When I watch people worship, I find that there is one major attribute which is attractive to me. Attractive might not be the right word… Perhaps Admirable is a better choice of words.
Tonight I was at a certain worship concert (Casting Crowns, and Matt Redman) and I stopped singing for a few minutes to look around at people who were worshipping all across the arena. Several different types of people caught my eye as I scanned the crowd. At first glance, the audience was pretty uniform, but gradually, slight differences began to stand out to me.
The first type of worshiper that stood out to me was a type that I am going to label “The Bouncing Y Worshiper”. This type of worshiper moves around quite a bit and has his hands up in the air a lot. Not very much encouragement is needed to convince this worshiper to jump up and down with the beat of the music. Musical dynamics act as his conductor, pleading for more complicated or exaggerated movement at the song’s climax. he appears very zealous and excited. I wish I had that kind of enthusiasm.
The second type of worshiper I noticed was a variation of the “Bouncing Y Worshiper”. The main difference is the slight lack of excited motion. I would probably call these folks “Plain Ole Y Worshipers” This “specimen” of worshiper makes up the majority of worshipers, and has a wide variety of members. I would probably fall into this category much of the time.
As I sat getting caught up in marveling/being distracted by people’s different styles and personalities, I began to notice a few worshipers who couldn’t really be labeled conventionally:
One tiny figure on the very top row of the arena captured my attention. I watched intently at the far off silhouette of a man. I couldn’t tell from the black shadow what he looked like, and perhaps this was best, because the longer I watched, the more this shape embodied a sort of model worshiper for me. He stood off by himself, not front and center, or in a place where ulterior motives could get in the way of his conversation with God - -Being a student at a Christian University, where “Spiritual” people are looked up to by many, it is easy to want to take short-cuts to wide-spread respect by letting others know how Christian-like one can act during times of corporate worship. This pure example of sincerity and genuineness to the father brought goose bumps to my skin. I watched as he would lower his arms to wipe the tears from his face occasionally, without ceasing his love-song to God.
I noted one last worshiper. This worshiper was actually two worshipers, a middle-aged husband and wife. They stood together, eyes glistening and one hand raised in worship, the other gripping their spouse’s free hand. It made me imagine different trials they had endured together, being torn apart a little bit at a time by the things of this world, yet continually repaired by the Father.
Authenticity is attractive, no matter what type of worshiper one is. Oh yeah, I decided to use “admirable”. Authenticity is Admirable.
