(Or, worship is not Chris Tomlin and a VOX amp. Part one)

I've been in Nashville almost a week now, and I've already found a church.

It's a fairly large church. They do two services per week in an auditorium that seats at least 1200. The worship service was your average Willow Creek Association church service - a couple of yawn-worthy contemporary worship songs played in a predictable manner and a thirty-minute sermon on the Holy Spirit. I found myself, somewhat surprisingly, completely unimpressed. (Adjective man strikes again!) But that got me thinking - when was the last time I went to a church and came out thinking "That experience spoke to me."? When was the last time I went to a church and felt as though the passion in the room would overwhelm me? When was the last time I felt passionate about my faith? When was the last time you were with a body of believers who were totally, completely, and wholeheartedly surrendered to God and worshiping Him with wild abandon?

This question haunts me now.

I'll be the first to admit that Point of Grace wasn't my church - I just worked there. And that's sad, really. By the time I was the on-staff full-time technical director, I was so completely numbed to the service and it's completely predictable and unchanging formula that I let myself be absorbed into the world of sound or lights or whatever I was doing, and ignored the service in the context of a connection with God. In fact, if what I was doing that weekend didn't require me to stay in the auditorium, I would leave and hang out in the atrium until I needed to go back in. If I was at front of house, I simply followed along in my sermon notes, hitting mute buttons when I needed to with clinical detachment. Immersion on Thursday nights was a wonderfully welcome breath of fresh air, but there times when even it felt like it was just going through the motions. The motions were different, but they were executed with mechanical efficiency nonetheless.

Is that how it's supposed to be? Is it inevitable that the people who work for the church won't care by the time they get to the weekend service? Is there nothing beyond the weekend service? Is worship a couple of Tomlin songs and a prayer? Is worship warm, cascading sensations of religious emotion? Is it lifting your hands? A slammin' praise band? Have we come to the point where we are worshiping worship?

What is worship, and what can we do about this feeling that many worship services today are a weak reflection of what the Creator had in mind - a watered-down, cheap imitation of a true connection to the Saviour? Why is there such a large gap in the young people demographic in churches? Am I the only one who feels this?

Exit, stage left. Sparks