In Spirit and in Truth

Photo by John Price on Unsplash

I don’t actually stand at the front anymore. I stand at the very back of the room.

Maybe I’m avoiding being seen. The jury’s still out on that. But week after week, I slip to the back, lean in, and watch—housed and unhoused, churched and unchurched, all turned toward a band I used to stand in front of.

Now I’m behind everyone, quietly asking a question I never thought I’d have to ask: Have I spent years worshiping… or performing?

I carry this memory: “Angie, your worship is so expressive—it’s clear you love Jesus and have an intimate relationship with Him.” I’ve heard that more than once. And it’s true that I’ve had moments of losing myself so completely in worship that I was unaware of my surroundings.

I’ve even said, “I have to be willing to give myself fully to Christ in worship, no matter what it looks like.”

That sounds spiritual. Today, it feels like an open file on my desk.

Because somewhere along the way, my private abandon became a public template. People started looking at me to see what worship “should” look like. And now that same conviction lives in the brain of a woman who is painfully aware that half the room has never been in a worship service before.

I find myself wondering how much of what I used to call “freedom” was actually me needing to be seen.

So I have to ask: at what point did my abandon become an example to emulate—and at what point did it become a performance that needed an audience? Have I simply become a very sincere performer with an ego that likes attention?

Maybe. I really don’t know. It’s likely a mix.

So I stand at the back and watch the people in the room who don’t know the script.

The homed often arrive from bedrooms and SUVs. The unhomed come from tents, borrowed couches, and shelters. The homed slide straight into the familiar groove—assume the position, eyes shut, lyrics on their lips.

The unhomed sit down, relaxed, eyes open or closing in slumber. They treat the singing like a free concert they’re not sure they asked for. They’re not being rude; they’re being real. They don’t know the ritual, so they can’t perform it.

And instead of irritating me, something child-like and sparkly wakes up.

What if this stark divide is actually my invitation to watch the natural output of the Spirit’s input—without all the religious choreography? What if I have a front row seat, from the back row, to how Holy Spirit chooses to live, move, and become in each of these humans?

Watching them sit there with no attempt to play the game feels like an uncanny kind of freedom.

Recently, as I scanned the room, I realized I still carried a quiet scorecard: the more visible the response, the more “successful” the worship. Full voices, lifted hands, faces turned upward? Good day. Low volume, blank stares, people sitting it out? Rough room.

Right in the middle of my silent grading, I sensed the Lord interrupt:

“Angie, who gets to decide if it’s worship?”

That question will not leave me alone.

By reflex, we decide based on what we can see. But Scripture insists that people look at the outward appearance; while the Lord looks at the heart.

The One who knows the room sees the nights no one slept, the medication someone took just to make it in the door, the anxiety spike when the music swells, the memories certain songs trigger. He sees where trust is blooming and where it has never existed.

Jesus said the Father is seeking worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth. He did not say, “in polished participation.”

Spirit means the animating breath has to be His, not ours. Truth means the response lines up with what’s actually happening in someone’s heart, not with what our church culture prescribes.

By that definition, a housed believer belting every lyric on muscle memory may be further from “spirit and truth” than an unhoused guest sitting perfectly still, simply enduring the fact that they are being noticed, sung over, and not removed.

One is fluent in ritual. The other is nakedly present.

From a platform, the unhomed stillness looks like spectator-mode. From my perspective, I’m starting to see it as a laboratory of grace.

I’m watching the Spirit work with raw material that has never been church-trained. No automatic hand-raises. No inherited reverence. Just bodies in a room, waiting to see if this space is safe and if this God is real.

There’s a strange comfort in admitting: I don’t know what’s happening inside them. It means I’m not responsible to engineer it.

The unhomed in our midst have become unintentional prophets to me. By simply being present as they are, they expose how much of our “engagement” has been learned choreography. They refuse to clap on cue, sway on the bridge, or reward our efforts with the usual signals.

Their absence of performance throws into sharp relief how much of my leadership identity was tied to getting a visible response. They sit there like a mirror, quietly asking, “If this is really for God, why do you need me to look a certain way for it to count?”

The New Testament expects outsiders and skeptics in the room. Paul imagines gatherings where people who don’t understand what’s happening walk in and eventually have the secrets of their hearts exposed so deeply that they fall down and confess, “God is really among you.”

That doesn’t happen because they mastered our script. It happens because they encountered a Presence that refuses to be reduced to a show.

There’s another mystery I can’t ignore: when our gathering ends, it’s usually the homed who bolt for the door. They have plans, schedules, rhythms to return to. The unhomed, on the other hand, rarely want to leave. They linger. They visit. They help clean up. They ask questions and volunteer, eager to help.

I can’t fully explain it. All I know is that the ones the world calls “needy” often seem the most reluctant to step away from the room where they were seen, fed, and welcomed.

So I’m relearning worship.

It looks like laying down the grading pen—turning away from silently scoring the room by visible metrics. It looks like trading the question, “How do I get them to engage?” for, “How will Holy Spirit choose to live, move, and become in each of these people today—and how can I stay out of the way?”

It looks like blessing honest bodies. Some will stand and sing. Some will sit with arms crossed. Some will cry without knowing why. Some will nap, because for the first time in days they feel safe enough to sleep.

My job is not to decide which posture is valid. My job is to keep holding up the real Jesus in the midst of them and trust the Spirit with the timeline.

I long for the segregation I see to dissolve—the invisible line between those who have homes and those who don’t, where they sit, how quickly they bolt for the door. One day, I want that line gone. For now, I refuse to rush past the holy opportunity of this moment.

Right now, I am mesmerized by the reality unfolding. I only know to say it like I see it: the homed and the unhomed are teaching me side by side.

The ones who know the songs remind me that God has been faithful over years and seasons. The ones who don’t know the ritual remind me that God is not impressed with my fluency—He is after our truth.

Maybe the real gift of this season is that I get to watch—up close—as the Spirit writes His own liturgy on human hearts, unhindered by our assumptions.

Maybe the most honest worship in the room right now isn’t the loudest or the most polished, but the quiet presence of a person who didn’t know if they’d be allowed to stay.

And maybe my truest act of worship is to stand in that back with child-like wonder, willing to let God be the only One who gets to decide what He calls worship