"20 minutes of yelling backstage will never compensate for an anemic prayer life."- Daniel Tsubota Click To Tweet

(This article is the basis for Episode 8 of the BotaCast.)

It’s 15 minutes until service starts. The three stages of preparation are done (if you don’t remember, those are Practice, Rehearsal, and Runthrough). Haze is filling the auditorium. Plates with crumbs of this Sunday’s pastries litter the green room. You, the worship leader, nervously corral the team together to pray. And almost instinctually, this phrase flies out of your mouth, “let’s take some time to stir it up…” 

If you’ve heard this pre-service prayer phrase before, or—like me—have even been guilty of being the one to utter it, there are some valid questions that need to be asked.

Or maybe your first question is what does “stir it up” even mean?

If this pre-service tradition hasn’t crept into your stream of the church-sphere, I’ll paint a picture of what you might expect to find in a stirred up green room. 

• The person who has called for such stirring wants everyone to pray. Out loud. All at the same time. The louder the better.
• Tongues are mandatory at this moment for Charismatic circles.
• Someone with eyes closed and hands raised walks around the room. They are saved from running into furniture or other people either by a hedge of protection, or perhaps muscle memory from last week’s stirring.
• The sound guy is absolutely silent and will be sneaking out momentarily.
• Another person accents the group rumbling with loud slow claps.
• One more person is smiling ear to ear and slowly nodding their head as if someone were listing off the best Thanksgiving side dishes quietly in their ear.

It took years of pre-service stirring before I began to question this standard practice. Over time, I began to feel especially skeptical about this particular new demonstration of group prayer.

I had questions like, “Where did this come from? What is it that has settled and needs stirred? Is the Holy Spirit like sweet tea: sugar on the bottom? What sort of stir stick does such a stirring require?”

In defense of stirring it up:

If I were providing a charitable defense of the practice, I’m sure the initial intention and heart behind it was good. The leader probably wanted the team to get focused on what’s about to happen (congregational worship). Maybe they thought of it as “spiritually washing up before feasting at the table of worship,” a time to get cleaned up spiritually before getting onstage. Perhaps the Holy Spirit needs to be reminded to do His thing in our worship set. And isn’t it Biblical? Doesn’t 2 Timothy 1:6 say to stir up the gift of God within you? And isn’t the Holy Spirit Jesus’ gift to the church? Maybe there was no intention, we just heard someone else say it before service and it seemed like it worked well for them, so, let’s try it out for ourselves. 

There are a lot of problems with this train of thought, and with this Biblical interpretation.

Here’s the ultimate problem with this kind of pre-service prayer: You can’t cram for your spiritual life like a college student crams the night before an exam. 20 minutes of yelling backstage will never compensate for an anemic prayer life.

No say: Spiritual Food Safety?

What if this is spiritual cleansing before offering our sacrifice of praise at the table of the Lord (*gag*). Here’s the simple reality: We can never clean ourselves up enough to be acceptable. The blood of Jesus was a once-for-all sacrifice, it’s not deodorant that needs to be applied before going onstage each week.

“Daniel, you must not be reading your Bible. After all, doesn’t Psalm 24 say ‘Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in the holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart?’”

Bad news: your heart is filthy. You can’t have clean hands and a pure heart: man’s perfect righteousness is still a soiled diaper compared to God’s holiness. GOOD news: Jesus’ perfect sacrifice was more than enough. He was the one who ascended the hill of the Lord, the only one worthy to stand in the holy place. Which he already did, on Golgotha and now at the right hand of God. Jesus has this, and he doesn’t need our help.

"The blood of Jesus was a once-for-all sacrifice, it’s not deodorant that needs to be applied before going onstage each week."- Daniel Tsubota Click To Tweet

But what about that Scripture verse?

If we look back at 2 Timothy chapter 1, we can get a much better picture of this passage in context.

Let’s start with verse 5: this is the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy who was leading the church at Ephesus.

5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. (Shout out to the faithful moms and grandma’s who build the foundations of faith for generations.) 6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame (NKJV and many other translations say “stir up”) the gift of God (the Greek word is “charisma”), which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done (not even yelling in the green room before service) but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. 13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

I’ve read this passage over and over and over, and I just don’t see any connection to pre-service hype. The gift (greek Charisma) that Timothy is being reminded to fan into flame is the same charisma mentioned in Romans 12:

Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12:6-8 NASB

With context and cross reference, I can only read 2 Timothy 1 as Paul encouraging (literally, calling out courage) encouraging Timothy to lead with diligence, to persevere in sound teaching, even if it means suffering for the sake of the Gospel. Especially since the verse right after that implies that Timothy is acting timid, allegedly because he is afraid of ending up in prison like Paul (verse 8). In even greater context, this is a common theme for Timothy. 1 Corinthians 16:10 essentially says, “When Timothy comes to town, don’t do anything that might scare him.”

In Timothy’s case, the gift that needs stirring is his leadership, specifically sound teaching and bold faith that might get him in hot water with culture and society. It also seems like that stirring is going to require work and self-discipline, not a hallelujah time during the service countdown.

Why are we stirring it up… really?

The gut reaction would say, “Because we want God to move powerfully in this service.” Guess what, you don’t have to beg God to do something he already wants to do. If we’re honest, maybe we are hoping for something else. Maybe to feel good on the public stage because our private relationship has gone stale. Or to look good, and not be embarrassed by our lack of preparation.

I believe that we need the power of the Holy Spirit to work through us. But the real answer to the question seems like we are asking God to make up the difference where we dropped the ball. I would argue it might even be insulting to God to ask him to do something that he gave us the ability to do.

I’ve heard so many prayers that say, “God, we want you to mess up our plans and preparation.” But who do we think gave us the brains to plan and prepare? Was it the devil? And why did we wait until right before service to ask the Holy Spirit what he was speaking for the church service?

“God whatever you want to do, we are listening and will follow your leading!” Why did you not pray that prayer before you planned the service?!

God’s plans are not limited to sneak attacks.

There are too many casualties in the name of spontaneous worship (more on this back in Episode 4). Is God like a cagey boyfriend who won’t share where he wants to go for a birthday date?

Imagine this conversation:
You: “What do you want to do to celebrate this year?”
Boyfriend: “I dunno…”
You: “Hello? Are you doing that thing where you don’t speak until right before the event? Well, I guess I’ll make reservations at a nice Italian restaurant with our friends.”
*birthday arrives*
Boyfriend: “Surprise! I don’t want Italian! Cancel your reservation, pay the cancellation fee! We’re going to make sushi at home for all our friends!”
You: “I don’t have the ingredients, the tools, or the time needed to make that tonight.”
Boyfriend: “Then it will be a stressful meal that’s gonna embarrass you as we slap it together on the spot in front of everyone. And that will bring me pleasure because it’s what I asked for at the last minute! Hallelujah!”

You would dump that boyfriend. And you should dump this line of thinking when it comes to preparing for your worship set.

How many Old Testament prophecies were there about Jesus? How many times in the Gospels did Jesus spell out, well in advance, how it was all going to go down with his death and resurrection? I’m not advocating rigid inflexible worship planning, but beating your chest for 15 minutes begging for a great worship set is not an acceptable substitute for diligent preparation.

So if we’re not stirring it up, here’s What you should try instead:

If you’re ready to leave behind the locker room hype session, here are some much more effective tactics:

1. Cast vision: Remind the team why we are here. Unfortunately, it’s all too tempting to focus solely on rehearsal and the actual services, that the pre-service time ends up as an afterthought. Culture is built through repetition, and if you have a worship team that rotates volunteers, you need to be a broken record instilling vision into them every single time. If you think you have shared vision too much, you’re probably about halfway there in how often you should communicate it.

2. Ask if anyone on the team needs prayer for something that is distracting them this morning. If you’ve been on a worship team, you know there are times when something in your personal life just seems so heavy that it’s hard or even impossible to focus on the task at hand. By the way, do this before soundcheck even starts. Don’t make them carry that weight until right before service. It will also give you valuable information upfront instead of trying to guess why your bass player seems so pissed off today.

3. Share a scripture: especially if it’s a prayer. Don’t know what to pray? the Bible’s got you. The Lord’s Prayer is a great start (that’s in Matthew 6 if you’ve forgotten), but there are so many other great Biblical prayers. Psalm 19 is great (may the words of my mouth, meditations of my heart be pleasing to you), and boatloads of other Psalms, but there are also New Testament passages. Ephesians 3:14-21, Romans 15:13, Philippians 1:9-11 (which adds knowledge and discernment as necessary side dishes to the main course of love), Acts 4:29 (which a call to boldness), and Jude 24-25 (a classic).

4. Sing one of the songs from the set backstage. But this time you sing it, really dig into the words you’re all saying. Have just the acoustic and voices. No distractions of chords, grooves, the mix, or your horrible harmony parts. Focus on what you’re about to communicate with the church and then have your team lean on the memory of that private moment when it’s time for the corporate one.

5. Ask your pastor to share with the team the heart of the weekend message. We all know how unlikely it is that the worship team will be able to meaningfully receive the weekend message as it’s happening live. Why not have the heart and vision of this weekend’s message on the minds of the worship team, even before the first time your pastor speaks onstage. And that same worship team is about to be in a posture of pouring out, what better way to start the weekend than by receiving the word first?

6. Have one of your team members bring a devotional around a scripture. Not a self-help book, not a leadership book, not a quote from a podcast. Scripture. It’s also an opportunity for that team member to get into their Bible and to grow their leadership. Even though the whole team will benefit, it will probably be the person you assigned to lead the devo who will be most impacted by it.

7. Invite the team to repent: this is the most impactful, but least popular option. Instead of yelling, “Yes God” in the green room, how about we let our “yes” be the decision to do what He’s instructed us to do. And it’s probably that difficult thing that we’ve been avoiding like Jonah. The thing that probably includes suffering. Or maybe it’s that one thing you know he’s asked you to give up. That idol you’ve been holding onto. Maybe that idol is letting go of how the room will “respond” in worship today. More on that another time…

Oh, and by the way, do these things earlier. Don’t wait until 15 minutes before the service. You’ll be rushed and run out of time, distracted by, “When do we have to be on the stage?” Your preservice team time is discipleship, not a locker room where you get hyped before hitting the stage. Maybe have this time before soundcheck even starts. Or start and end soundcheck earlier so that you have a meaningful amount of time to focus. This aspect of Sunday morning deserves more than a handful of minutes before service. Use those final minutes instead to be practically prepared, like tuning your guitar, making sure your microphones and packs have full batteries, making sure you’re plugged in and turned on, making sure that your fly isn’t down. Too often we pray for God to “make up for our shortcomings,” but the Lord isn’t going to plug in your guitar or zip your pants.

"Beating your chest for 15 minutes begging for a great worship set is not an acceptable substitute for diligent preparation."- Daniel Tsubota Click To Tweet

Back to the chapter of Scripture that started all of this:

2 Timothy 1:9: God has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.

So let’s stop stirring up hype. That useless sludge that has just seems to sink to the bottom of our souls week after week. Let’s instead stir up our discipline: whether it be preparation, research—for sound teaching, repentance—also known as worshiping in truth (John 4:22-24), and bold faith—even if it makes us unpopular.