The Purpose

Words are important.

A few years ago I was working as the media specialist at a baptist church. Throughout my time there I regularly received promotional mail, usually in regards to AV equipment or support targeted towards churches. Every month I would also receive an issue of Church Production Magazine. I never signed up for the subscription, so my best guess is that someone who came before me signed up for it, and the church just continued renewing it. Either way, every time that magazine showed up on my desk I generally threw it directly in the trash. I have nothing against the company, or most of the content and recommendations in the magazine, but I disagree on a deep theological level with the name of the magazine—The Church Production.

For each and every minister and church leader who has suddenly found themselves in the midst of a livestreaming revolution, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: a worship service is not and never should be considered a production.

The word “production” means to manufacture something from various components or materials for the purpose of consumption. First and foremost, the purpose of a worship service is not consumption. The purpose of a worship service is to worship God. This may seem like an obvious point, but many of us seem to have missed this. From the concert-like atmosphere to the pop culture references, many of our worship services have begun to feel like entertainment instead of worship. We have become so focused on bringing people in for a comfortable and enjoyable experience that it seems like we have forgotten the true purpose of worship. Worship is for God. Worship is our gift to God. Our response. Our calling. Our offering. 

I’m not saying we should ignore all new technology developments and design boring worship services. That would be quite a hypocritical statement coming from a digital media company designed for churches. What I am saying is this: as we begin to incorporate more and more technology into our worship services, we should be more and more intentional about the purpose of our worship services. We should be intentional about the things we do and the words we say. We should rebel against the consumerist mentality that is so prevalent in our American culture, never allowing it to gain a foothold in the church. Yes, use the resources we have available to offer the best worship services we can, but do it because God deserves our best, not because we want to hold someone's attention for more than five minutes.

This is what sets a Christian worship service apart from a secular production—God is the purpose. As many churches work hard to implement livestreaming and professional AV components, many of them are losing that purpose. We begin to sacrifice the pursuit of God to help us better align with the “best production practices.” We may begin to focus too much on time limits, attempting to keep each segment short in order to better hold people's attention. This leads to us ignoring the movements of the Spirit because they push us off of our schedule. We may try to manufacture emotional impact because we know how deeply it can affect people. We try to build our sermons around quotable statements that can be pushed out on social media later. In all of this, the worship service production becomes our purpose and idol.

Sometimes a worshipful experience doesn’t translate perfectly into entertaining video content, and that’s ok. It’s ok to pause in worship. It’s ok to take your time serving communion even though it isn’t entertaining to watch. It’s ok to repeat elements that people hear over and over again, because sometimes those elements are worth repeating. 

Words are important. Worship is not a production.

Offer your best with the resources God has made available for you, but keep God at the center. Remember the true purpose of worship will always be God.