What would praise and worship services be without music? Think dull and downright boring.

Music is an integral part of worship. Music has the ability to inspire and influence how people feel. Movies are prime examples. Some movie scripts contain simple yet profound lines but for the audience to grasp the profoundness of these lines, they are often accompanied by music. When accompanied by the right music, simple lines can become profound and inspirational. Similarly, praise and worship accompanied by music can inspire people and cause them to form deeper connections with God through the Spirit.

David was a musician and a worshipper. He is also known for inspiring people to praise and worship God with all forms of musical instruments—“Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn; praise him with the lyre and harp! Praise him with the tambourine and dancing; praise him with strings and flutes! Praise him with a clash of cymbals; praise him with loud clanging cymbals” (Psa 150, NLT). David also indicates the reason for praising and worshipping God—“Praise him for his mighty works; praise his unequaled greatness!” (Psa 150, NLT).

The reason for praising and worshipping God is clear; however, I believe music has become some people’s motivation and reason for praising and worshipping God. Music is providing them with what I call a sugar-rush worship experience. A sugar rush is an experience of high energy after eating or drinking a considerable amount of sugar in a short period of time. How does this relate to praise and worship? A song’s beat is the sugar that many people rely on to get a rush or in other words to get them into the mood for worship. These songs hype and energize them, and without them, they cannot seem to get into the mood for worship.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not against singing songs with slow, fast, moderate, or any kind of beat for that matter. What I am simply saying is that people’s praise and worship should not be decided by the beat of a song. The purpose of singing songs is to help people focus their thoughts and minds on God, and if people need a desired result from praise and worship, they have to be focused. Their thoughts and minds have to be centered on the One who they are praising and worshipping.

In addition, people should not think that a particular song is worth dancing, rocking, or clapping to because the beat is fast and that another song is not worth dancing, rocking, or clapping to because the beat is slow, and neither should people come to praise and worship services depending on the music to motivate them to worship. They should come already motivated to worship because the reason for worship is to “Praise [God] for his mighty works [and] his unequaled greatness!” One songwriter says it this way, “When I think of the goodness of Jesus and all He has done for me, my soul cries out hallelujah. Thank God for saving me.” Music is an accompaniment to praise and worship. It should not be the sole reason why people get into the mood for worship, and if it is then such worship is superficial and meaningless.

After a sugar rush, people tend to crash because they lose their energy. The effects of the sugar are only temporary. This, I am afraid is what is happening in some praise and worship services today. People are crashing. They come to church and the music hypes and energizes them for thirty minutes and when those thirty minutes are over, they go back to being the same natural person who walked through the door thirty minutes ago. This alarms me, but what alarms me even more is that people seem content with knowing that they worked up a sweat during praise and worship and it felt good. They will even testify that the presence of the Lord was real or say things like, “I love what I feel; I feel good.” Meanwhile, I’m there wondering if I missed something or if something is wrong with me. To them, feeling good equates to feeling the presence of God.

Somewhere along the way, I believe some people started confusing how they feel for the presence of God. They started believing that their sugar rush worship experience is actually the presence of God when in fact, it is their emotions that have been hyped and energized by the music.