Revelation contains scenes of heavenly worship happening in the future but also right now. And the heavenly worship that is happening right now, we join in with our own worship. Wait, what? Yes, that's right, the worship of the angels around God's throne, for example, is something that is happening right now. We know Isaiah and Ezekiel both had visions of this heavenly worship, hearing the song of the Angels and seeing the vast and glorious presence of God surrounded by the living creatures and six-winged cherubim and seraphim. So, we know when we sing the song of the Angels Isaiah heard, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, the earth is full of your glory," we're singing a song that is sung around God's throne day and night, non-stop.

One needs only to read the birth narratives of John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus Christ in Luke's gospel to see several beloved hymns that make use of Old Testament forms and capture New Testament content in a way that reflects God's breaking in and doing something new yet familiar. We see in this continuity of form and content the continuation of God's salvation for His people and an example for our own worship leading in the 21st Century.

A dark auditorium and a brightly lit stage is saying something. Corporately confessing our sin each week is saying something. Weekly communion, quarterly communion, an evangelistic altar call, reciting the historic creeds, a Marvel superhero sermon bumper video - it’s all affecting, shaping, and changing us some way or another. As worship leaders, we have the privilege of helping build Christ-like structures that will encase worshipful spirits.

We are creatures of habit. Rhythms and repetitive rituals are an integral part of our lives as human beings. Even the created order has a God-given rhythm. God separates the day and the night (Genesis 1:5), the sun rises and sets each day, tree leaves change colors, bears hibernate, and bees buzz. Spring turns into summer, into fall, into winter and back into spring every year. God has a good sense of rhythm.

Worship leaders in today's context have a high calling to ensure the lyrics sung and prayers prayed fall within this great tradition. Would today's worship set make sense to a believer 500 years ago? 1,500 years ago? Despite our different age and cultural context, God's truth revealed in Scripture is timeless. Just as the synagogue worship invited God's people into a stream of God's word sung or chanted, worship leaders today have the opportunity to carry on their office to facilitate layers of God's grace being deposited in their congregations.

Our modern worship sets resemble this Davidic worship especially when we let the music hang for a bit and we abide in God's presence. This space may be a growth area for your church, a space worth collaborating with your pastor to facilitate. This space also takes some practice and coordination with the band, but it's a worthwhile skill to build as it helps our congregations learn the art of waiting in God's presence, a much-needed posture indeed in our technologically-powered, frenetic world. Sometimes this waiting happens in silence, sometimes there is quiet music playing underneath, but the goal patterned in the biblical mode of Davidic worship is that of attending in worship before the throne of God. And we teach this by modeling it.

The role of worship leader has evolved over the span of two thousand years and longer if you consider the Jewish roots of Christian worship. What began as a chanter and became a choir leader would morph into organist and then song leader. Finally the evolution has arrived at what many American churches have today, a worship leader. No matter what the model has looked like in time, there has always been a singular goal: to facilitate the sung prayer of God's people.

When selecting a new song, take an ancient/modern approach.  Keep the best of the old and embrace the best of the new.  If a song has been around for 400 years, there is probably a reason! You should be singing it!

Here’s the most important point in selecting songs…