Imagine going to a concert and everyone just watches silently—not engaged, not singing along, not participating in any way. There is a relationship between the audience and the performers at a concert; it’s either a show, where they are entertained passively, or something more, where they enter a relationship through participation. That’s not what God designed for worship. In the church, the audience does not comprise people simply watching the stage; rather, the audience is God, and we all participate in the performance of praise. (This is a theme throughout Harold Best, Unceasing Worship [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2003]).
