People that frustrate worship leaders (part 2)

Part two from Chico Woo’s blog. Part one is here. Its provoked a lot of interesting discussion.

I am not a worship leader. I did have a secret ambitions of being one but those dreams were crushed many years ago when I led worship in our Bible College chapel. But if I were a worship leader these are some of the people that would frustrate me.

Obscure Hymn-Loving Guest Speaker.

There is always that guest speaker you ask over and over again, “Do you need anything special for the service?” and they say, “Nope, all good”. But then as they start doing the altar call or ending prayer they make a special song request. “Can you do that 16th century hymn written on a German castle dungeon wall in blood by two blind monks?”

Humming Senior Pastors.

When senior pastors come back and ask you to do a song that they heard at a conference. They do not bring a CD or sheet music nor do they know the title, author, or words of the song. All they can do is badly hum the bridge. They hum it and with expectant eyes hope that you can hear and recognize the song. They keep saying, “It was so powerful and awesome!” Of course it is Friday at 4 PM and he wants you to do it this Sunday. So all Friday night you get CSI on it and finally track it down and realize it is a song you were going to sing next weekend. Ugggh…

Tech Loving Staff.

In most churches staff usually sits up front. But that can be frustrating if your staff loves technology. That means that during worship they are in the front row texting, twittering and facebooking during worship. I go home and read the post, “Worship was so awesome today”. How do you know it was awesome? We should have a no Twirshipping rule.

No PowerPoint Rhythm.

These are the people who run the PowerPoint and yet have no PowerPoint rhythm. There is a rhythm to changing the slides. Not too fast, otherwise people start singing the next verse early, and not too slow, because then people start giving you that “Where are we in the song?” look.

The Late Unstealthy Socializer.

This is the person who habitually comes to church 15 minutes late. As they enter the auditorium they start high-fiving, blowing kisses and doing the call-me hand signal, saying hello to everyone they pass. If you are going to be late, be stealthy, choose an aisle seat in the back and quietly come in and join worship. The only reason why you should be late is if you are Latte Late. Latte Late is when the coffee bar at the church is running behind or you have multiple services and the outgoing people and the incoming people are all getting lattes, which causes Latte Congestion. You can use the Latte Late if you were on the coffee bar line 10 minutes before church started. You are only allowed 1 Latte Late per month; anything over that you will be put on Parking Lot Traffic Cop duty during a winter storm.

The Watcher.

This is the person that does nothing but watch during the service. You don’t smile, you don’t sing, you don’t raise a hand, you don’t bow you head, you don’t close your eyes, you don’t blink. You just stare. I can understand if you are new to Christianity, but my goodness, you have been in the church for 10 years and you’ve been staring. You are kind of creepy. At least blink.

The Overly Affectionate Worshippers.

They are the ones constantly touching their spouse, fiancé or boyfriend/girlfriend: rubbing their necks, shoulders, doing the itsy bitsy spider down their spine, kissing (no tongue of course –that’s over the line) and even holding each other in the front-to-back hug during worship. Thankfully, we are lowering the house lights in the auditorium and I can’t really see you anymore. But every once in a while I see you two holding each and swaying to the music. I guess it’s okay now as long as you two don’t try fancy claps.