I recently listened to a talk Keith Getty gave a few months back in Chicago. Keith is a well-known songwriter of contemporary hymns and a worship leader. He said a lot of things worth checking out if you listen to the whole talk (link to his talk on corporate worship leading) but one part specifically stuck out to me.
“Churches who have senior pastors who sing out during worship, generally are churches who sing well. Churches who have senior pastors who don’t sing out during worship, generally are churches who don’t sing well.”
The context for the quote comes from his extensive traveling to churches all over the world and this is one way he’s distinguished between churches who sing or don’t sing well.
There’s two sides to the argument that comes following a quote like that. One side would say people should keep their worship focused on God not on their pastor. The other side would say a pastor who can’t worship in public probably has a private worship problem. Steven Furtick touched on this in a post he wrote on similar topic.
A couple quick thoughts of my own:
- The men and women who have been called to lead local church bodies have a duty to provide a helpful example.
- I lead worship for student ministry programs multiple times a week and I’m always trying to balance what it means for me to truly worship while also being an example to the students of what a posture of worship in a corporate setting can and should look like. To say the students shouldn’t be watching me is somewhat naive, because they are, it’s a reality.