I’ve spent a good bit of time with songwriters in Nashville. Like writers of books, a question they are commonly asked is, “Who is your target audience?” The question presents a challenge to any artist seeking the approval of others for a work that contains their personality and soul. However, the question does present a wonderful opportunity for reflection. Consider this image of a theater.
In the theater to the right, where would you place the following?
Preacher
Choir or Singers and Musicians
Congregation
God
The common response is to place the preacher, choir, and musicians on stage, the congregation in the audience, and God everywhere. We discuss worship as in any theater. My favorite complaint about a preacher came from my aunt, who is a Methodist, after they had just had their first Sunday with their ‘new preacher’ appointed to their church by the Bishop. She was very frustrated because he preached past 12:00 committed an even greater transgression, he started talking about food. “Now David,” she said to me, “you don’t preach about fried chicken after 12:00 when everybody is hungry and thinking about lunch.” She complained to me as if pastors were all part of a Union, and I might be able to take care of their long-winded preacher problem for her.
Soren Kierkegaard challenged our thinking of worship and said that we have the audience wrong. The congregation is not the audience. God is the audience. Those who gather for worship is on stage. The preacher, singers, and musicians are all backstage prompting the congregation. It is not our pleasure which is the final judge but God’s. It is not whether or not we consider a service meaningful but whether God finds meaning in our service, in church and out, on holy days and every days.
Do you attend worship as a spectator? What about life? Who is the target audience of the moments of your life? Where is God in your personal theater? In the drama of your life, have you given God tickets or tried to bar the door? Does God find meaning in your worship? Does God find meaning in your life?
Eugene Peterson’s The Message captures Jesus’ challenge of making God our target audience. Here is his paraphrase of Matthew 6,
“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.
2-4 “When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.
