Facilitate Not Infiltrate // Week 2

Someone emailed me the other day asking me this “ How can I get my church congregation to really go for it in our times of worship? It feels dead and as if no one wants to be there“.

This question seems to come up a lot and it is something that I have struggled with as well. A couple years back I was going through the same thing. It felt as if no one was entering in and from what I could see, no one was engaging with God. After this particular service I had a bit of a sulk to a friend of mine because it felt like I had done all the right things, sang all the right songs, but still there was no response. My friend then said something that was really challenging. He said, “ Even though it may look like people are not engaging, the Holy Spirit is still at work “. This really hit home for me because I would sometimes be looking for the outward expression of someone raising a hand or if it was really good, that person would have two hands raised in the air and if it was VERY good, the conga would start up! But actually, that’s not the point, if there are no hands raised, nobody is doing the conga and it feels dead, God, is still at work. And for us, we need to believe that God is doing something in our times of worship regardless of how things may appear outwardly. I do believe that we need to encourage our congregations to respond to what God is doing by lifting up hands in surrender, or lifting up a shout of praise because he is worthy. But this must not be the deciding factor of whether it was a good time of worship or not. We need to facilitate the Holy Spirit and not infiltrate our times of worship with a ‘plan of attack’ of how we can get people to raise their hands. We can’t force people to worship because to be honest, people may not be as ready and as willing as we are. As worship leaders, we always want to see God move in our times of worship but for everyone else, a lot of people will come on a Sunday feeling tired from the week, weighed down from the pressures at work, some will come feeling hurt or confused and may not be up for singing ‘How great is our God’. And that’s why we need to allow the Holy Spirit to do what he does best – meet with his people. That’s the great thing about our job; we get a front seat and get to watch our amazing God, meet with his people. What a privilege! 

Ben Cantelon is married to Alice and leads worship at Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London. Ben has been involved with the Soul Survivor festivals over the past few years. His songs include ‘Love Came Down’, ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Not Ashamed’.