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By Rick Muchow
Many church leaders believe the myth that a seeker-targeted worship service must be a shallow worship experience. In a sense, they’re suggesting that worship must be insensitive to the unchurched in order to be a deep, life-changing, God-honoring experience.
Equally as common is the myth that worship and music are synonymous. Yet, they’re not; music is a method, and worship is a purpose.
Music is a powerful way to take the five biblical purposes deep into the life of the listener. As Rick Warren says, "A song can often touch people in a way that a sermon can't. Music can by-pass intellectual barriers and take the message straight to the heart."
At Saddleback, I use music to serve the purposes and strategies of the purpose driven paradigm. Before I tell you how, let's review the following purpose driven church terms: five purposes, five circles of commitment, target, event and event feature.
Five balanced purposes
The five purposes come from the Great Commandment and the Great Commission:
- Worship: love the Lord with all your heart
- Ministry: love your neighbor as yourself
- Evangelism: go and make disciples
- Fellowship: baptizing them
- Discipleship: teaching them to obey
In a nutshell the purpose is the WHAT, the target is the WHO, the event is the WHERE and the event feature is the HOW. The purpose driven paradigm uses a diagram of five (concentric) circles of commitment to illustrate the goal of moving people from the community (unchurched) into the core (Christian leaders).
The five concentric circles are: community, crowd, congregation, committed and core, and they are broad categories of people groups.
Targets are who we are trying to reach within a commitment circle.
Events are gatherings where the purposes are presented to a target group, for example: weekend church services, Bible studies, or small groups.
Event features are communication methods used at events, for example: speaking, drama, music or other creative arts.
Aristotle said, "Music has the power to shape a culture." There is no doubt that God is using music as a primary event feature in today's Western culture. Connected to the Spirit of God, music is the most powerful tool available to reach and win your target.
The senior pastor who believes this fact is secure in himself and will feel no threat when the congregation compliments or criticizes purpose driven music. The music minister who uses music strategically to serve and support the purposes of the church, as understood by the senior pastor, will enjoy his trust.
Planning a purpose driven worship service
Here are a few tips that will help you program your music to serve the purposes. As an example, let's program the music for a seeker-targeted service:
First identify the purpose of the service. In this case, it is evangelism.
Next let the Spirit lead. Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches ... apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5, NIV) It is vitally important that the programmer is in the midst of a vital personal relationship with Jesus Christ, depending on the Spirit to lead. I know this may sound basic, but it is something that all of us need to remind ourselves of everyday. Apart from him, we can't do anything. My best days begin and end with a quiet time, including Bible study, prayer, devotion and praise.
Now it's time to identify your target and define the event. The target at Saddleback's weekend seeker services is the adult seeker. The target determines the musical style, lyric content, presentation (congregational/special music), length of service and "stage look" of the event. The target does not determine the purpose. That would be target driven not purpose driven; however, it is important to look at the event from the target's perspective.
Next select event features and sequence them in a service flow that will attract your target to the event, keep him listening and eventually move him toward a life change – becoming a Christian. The purposes never change. In a given event all of the purposes may be represented while one may be an emphasis; however, the target must be specific to maximize effectiveness.
In our example, though Saddleback's weekend services emphasize all five purposes throughout the year, the target is always the adult seeker. The five purposes don't change, but they are communicated in a way that the seeker can understand. The most common event features used at Saddleback are music (performance and congregational singing), sermon (message), drama, video and testimony.
The seeker probably won't sing much during the congregation singing portion of your worship service because he doesn't know the songs. He may feel hypocritical singing songs that say he's a follower of Jesus when he's not. For whatever reason, he may choose not to participate.
That's OK, he can watch worship. He will hear the message, especially if he can relate to the music and understand the words. Deep truths can be communicated in clear ways during the music time.
The role of music in the seeker service is to magnify God in a way that the seeker will not feel threatened and can understand what is being said. Seeker-targeted music can help open up the heart of the seeker to the Good News, say it in a way that only music can and, at the same time, provide an opportunity for believers to be fed and express their faith.
The fact that the purpose of the seeker service is evangelism does not preclude other purposes from being represented in the service. Each week we worship, grow in Christ, serve and fellowship in a way that is sensitive to our target.
Let's look further into the seeker-targeted service
At Saddleback, we generally sing four songs and do two solo songs, one before and one after the message. The song after the message is thematic, relating to an appropriate response to the message. Avoid giving the message away (saying the same thing the speaker is going to say) in a song before the message. We determine the drama, video and testimony with the pastor's message in mind. We generally close the service with a brief chorus that inspires community and fellowship.
When selecting songs for the seeker-targeted service, choose songs with common, everyday words, avoiding words only Christians use or understand. Use musical styles that relate to the seeker. Mix up the styles and tempos, and keep the slow intimate songs brief. Intimacy does not have to take a long time to be real or meaningful. If the songs are too repetitive and slow, the seeker will become uncomfortable. Try to sing a new song every week. Keep it fresh.
When leading worship, the leader must worship!
Don't direct. Certain cues for the band or congregation might be needed to keep things together, but it is great when the crowd's focus leaves the platform and is caught up in the moment of experiencing God's presence.
Likewise, ask your worship team to smile genuinely and avoid bringing attention to the platform.
Start on time and use appropriate volume (loud but not too loud). At Saddleback our decibel level ranges from 98 to 108 decibels (every three decibels doubles the volume level). Saddleback seekers don't just want to hear the music -- they want to feel the music.
Effective programming requires thinking through these steps for each event.
The opening paragraph of chapter 15 from Pastor Rick's book, The Purpose Driven Church, summarizes his conviction about the power of music in the church: "I'm often asked what I would do differently if I could start Saddleback over. My answer is this: From the first day of the new church I'd put more energy and money into a first-class music ministry that matched our target. In the first years of Saddleback, I made the mistake of underestimating the power of music so I minimized the use of music in our services. I regret that now."
If you follow the simple purpose driven paradigm and make the purposes of God your ministry's priority, you will find that the worship time you lead will be balanced, rich and exactly on target.
-Purpose Driven®-
Rick Muchow is pastor of magnification at Saddleback Church. ©Copyright 2004. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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