Metallica Weeping (2 of 6)

This week I am having a guest blogger - Forefront's worship leader: Joe Heilman. He is fantastic at what he does and you can learn a lot from him. So here he is:

Imagine you go to a Metallica concert. You enter amidst a sea of black t-shirts. The language you hear and smells you smell introduce you to the “real people” you wanna reach. Welcome to the show! You’re amazed as the opening band comes on and the first rows turn their backs on them and give them the finger. It’s tradition at Metallica shows. This is a sign of devotion from Metallica fans. (I told Vince we oughta try it on a Sunday at Forefront during his sermon. He wasn’t down for it…)

Metallica hits the stage! It’s ear bleeding loud. It’s rock-n-roll thunder from the word go… Mayhem breaks out, fists pump in the air, grown men sing along with every word, heads and hair are flying, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria!!!

Now let's pretend that in the middle of one the band's biggest songs, front-man James Hetfield tells the band to quite down. He needs to “share” something. He begins to share “his heart”. He gets emotional and weepy as he tells the crowd how difficult this tour has been on him. He has a little breakdown right there on stage.

As sympathetic as Metallica fans are towards the band, this would be bizarre. First, because this is out of character for James Hetfield. Metallica are musicians, but present themselves as tough guys. Second, this behavior is totally antithetical to what a Metallica concert is all about. And, third, fans would be up in arms at the interruption of their favorite jam with this freaky emotional whirlwind. This is a Metallica show, not Oprah!!

So what do we learn from our little pretend concert experience? I want to challenge the age old thought that the worship/music time is when everyone gets emotional and “in touch with their heart” thus becoming a big estrogen fest. It's like the person who cries the most is the most qualified to lead worship. But could it be that worship can involve many expressions and we've chosen "weepy" as the only valid one?

It is not effective if the guy we’re trying to reach comes to our church and sees a guy on stage who dresses like him, looks like him, rocks like him, but then suddenly makes him emotionally uncomfortable because the dude was "touched by the Lord" and gets all teary-eyed. The worship guy says he's "just trying to be authentic" but there's something not so authentic about it when the dude does it week after week. I think there’s a better way to reach that guy's heart and have him totally hooked into what God is doing. But maybe we learn how that looks more from a Metallica concert than the church down the street.

Please don’t get me wrong. There is a time for emotion in worship. I find myself there a lot. But as worship leaders let’s not get hooked into the thinking that unless we wear our hearts on our sleeve we’re not spiritual enough. As I said in my last post, this is an art form you develop as a leader. To find how you communicate, but chances are it doesn’t look like the weepy worship leader down the street. Maybe try just being you.

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