Where is it in Scripture that anyone needed a worship leader in order to Worship God?
Where does it say that it is wrong?
Almost all of what goes on in a Church is man made. God gives guidelines in his word, but then leaves the rest to us. That is one of the differences between Christianity and the legalistic systems like Islam that tell you when to pray and where to point your head.
The most free people on the planet are Christians. We may each worship God in our own way, within pretty broad, in some respects, guidelines. The rest is useless arguing, which is unbecoming of those who say they are His..
While I agree it is not needed, it is also not necessarily wrong to do it that way, but it does tend to make people focus on the people up there (having been up there regularly myself all my life, pretty much) - and be distracted by what they personally know about those people, or whatever rumors may be flying about them. That congregation should be reminded of that error regularly so they can be responsible in their own hearts to avoid it... but I've never seen it done very well. I read a great article yesterday on contemporary music in the church by Scott Macintyre at woodandsteel.net. He has some very gently written and very rational explanations of why the purpose driven movement is unscriptural and draws very clear lines on the fallacies and distractions in both sides of the argument. I heartily recommend his site. Hopefully I won't crash it by doing this. :-)
Here is the one on worship music:
Contemporary Music in the Church - Culprit, Symptom, or Innocent Bystander?
Incidentally, I'm not terribly fond of the level of professionalism at Saddleback either. Sometimes the off-pitch makes me cringe and distracts me
[aside: yes, I can hear it quite often, even if others can't, I have a piano tuner's ear, and tune my own piano because I can't bear to shell out money for a mediocre job. Of course, that means I rarely have time to have a quiet enough house to do it myself anyway! But at least we aren't spending the money < smile > and I am not saying that I never sing off-pitch, especially when the balance is off and I can't hear the instruments.]
But as I say, that is irrelevant to me, if I am in a church where the truth is foremost. The only reason I pick on it is because they consider it so important. My point is, they are just as imperfect as everyone else and there are those of us that hear and see that it's mostly smoke and mirrors.