The hundreds or thousands of people who’ve decided to pick your church to attend. How smooth your worship services are executed. The modern facilities you’ve developed. The focus of God bettering your life that your church baits its congregants with week after week. You’ve got programs for every age group (Infant Bible Quiz) and every stage of life (the Ex-Chef Recovery Program) So what does impress me about your church? How it is giving more money away than spending on its own ministry costs. Your worship services are real, not produced. Rather than simply amass oceans of people, your church has churned out so many incredible leaders for Christ taking a stand in their church (even if it’s not yours anymore), workplace/school, and family. The focus for your church is to serve God and his interests, not how God can help us and our interests. You don’t need all those programs that other churches must hire full-time staff members to run, because your congregation assumes the responsibility to love and disciple one...

1. Everything is so loud that you can’t hear yourself or any of the congregation singing, even if they are. Makes it feel like a concert, not a congregational worship time. We really aren’t adding anything. 2. The music is all clappy-happy. We often seem to gloss over the fact that we are singing to the God of the universe. 3. Worship is done for its own sake. Many times, it feels like we take time to worship simply because that’s what we always do when we come together. After all, you can’t have church without singing. Or you can’t go to a conference without awesome worship. 4. The band rocks. When the music is so good, and there’s a rockin’ guitar solo, or the band just nails it, oftentimes I feel worship is cheapened. 5. I’m tired or having a bad day. It’s amazing how such “earthly” things can affect things we try to accomplish spiritually. Like when Jesus’ disciples couldn’t stay awake to pray in the garden. What better reason do we need to eat right, get good sleep, and build healthy relationships with one another? Otherwise, these things can often hinder our relationship with God. 6. Ritual is equated with worship. I think having a liturgy can be a good thing, but it’s not the same as worship. Just like singing songs isn’t the same thing as worship. When a congregation is just going through the motions, I find it hard to worship. 7. The congregation is coerced to worship in a certain way. Some would say that worship leaders shouldn’t encourage everyone to raise hands, etc, but I disagree with that statement. I think it’s the leader’s job to lead us, and encourage us to do things together. However, when the worship leader is trying to “make the Spirit move,” that ruins it. “A person who loves community will kill it. But the person who loves his brother or sister will build it wherever he goes.” 8. Form is elevated above substance. It shouldn’t matter what style of music we are using. We should be able to worship God with hymns or choruses.  When we make it about the style of music, it becomes about...