all of our desires as worshippers and creatives during a church service?
Early on in my worship leading history, I found dissatisfaction with the Sunday expression. In my immaturity as a worship leader, I blamed the structure for my dissatisfaction. I believe now that God can be expressed and found in the structure, and that He has given congregational Sunday morning worship to Himself. There is a difference between human agenda and structure. One does not equal the other, but that is a separate argument. For now, I want to express that we need that which transpires with order and intentionality on a Sunday morning. We need the Body of Christ in our cities and regions to host services for worship and to host the presence of the Lord in the way that they were designed to.
Here's the reality that I want us to catch and perhaps become free. Being designed as a creative, a worshipper, a singer, and with a prophetic voice, I had to come to realize that I wasn't designed to find the fullness of my assignment on Sunday mornings alone. How could I blame my dissatisfaction on the Sunday morning service structure? It's NOT the fullness of my assignment.
So, I had to release the leadership of the church, and I had to release what my Sundays should look like. I was trying to fit a calling to minister to the Lord all the days of my life, of pursuing intimacy with God, of deep devotional adoration in the secret place into one service a week. It's not fair to the congregation. It's not fair to that church service. It's not fair to the leadership of the church for me to have been so frustrated because Sunday morning wasn't enough. The truth is that Sunday morning isn’t and never will be enough for the depth of desire for God that has been formed within our hearts by God.
We have a generation of worship leaders that are so hungry for the Presence of the Lord who desire to have creative and prophetic freedom. They deeply desire to linger long in the movements of the Holy Spirit. Yet, they are angry at the "Sunday morning” context. I exhort you to release your Sunday morning from being the end-all to what your assignment is. Sunday morning is a beautiful time to serve the body of Christ, to bring the Bride into loving the Bridegroom. As a worship leader, I am a friend to the Bridegroom. As a worship leader, I am there to draw people into a deeper level of love for Jesus and to serve the congregation.
A ten or thirty-minute worship set on Sunday mornings will never satisfy the call of God on my heart as a worship leader because I have an assignment to worship the Lord for long hours. I’m designed to go deep into creative expression and release songs in the secret place. After my wrestle, the Lord put me in a “timeout” before I ever led a prayer room, pastored worship teams, or produced albums. He said, "Do this alone in your living room unto me only - first." There I learned how to sing to an audience of One that would later equip me to bring others into that deep place in His heart with me. For a time, I didn't lead a house of prayer or do itinerant ministry. I played on my piano and guitar in my living room where no one else heard me. That's where I found Him and how to move His heart with my song as He blew my mind with His beauty and worth.
“One thing I have desired, one thing I seek is that I may dwell in the House of the Lord, to gaze on His beauty.” - Psalm 27:4
Later on in the Psalm, it says "'Come seek My face’, I said, ‘Oh Lord Your face I will seek’." That call to seek His face and respond to His heart apprehended my heart. I found my assignment further defined in the story of Mary of Bethany with her costly perfume, equivalent to her entire inheritance, being poured out at the feet of Jesus. There was no audience in her heart, except for Him. Now as I am leading a day and night worship and prayer room in our city, I am inviting worship leaders, singers, and musicians in our city to stay in their local church and on their worship teams but find Jesus in the secret place. I am inviting them to realize that they are designed to give hours before the Lord where they can be creative and prophetic and linger for as long as they want in His presence. I want them to be wrecked with his beauty and worth in the context of a place to sing and pray and worship in addition to the Sunday morning context.
There are very real and powerful testimonies from some of our local worship pastors that having a place like this, whether it be a living room or a prayer room for the city, has only increased the quality of their Sunday mornings. It’s because their hearts are finding fulfillment in walking out their assignment to minister to the Lord outside of church worship leading. This has only brought strength and breakthrough to their serving role on Sunday mornings.
Worship leaders, singers, and musicians are pouring into a sort of “Pool of Bethesda” here in our city. I am dreaming with God about what will happen in the local church as they continue being strengthened and edified while they spend long hours in His presence. As they see and hear God, they are getting freer and freer in the prophetic assignment that is on their lives. Let Sunday mornings be only one small part of the full assignment. I pray that you find that fullness of joy in His presence as you learn to minister to Him outside of one weekly gathering.
Kim Hager
MAPS Global Leadership Team