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I am 30 yrs old, and I’m all about being relevant in our worship services. As a worship pastor in an evangelistic church, I’ve seen great results in being relevant in our music. I am first and foremost, a worship leader, and a musician second. My passion is seeing God’s people connect and recognize His presence in our services. I also believe that unbelievers are unable to truly worship the God that they have yet to put their faith in. As a result, the relevance of our music is a huge evangelistic tool in reaching those that have yet to know God.

It’s easy for me to strive for relevance and change, because that’s my personality. I love new things and ideas. I’m very open to change. I love today’s music. Relevance is not an issue for me, but it has pressured me as a worship leader.

It’s taken me a few years to gain some balance on this issue, and I’m still striving for more balance everyday. It may be just me, but there’s been a lot of times where I’ve felt pressured to focus on relevance more than on what the Holy Spirit is directing me to do. It’s not pressure brought on by my pastor, or other worship leaders, but it’s simply pressure brought on by me, myself, and I. When I’m planning my set list, to this day, I battle my flesh in the journey to gaining clarity on what God wants our church to sing every week. If you’ve been leading worship for a while, chances are you have seen a song bomb in your service, and realized that you were the one who planned the set instead of God. Those moments have taught me so much, and I keep those in front of me when I am preparing the worship set every week.

I read Matt Redman’s book Facedown a few years ago, and he said something that really gave me a lot of perspective. He basically said that a lot of churches and leaders are so focused on being culturally relevant that they’re becoming dangerously close to being irrelevant to God.

Cultural relevance isn’t bad. It’s actually really good, and will always be a desire of mine. The problem comes when we rely on it more than God to have a great worship service. It’s easy to fall into, and it defeats the purpose of why we did it in the first place. There’s nothing greater than seeing the Holy Spirit do more than you ever could in a worship service, and it all starts when we place those few songs on a list that we will be singing. If I feel an unrest about a song, or a pulling to do a certain song, I must follow the Spirit’s guiding, because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and there is liberty.

When God’s people come together and worship Him in spirit and in truth, there’s something illogical about it. There’s something supernatural about it. To see people lift their hands, sing, dance, cry, and get excited about a God that’s presence is there, but not physical is a very unique quality of the church. I really believe that  the seeker is looking for a church. We can be entertained outside of the church in many ways, but only  the church can facilitate corporate worship, and can be a place to experience and see God’s people united in praise. Relevance in the music of worship is essential, but the Holy Spirit is vital to the relevance of worship. Relevance should not be the ultimate priority. Recognizing the presence of God changes lives. 

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