Sunday Worship... Who's the Audience?

This past Sunday I had the privileged of teaching a Sunday School class.  This month we are studying the "Epic Adventure"  of life.  We all have big plans and dreams for our lives, but there are times when life seems mundane and boring, at the very least not the epic adventure that we were hoping for.  The question that we're asking is, what's holding us back?  Why are we not achieving everything that God wants us to achieve.  one obvious answer is that our dreams are not His dreams.  But what about when are dreams are from God, and still we are not being all that He intended us to be?

We discusses three areas that hinder our "epic adventure" from Mark 11:12-25:

1. fruitlessness

2. Distractions

3. and Misplaced Faith

I wanted to give credit to Steve Gaines and Soren Kierkegard, with regard to the illustration that I brought up in class.  In  his book "When God Comes to Church", Steve Gaines uses an example by Soren Kierkegard, about the audience of our worship.

In short it goes like this:

There are three players in our Sunday service:

1. Coach

2. Performers

3. Audience

Usually the perspective is that God is the coach, prompting the pastor/music leader/etc.  He's the behind the scene guy whispering cues for the performers.  The performers are the ones on stage (pastor, music leader, musicians, etc.) trying to please the audience.  The audience is everyone else who are there to enjoy what is going on.

With this perspective we tend to leave church asking questions like:

Did you enjoy church today?

What did you think of the... message, music, temperature, volume, attendance, etc.

The problem is, that is not the right perspective of a Worship service.  Just like the Jews in Mark 11:15-19 we are often distracted from what our Worship service is, namely a service where worship is being given to/for God.

God is the audience not the coach.

The performers are all those in attendance, not the ones on stage.

The ones on stage are simply the coach directing the performers as present their worship be fore the crowd of one-GOD.

When that perspective is taken we no longer as questions like, "did you enjoy the service?".  We start asking...

Do you think God was pleased with that?

Did God approve of the music, the message, etc.

When you go to church Sunday know which part you play.  You are either the coach or the performer, but never the audience.