Relevant Worship

In the world of worship, there are people crying out for relevant worship.  First, let me ask, what does that mean?  Many times I hear people follow up this statement with, "you have to be singing songs of this generation."  I couldn't agree more.  I don't think we should use yesterday's tools to fix today's problems; however, let's not call this relevant.  If all we do is change how new our worship music is then we have only become recent.  Relevance is more than just being recent.  When leading people to God's heart through worship, we have to do more than just sing new songs.  In John 4 Jesus tells a Samaritan woman that "...true worshippers worship God in Spirit and truth."  The truth part is living a lifestyle of worship and the Spirit part is connecting with God on a much deeper level than just repeating words on a screen.  It's easy for us to go through the motions of singing, clapping and even worshipping; however, it's not always heart-felt.  Relevant worship is worship that takes the individual to a place where they can let their walls down and worship God for who He is.  Sometimes this is accomplished by new music and sometimes a hymn.  You have to know your audience and you have to know what connects.  Once you have decided that then it's time to sing songs that allow our spirits, our deep emotional parts, to connect with the heart of our Creator.