Sometimes I wonder what the purpose of a worship leader and a worship group is.

Church worship groups can be the most difficult bands to work with, not because everyone thinks things should be done in different ways (although this often is the case) but because often things can be so anal.

In my opinion the role of the worship leader is to lead a congregation in worship to the Holy Trinity, at the same time a worship leader should be worshipping himself and be constantly open to where the spirit wants to lead.

In my opinion churches are too structured, we have the songs planned beforehand (which in itself is fine, God can inspire us before), we can know exactly when chorus’ and bridges appear (once again, God can inspire us before), and we can have an exact order of service (and yes, God can inspire us beforehand). However too often in churches this remains a rigid structure.

Suddenly change a song or an order can make people uneasy, changing the order can panic people. Stopping to put in a time of prayer not scheduled in can cause mayhem because we like our little comfort zones.

God however is a God who by very nature should make us uncomfortable. As Christians we should constantly be made to feel uneasy by God and at the same time secure in the knowledge that he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

The fact is we have allowed church to be cosy, we have tried to please everyone, tried to put in something for all. We have tried to make it a place people are comfortable in and by doing that I believe we have put God inside a box.

We have written into our services times when God can move, for example a ‘response time’, but what if God wants a response somewhere else? Do we let him?

It’s easy to try and prepare sermons where we beat around the bush, avoiding the tiniest chance that we might offend someone…not correct me if I’m wrong (and I’m pretty sure I’m not) but Jesus did some serious offending, in fact Jesus offended the people he was meant to be serving so much they had him crucified.

I’m not suggesting a pastor should drive the church to that extreme but I am suggesting that in order to be more like Jesus we need to be more daring, we need to be different, we need to take people out their comfort zone and let God show them the wonder that he is.