Maturity in Worship

By Sarah MacIntosh • Jun 13th, 2008 • Category: Artists in Residence

Since I travel all over the world as a singer I get to see people worship and express themselves in music in many various ways. But one thing that I have come to notice is that the spiritual maturity of a person or congregation can be seen by their worship. If you are growing closer to the Lord and getting to know Him better then your worship will reflect this. It is undeniable that the more I know about who the Lord is and see Him working in my life the more I want to worship Him, the more I want to cry out to Him and continue to draw even closer. It is a repetitive pattern that I hope continues to always go on in my life.

This is why I think that churches should put a huge amount of importance on who their worship leader is. I can tell when I go into a church and lead worship as a special guest if the church leaders value worship or not by the way the congregation worships. Many times there is very little worship only because the people don’t know what to do which is a result of not being taught and led by the worship leader. This, to me, is sad because we all have a desire within us to worship and draw closer to God through worship but many of us need to be shown how.

For instance, I was singing at a festival in Mexico when the entire stadium of people started doing the wave in the middle of my “ballad/heart laid bare on my sleeve” song. I was in shock as was the rest of my band. Afterward I remember talking to my husband trying to figure it out. Were they really bored? Were they telling me, “Get off the stage! On with the next band!,” or what? The next day I heard from many of the local Mexicans that the gesture of doing the wave was one of the highest forms of praise. They were hugely impacted by the song and couldn’t resist expressing it in the way they were taught to…the wave.

This is how the church should be. I don’t think that there is a standard for what expresses worship for everyone but I do know that you can tell when groups of people are worshipping and this is what we are created for. This is what my goal is: to help show and teach people to draw closer to Him and to respond with their worship.

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