I've noticed over the years that church worship leaders have a tendency to want the crowd to be excited and they go to great lengths of shouting or jumping to help get the participants interested or involved. While I know this is done with the best of motives, it often bothers me. I'd like to think that everyone will do their foundational work and when we arrive together that we will focus on God. Perhaps it's naive to think that way.
I compare it to script writing or story telling. If a story is well done, there is no need to stop the story to say -- Look, did you see that bad guy take that or did you see the protagonist say that. If you are too obvious, it's called "on the nose" shooting or writing.
When someone in a story says, "As you know..." and proceeds to tell the person what they already know, it's not good story telling. It's not crafted -- it's straight up information dump happening. It's on the nose.
A satisfying story/script, and I would argue life experience, isn't one where the point hits you over the head, but one where you arrive at it on your own cognizance. You experience your sense of "Eureka! I've figured it out! I get it!"
Often, Christian stories feel the need to beat you over the head with the point rather than let you arrive at the point by putting 1 + 1 together for yourself. It is harder to write a story that will lead people by deduction to the point than it is to force feed them what you want them to get.
It seems that the evangelical worship style is the same. Rather than choosing songs that glorify God and just inviting him to show, we are waiting for a big reaction -- so we feel compelled to rev up the situation so everyone "gets it." To whip up the emotions.
Perhaps as people that are very oriented to our emotions and the sensations of excitement, we forget to leave room for the slow dawning of truth that happens naturally if we allow ourselves space to focus and hear the pieces that God might be putting it together. The ideas may give us a dawning moment that is more powerful or poignant or lasting than simple emotional moment of loud or exuberant worship. The most powerful stories are the same. We don't sit and discuss the philosophies of Spider Man, but a story that makes us think hard or reason brings out discussion.
If you read a story, or go to a play, a film, you want the joy of discovering the story. The audience does not have to be force fed and really doesn't enjoy being force fed a story. It's not as satisfying for them.
I think a similar thing could happen in worship -- though I'm not worship leader and I bet they could teach me a thing or two about their process too. It seems in our harried, busy, technology driven world, we struggle to take time or relax enough to slip into the story to let it effect us.
God's story is the greatest one ever and He is constantly wanting to reveal more depths in the plot to us, but it isn't something that sticks when we whip up an emotion and leave quickly back to our lives. It's something that is important for us to "get" by putting the pieces of the story together and listening.
