Thoughts on Corporate Worship (Part the First)

As this is something I have been mulling over for a while, there probably will be more to come on this topic.

It seems to me that there are two main schools of thought about being on a corporate worship team.

1. The first and, I think, most common among Christians and worship teams is exemplified by a conversation I had with a friend of mine a few weeks ago.

My husband and I had just gotten back from a Lincoln Brewster concert (which was amazing, by the way) . I was telling my friend, who plays bass, about Norm Stockton, the bass player who records and travels with Lincoln. Hubby and I had been talking about Norm's playing, and he had compared his playing to Billy Sheahan, who has played bass for Steve Vai.

When I mentioned Steve Vai, my friend face went completely blank like he had no idea what I was talking about. So I tried to explain:

"He's a great shred guitarist who..." "Oh, I don't need to listen to any of that. I'm only ever going to do worship."

2. The second, and less common, view is that if you don't know anything about music, stay off the stage.

Some friends of ours used to live in Nashville and at one of their churches, the music pastor wouldn't allow any one on stage unless they had a major contract or were touring with a major artist.

Hubby and I attended an informational meeting about leading worship at our church. They mentioned that they don't want anyone who doesn't have prior band experience to "audition". The three things they said they are looking for in a band are (1) theological soundness, (2) congregational participation and (3) musical quality/stylistic individuality.

In theory, this is great. In practice, what I have seen is that 3 comes first, then 1. If 2 is considered at all, it seems to be almost an afterthought.

Here is my question then:

Shouldn't we be looking for a balance between the two? As Christians, I believe God deserves the absolute best that we can offer him. However, does this mean that we leave the congregation behind so that our music can reach its creative heights?