I would say that my “heart music” is rather eclectic, and it probably depends on the mood or situation or setting, which may also change as I am going on in my ‘personal’ worship alone, or in a corporate setting. For sure, the instrumentation should not overwhelm the hearing (or the singing!) of the words.
I do think that worship leaders have a great influence on how others may or may not enter in. If it is only a matter of style, then I need to get over that and praise and worship God anyway. But sometimes it is a matter of trust: do I trust the person leading me into God’s presence? Is that what he or she is doing, or is he/she causing me to pay too much attention to him/her, or is his/her life simply not measuring up clearly enough to really believe that he/she is a “worshipper” who follows the one true God and His Son? The clothes are important to God from what is written in the Bible, so if the worship leader or others have, for example, their pants to tight, or down below their butt line; or if the women have their tops or their dresses too low or too high (and this is not always merely a subjective or a cultural issue), then they are certainly drawing attention to themselves, are not really mindful of their presence before God, and are a worrisome and uncomfortable distraction to those they are ‘leading’.
One thing that commends a teacher or a worship leader is when he/she pays attention and engages when someone else is doing the teaching, or leading the worship. I have seen many instances in numerous places where this is not the case, which suggests that it may really be all about themselves more than about the Lord. It would be so encouraging to other teachers of the Word and to other praise and worship leaders to see ‘their equals’ respect them in this way; and it would be a sign of humility to others that teachers and music leaders can receive from and appreciate one another.
As in any other ministry of the Holy Spirit, we need to grow and to mature and become more discerning. It is not really an issue of age; but no doubt “me, myself, and I” will color how I view these things; yet we all need to be learning from the Lord throughout our life spans. It is clear from Scripture that the House of God is too infiltrated by the world and the spirit of the world, so we do need to be diligent on our watch, and in our discipling of others by word and by example.
There is an appropriate form to content. For example, new wine must be put into new wineskins, not into old. And there is the pattern/form of sound words and doctrine. (2Tim 1:13) For all the good lyrics here and there in a song, the form may have nothing to commend it, and in all the frenzy I’m not so sure that the right message would be clear. Jesus and the apostles, and the prophets before them, never reached out ‘in the flesh’, nor teach us to do so, as a means to draw people to repentance and faith in the gospel, or as a means to bring back those who have fallen or retreated. That would simply promote one professing Jesus to live with lots of compromise on the commandments to “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy”, and to “love Jesus more than even ourselves” . What a mixed message!
God is dealing with the sanctification of the whole person, not less. We mature at different rates and stages, but it is the whole person that is being dealt with at all times, even if parts of the whole are out of sync in progress. Prophetic types and artists (of whatever variety) sometimes use their personalities and idiosyncrasies as excuses for ungodly manners and behavior. We may start in the Spirit, but go on in the flesh.
Many unbelievers don’t smoke or drink, aren’t depressed or given to swearing or lying, and can speak of changing from those bad habits and sins without ever knowing the Lord and Savior. Our new life in Messiah has to get beyond merely giving up those things as the proof of my being a disciple of Jesus. It is a good start, but surely there is far more (Acts 15:28-29). Our ‘message’ goes far and wide beyond our immediate ‘target audience’, and we are to avoid being a cause of stumbling to others. Giving a novice too much influence too soon often wreaks havoc, with pride and confusion, rather than produce the good fruit which glorifies our Father in Heaven and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.