Worship Leader, or Lead Worshipper

I witnessed a really cool thing the other day. I was at the church, getting ready for the Saturday evening service. I was the worship assistant for the weekend, which meant that I was sort of the emcee for the service: I welcomed people, ran through some announcements, read Scripture, prayed, and invited the ushers up for the offering. It was about 45 minutes before the service was to begin, and all of the last-minute preparations were going on: soundchecks, double-checking the PowerPoint slides, running through songs one last time, etc. Currently, our stage is adorned by a rather large stained glass-esque picture of Jesus and some traditional Christian symbols. It was while the band was running through one of their songs that I witnessed this cool thing. The worship leader for the weekend was a good friend of mine, Geoff Smith. While he was singing, instead of facing 990 empty seats, he was turned with his back to the auditorium, facing the huge picture of Jesus. I don't know why he did this. Maybe he was trying to hear the band and the other vocalists better. Maybe he was trying to not be distracted. Or maybe, as I imagined it, he was simply doing what he was called to do, and that is worship God. Maybe he was so caught up in that Jesus hanging behind him that he didn't care what was happening around him. Too often we get caught up in the idea that church is a show that we come and consume, instead of realizing that it is a participatory event. We think that those that are up front are in some way more important because they are up front. In reality, they are just one of the worshippers, just like anyone that is sitting in our comfy seats. But we like to be entertained instead of having to participate and present our bodies as living sacrifices, which is our reasonable act of worship. "Let someone else do it, and let me watch," we think. And that is the wrong attitude to have, if you ask me. I wish we could all just turn around more often and stand face-to-face with Jesus and let it be about Him and me...