There's something profoundly funny about your response.
a. It's what I thought when I typed my post.
b. It's just too simple to work.
You know, LaRue made a quip yesterday intimating that I'm concerned about losing my job but, maybe, I, as a P&W leader SHOULD lose my job.
Imagine if we did just sing because we recognize God for who He is and for the gift of His son?
No real 'pump up'. Just, "And now, we'll sing 'I give myself away'." The musicians start playing (or, the sound guy hits 'play' 
) and the congregation, with no one in front of them, just. sings?
Hmmm.....
Did I really??? I hope I was just joking.
That sounds kinda catty if I did say that to you and wasn't joking.
And of course, I can't remember it... lol
Anyway, I don't know that P&W leaders should lose their jobs, but I do think that in the ideal church, we need to restructure what they are doing. No matter how we put it, the role itself involves a lot of hype - in fact, I would say that in many cases, the P&W leader is the hype man (think Flava Flav... lol) in a stage production. Sure s/he
leads the people into worship, but ideally, we wouldn't need to be led. And even if we do, it shouldn't involve cajoling and hyping and all that stuff. Just exhortation. Encouragement. And it should be participatory, not performance.
You're doing just what the name of the team that sings it implies. You're praising and worshiping Him. Look at it this way, when the Levites did their oblations unto the Lord, and ministered unto him in the temple with praise, prayer and the playing of instruments, they were doing so in His presence. So, why does that have to differ now? Instead of singing songs to invoke His presence, we now sing songs because He is and because He's present and because He deserves praise and to be worshiped.
I agree with that. We should still be singing unto the Lord to bless Him, to minister to Him, to praise Him, to worship Him, to magnify, exalt, honor and extol Him.
We don't have to perform tricks to get Him to show up. He inhabits the praises of Israel, His people. Where two or three are gathered together in His name, He promised to be there in the midst. So, we should still be singing to Him (and playing our instruments) because He's still Shammah.
