10 Mistakes Worship Leaders Make - Familiar vs. Routine
One worship leader asked - "so on the one hand we should provide something familiar but on the otherhand not get stuck in a routine?" As my son might say - "so what' up with that?"
It's a good question - an important question that gets to the heart of leading worship. First, take a moment and read the definitions of Familiar and Routine.
Definition for Familiar:
1. commonly or generally known or seen: a familiar sight.
2. well-acquainted; thoroughly conversant: to be familiar with a subject.
3. informal; easygoing; unceremonious; unconstrained: to write in a familiar style.
4. closely intimate or personal: a familiar friend; to be on familiar terms.
1. commonly or generally known or seen: a familiar sight.
2. well-acquainted; thoroughly conversant: to be familiar with a subject.
3. informal; easygoing; unceremonious; unconstrained: to write in a familiar style.
4. closely intimate or personal: a familiar friend; to be on familiar terms.
Definition for Routine:
1. a customary or regular course of procedure.
2. commonplace tasks, chores, or duties.
3. regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.
4. an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response: Don't give me that brotherly-love routine!
2. commonplace tasks, chores, or duties.
3. regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.
4. an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response: Don't give me that brotherly-love routine!
Familiar is a relational term and refers to closeness, comfort and intimacy. Routine is a functional term and refers to procedure, habit and formula.
A football team has to be familiar - even intimate - with its offensive scheme. It has to execute the plays with precision and out of habit. However, if the coach's strategy becomes routine then the opponents will easily anticipate the play selection and counteract the offense.
If worship becomes familiar and intimate people will feel at ease and open up in their conversation to the Lord. If it becomes routine then they easily fall into auto-pilot and go through the motions.
Here is my sports plug. Watch any football or basketball game and you'll easily find the coaches who are familiar with their team and the competition and manage their team with finesse and those who are following a rigid protocol or playbook. This is your excuse to watch more sports.
1 Comments:
I understand the definitions - good distinction.
the football imagery is intriguing:
If the worship leader is the coach then his/her interplay between familiar and routine.
A coach will use routine to help the team become familiar with his strategy for playing the game. But he wants his team to know how to do more than just the same plays all the time otherwise his team will lose. No smart coach spends all his practice time working on the trick plays and the variations. Yet in some ways the coach is hoping to create such confidence in the team so that they can run the occasional variation or trick play seemlessly without tipping off the other team.
I see the same tension for the worship leader. He wants to create familiarity in the congregation and may need (I suggest) to use routine to establish that familiarity. But he/she must also remember that routine breeds complacency and stagnation. To inject spontaneity is to go outside of what is familiar. Which still leaves me wondering if there is something I am missing in the pursuit of balance here. My perception is that a focus on developing familiarity can often lead quickly to the suffocating routine that you are warning against. But my own experience says that when too much spontaneity is inserted into the mix it can quickly become dibilitating for the congreation as well which is what i think you are getting at also...
I hope you don't mind if I drag some of my readers attention to these posts...
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