We got to the church Saturday evening – through the beginning of a spring snow storm – and set up guitars and keyboards and mics for a little bit of worship mixed in with a little bit of prayer. I’d sent out a couple dozen text messages in case others wanted to join us, but Holy Spirit had other plans it seems.

I closed my eyes as we started to make some noise and was almost instantly uneasy. Holy Spirit started talking and I started hesitating. Maybe this is just for me to know. Maybe this is just my inner monologue. Maybe He’s just talking to me about me.

We had the whole conversation twice in my spirit before I mustered up the courage to speak. He said everything (except one part ’cause I probably would have refused if I knew that was coming) twice – exactly the same – and I argued about speaking in the first person because it’s a big deal to speak in the first person.

The guys started to make more noise and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I’m not even sure if I intended to speak in the first person, but I did. And while I’m convinced that this is primarily for the student worship team at Church in the Word, it’s still true, and there may be another worship team (as a whole) or leader out there who needs to listen too.

(I stress “team” and “leader” because if you’re on a worship team and you’re not the leader, this does not permit you to incite division on the team because you think God is telling you something about the team that is contrary to how the worship leader is leading. Because He’s probably not.)

“Who are you listening to? Listen. Who are you listening to?

“You’re listening to you.

“Listen to Me. Stop listening to you, and listen to Me. I see your heart and I love your heart but you’re still listening to you. Listen to Me. You’ll never be able to worship like you want to unless you listen to Me. You’ll never be able to pray like you want to unless you listen to Me.

“Who are you listening to? You’re listening to you. Listen to Me.”

And then the part He hadn’t told me about before-hand,

“If you listen to you, you’re praying to you. If you listen to you, you’re worshiping you.

“Don’t listen to you. Listen to me. You can strum and you can drum and you can play and you can sing, but listen to Me. Don’t listen to you. Listen to Me.”

I think it was a little longer than that, but I think I mostly repeated a few things. That’s about how it came out though – rather poetically, which was just kind of cool.

We value excellence and we have two practice sessions every week so that our music is the best it can be and conducive to unity, and that’s not what the Lord was addressing. What He was addressing was our tendency to go for the music, for our talents, for our own pleasure. We like it when we nail a new song, when a transition is flawless, when spontaneity is so unified you’d never recognize it as spontaneity.

And so does He, but that’s not His focus when we come to worship and it can’t be ours either.

So, who are you listening to?