I asked a Twitter/blog friend, Tyler Braun, to guest post today. You’ll love him, seriously. His blog, Man of Depravity always makes me think and he always has something valuable to say on Twitter. In addition to blogging, Tyler is a worship leader in Portland where he lives with his wife, Rose.

Missional.

Defined as: Christian church buzz word that no one knows the meaning of.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really get the movement going on in churches to describe themselves as “missional.” I say that because it should be something every church is obviously doing. If the church is truly the body of Christ, then we are always on mission.

With that said, let’s think about how we worship as a body when we gather. We sing songs about God, we declare Him to be worthy of our worship towards Him. We sing a lot about “me” and “I” and the importance of each of us individually aligning ourselves toward God.

Rarely do worship song lyrics provoke us to start caring for the people around us (we leave that up to the Holy Spirit).

If worship is something that only stays between us (individuals) and God, I think we’re falling short of the total goal.

Last Sunday night, I was leading worship for my church’s high school group. I explained to them that worship, in its fullness can’t be something that is only between us and God. Worship is something that should push us to care for the people around us. I had placed a piece of paper and pencil under every chair and asked each student to write a note or prayer of encouragement to somebody else in that room. And to give that piece of paper to them (if they felt comfortable) before the end of the night.

I walked away seeing a lot of blank pieces of paper on the ground. And really the point wasn’t to get everyone to write a note to their friend. It was more for them to begin realizing that their worship of God isn’t fully complete until they aren’t thinking about themselves anymore.

It’s funny to me that most churches that describe themselves as missional, still allow for a time of worship that is completely individually focused in the lyrics.

So this is my challenge to worship leaders:

Find ways to make worship a missional thing.

Worship, in its fullest sense, is something that draws us closer to God and closer to those around us.

What are your thoughts on missional worship?