Worship Leading as Spiritual Direction…
Not only do I have a Spiritual Director, I are one. There, I said it. Yeah, I know, the term “spiritual direction” carries either a big yawn or big baggage. On the one hand it seems archaic. Too Catholic for many, conjuring up images of monks in habits, sitting in barely furnished, stucco coated rooms lit by one weak candle in the corner. Or maybe I just planted that thought for the first time, but still for most of us, the word “direction” seems too authoritative to be something that any self-respecting American would seek.
I hear that Life Coaches are all the rage for some. Think of this as a Spiritual Life Coach. Spiritual Direction is just a classic term for what some have rightly called Spiritual Friendship—it’s merely the deliberate process of helping someone else develop their relationship with God. That’s all. In spiritual direction, the spiritual director is more of a companion, observing and asking discerning questions. The confidence is that God will make himself known.
Even as a “pastor“, I relate so much easier to this model than other soul care models I’ve studied like psychotherapy, or even standard pastoral counseling. Those are solutions oriented, and they have their place, especially when a person is in crisis and needs advice; I’ve given my share of advice, and have certainly been helped by that sort of relationship, so I have nothing bad to say about it. But there’s still this resident part of my faith–confirmed in my experience–that believes that if we become frequently and increasingly present to God, and especially in a safe community of “two or three”, he reveals himself, and he reveals ourself. And the two selves can find and build upon a new unity of relationship called Love, where “steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” (Ps 85.10 ESV)
I know that to some it sounds too idealistic or mystical to be of any use. But really, any hope of a relationship with God is subject to the same cynicism, isn’t it? I mean, it may be just “working with the willing,” but is there any other way?
True, spiritual direction is typically sought by people who are already serious about their faith and want to develop their relationship with God. It may be that they have lived a devout life but now have realized a certain lack of vitality in their prayer life. Or it may be that they’ve recently received Christ and want to grow. No matter what the circumstance, these are the willing—people who are ready for a deeper relationship with the Lord. And over the millenia, such people have found it helpful to have someone else who is safe, both in confidentiality and in experience, who spends undistracted time alongside them, each present to God and to each other, prayerfully listening and observing what he’s doing in that one person’s life. And the result is an ongoing, deepening relationship with the Lord for that individual. That’s beautiful to me. It clicks my metronome if you will.
My own experience of receiving spiritual direction has been a surprisingly beneficial thing. I must admit I used to have quite a bit of cynicism about such things. I felt sufficiently introspective myself! Perhaps even too much so! Why did I need to couple that with someone who didn’t know me? But by God’s grace, many of those cynicisms have been broken down by disappointments, and ironically by disillusionment, over the past few years. And as I’ve seen more clearly the end of myself, the more honest I’ve become about not having the answers. “I don’t know” is no longer a confession of failure, but of dependency. And reality. And the Joy of Despair.
So, as I became open to the notion that I could benefit from spiritual direction, I became one of the willing, and have benefitted tremendously from it during the past 8 months or so. At some point I’ll explain more about what spiritual direction looks like, but the point I’m trying to make here is that it is the process of creating a sacred space to prayerfully listen, observe and help a person grow in their relationship with God. And that looks an awful lot like worship leadership to me.
In fact, I’d like to talk to other worship leaders here. As worship leaders we want to lead people in an encounter with God. We want to create a sacred space where we can become mutually present to God. In a sense that’s all a worship leader or spiritual director can do. We do our best to prayerfully create an environment that facilitates the worship of the willing. As leaders, that involves observing and listening to what God is doing within individuals and within the church body. It involves framing discerning questions, and leaving room for people to wrestle through it. This work goes on all week, as we prepare the songs that will frame those questions with each person’s lips, and as we try to discern and plan the flow of celebration and contemplation that is critical to wrestling with sincerity yet with earthy humility.
As worship leaders our goal is to facilitate worship; it’s to help people develop their relationship with God through an encounter with him. But if our goal is, even inadvertently, to lead people in singing, or in an emotionally rapturous experience, we will miss the true mark by which our ministry is really going to be measured.
Worship leading in the sense of spiritual direction is more about praying than singing or speaking. Rather than leading people in singing, we need to think of ourselves as leading people in prayer. Music is wonderful; we response well to it, and we respond well by it. But we need to be aware of the prayer that’s going on. We need to start seeing our worship leading as spiritual directors see their discipline — as discerning God’s activity in a person’s life and helping them to become present to him.
So to those worship leaders who feel it’s your job to command and direct and “usher in” and “issue forth” and thus and so… I just want to appeal to you to lead the people in praying to God. Humbly, gently. Put yourself in their shoes and picture yourself sitting before a Spiritual Director you just met, who chastises you for not praying with enough enthusiasm, and commands you to become present to God without taking time to acknowledge what may be keeping you from doing so. You’d resist wouldn’t you?
The effective Spiritual Director is a prayerful listener first, an empathizer second, a discerner third, and a commander almost never. Likewise, the more effective Worship Leader will listen to understand the people, will discern God’s presence, and will encourage the people to trust and engage God’s presence.
Wow, what could be better than to have our worship leading serving the same need as spiritual direction, but at the community level? I’m still fleshing out what that looks like, but the thought of it intrigues me.
For what it’s worth…