Photo by guppydas

By Sarah D. Park

I used to be on worship teams, though truth be told, I’m not a pretty singer. My tone cannot carry soft songs that make people cry during the bridge. My range is somewhere on the high end for most men and the low end for most women, forcing me to find a more comfortable harmony.  I can barely sing most melodies from start to finish, with my voice trailing off at some point.

What I do know how to do is to sing loudly with all my power. My last worship leader loved to put the songs I led right in the key where my voice is likely to crack. He knew that unless I sang with all my strength, I would not be able to hit that climactic note. That’s clutch time, when the congregation is roused to where emotions, personal baggage, and the Holy Spirit meet. There was no guarantee that I’d hit the high note regardless, but my chances were better if I really went for it.

I feel so uninhibited and full of vitality when I’m belting everything I’ve got into a microphone. This is easier than you’d think — I can’t see the congregation with the bright stage lights in my eyes, and with the band behind me, I feel safe and alone. Singing like this just leaves me completely spent afterwards. On the Sundays I lead worship, I go straight home afterwards and take a long nap.

It’s more difficult to sing this way when I’m amongst the congregation. I’m rubbing shoulders with people, I catch myself listening to see if someone is singing or merely mouthing the words, and I like looking around to see who’s here.

But I’ve recently found a powerful mode of worship in the pews. These days, you’ll catch me sitting down, despite the worship leader’s encouragement to stand. I don’t mind people mistaking me for being disrespectful. I can barely sing now without catching my breath. So I listen. I rest. I let the words speak truth over me, and wait for movement within my soul.

Because my soul is tired. My willpower to enter into a space where I know I must lay down everything, is tired. But I bring my weary self into a space I know God dwells. Though this may look like a posture of weakness, I feel most powerful here.

With little hope, running on nothing, I crawled through a hundred miles of hostile jungle — my life circumstances, my fatigue, my self-doubt — with nothing but my hands and feet to get to safety. To being seen. To rest.

Though I’m trapped behind enemy lines, out of ammo, and I can’t think or see clearly, I’m staying alive; me sitting in a pew says, “I’m not dying out here.”

If you see someone hunched over in church, their head down with hands clasped tight, it looks like a cry for help. It looks like someone is going through a hard time. Church leaders know to go over and offer prayer. But let it not be pity. This isn’t pitiful. This is the will to survive.*

*Inspired by a description on fighting depression.

Sarah D. Park is a freelance writer whose work focuses on the cultivation of cross-racial dialogue with a Christian faith orientation. She is also a story producer for Inheritance Magazine and manages communications for several organizations. She currently calls the Bay Area her home but is an Angeleno through and through.