When the Music Fades

“When the music fades and all is stripped away, and I simply come…” …and so begins the worship classic, “Heart of Worship.” I don’t know much, but in my experience as a worship leader, I’ve found it can be very easy to turn worship into a jam session.

A song turns into a performance, a congregation becomes an audience, and Jesus is simply out of the picture. We strive to make every detail of the music flow together perfectly, so much so that we forget why it even matters. At that point we have to ask ourselves, is the 30-minute set that we term “worship” glorifying God, or is it glorifying us?

Our purpose should be to exalt His name, not ours, but nowadays it seems that leading worship is all about “me me me.” It all stems from a lack of intimacy with Jesus. When we begin to draw near to Jesus, true worship is inevitable.

He is our “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” Isaiah 9:6. He is “the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” Revelation 22:13. He is unchanging; therefore He will always be worthy of worship. That worship doesn’t stop when the music stops. It doesn’t stop when Sunday ends. It doesn’t stop when you’re in school or at work. It doesn’t stop when you’re at home with your family. It doesn’t stop when you’re with your friends. Your thoughts, your words, your actions—they’re all aimed to glorify Jesus.

The reason I love the song “Heart of Worship” is because the lyrics of the song remind me even as I’m singing that it isn’t about my singing. God isn’t looking for perfection in our talents; He’s looking at the intention of our hearts. He is looking for the hearts that know what worship—what life itself is really about: “It’s all about you, Jesus.” ~Lesley Koruthu