Last week’s blog featured a cartoon of an usher asking a couple before showing them to seats in the sanctuary, “Clapping or nonclapping?” This cartoon always gets a big laugh in my workshops because it strikes a chord with so many congregations who struggle with this frequently-asked-question. Well, here’s my two cents:

“To clap or not to clap?” is NOT the question. The question is “what is required in this moment as a response that is authentically bubbling up in us?”

For most North-American, Euro-American worshipers, the only “sanctioned” spontaneous response we’ve been taught is clapping. We didn’t learn, nor was it ok, to raise our hands or voices in “Amen!” and “Praise God!” when we felt a stirring within us based on a verbal, musical or other offering. So all we feel comfortable doing is clapping to express ourselves in praise and thanksgiving.

We also got caught up in a fairly unhelpful debate started a few decades ago about worship not being “performance.” OOooooo…. bad word! Well friends, this hasn’t done us any favors. We began to identify whether something was a performance or not based on whether or not we clapped. And clapping has consequently taken on oh-so-much-more weight than it needs to. Churches decided whether they were a “clapping” church or not. And if we decided we were, we clapped at everything, whether or not it seemed like a natural response.

Have you ever been in a worship setting where the choir finished a beautiful anthem on a hush and because this is a “clapping” church there was applause that just felt weird? Or have you ever been in a church were a rousing, spirit-filled moment ended and people had to desperately sit on their hands because “we don’t clap in church!”  Also pretty weird.

So… as leaders, let’s model something different. If the energy is high and the spirit flowing, let’s model an exuberant clapping response because that is what is appropriate to let the spirit out of our bodies that has bubbled up naturally! If we know something is going to evoke a more meditative response, let’s offer the direction to the congregation before it starts to take a moment for silence afterward. Let’s begin to cultivate the idea that ALL responses are ok–and in fact diverse responses are required–if we as a Body are allowing ourselves to fully participate in the spiritual moment.

The word “performance” is not bad in relationship to worship. It literally means to show forth a form… to embody an expression. Yes, of course, we do this in worship. We give form to our praise, to our prayer, to our proclamation in many, many ways. We practice and we offer our best efforts so that the Spirit might move through us to the whole Body in that moment. Clapping can be one culture’s way of saying “Amen!” to the Spirit. And taking a deep breath, rather than clapping, is sometimes the perfect way to say “Praise God.”