Heart attitudes – Worthily Magnify

Rejecting The Weekly Verdict

It’s a dangerous situation for worship leaders. Every day of their week leads up and builds up to Sunday, the day of all days, the day when they stand before their congregations and, in the course of a few hours, either succeed at their job (in which case they feel like a success) or fail at their job (in which case they feel like a failure), or do OK at our job (in which case they feel just OK). It’s what I call the weekly verdict.

Depending on how a combined total of anywhere from 25 – 100 minutes go, worship leaders head home on Sunday afternoons and begin a new week on Monday morning with a fresh report hot off the presses on whether or not they should feel good about themselves.

Obviously, there are a few problems with this:

1. Worship leaders who derive their sense of self-worth or vocational-aptitude from how one service goes are forgetting that their standing before God has been secured by Christ and can’t be improved upon by an awesome set-list or downgraded by a dud.

2. Worship leaders who feel like a success after a successful service set themselves up for a painful bursted bubble the very next week when, due to whatever many factors are at work, things don’t go so well. They also become arrogant.

3. Worship leaders who feel like a failure after a service that falls flat are allowing a gnawing neediness and insatiable appetite to creep up in their souls that becomes hungry for applause and accolades, and makes them no fun for their families to be around after church.

4. Worship leaders who feel “just OK’ after a ho-hum service forget that real-life worship leading (the kind that gets up and gets to church and gets things ready and gets rehearsed and so on…) is much more frequently “ho-hum” than it is awesome. A more provocative way to phrase it would be that worship leading is more of a long-term commitment than a one-night stand.

So what’s the solution for worship leaders who feel this weekly build-up and anxiety to the weekly Sunday morning verdict on where they stand that particular week?

First, remember your core. You’re hidden in Christ. The roller-coaster of approval/applause/criticism/yawning/euphoria doesn’t rock the person who pursues a fundamental certitude of who they are in Christ.

Second, embrace your calling. Worship leaders are not called to be actors for the sake of a crowd’s acclaim. We are called to be servants for the glory of Jesus’ name.

Third, balance your weight. Just like an airplane can’t fly if all the weight is in front, a worship leader can’t be effective if all his/her weight is placed on Sunday morning. Your hours in the office, at the piano, praying over songs, attending meetings, tending to administrative duties, arranging music, scheduling volunteers, rehearsing, emails, appointments, etc., must be the counterweight to the time you stand on a platform.

Don’t allow Sunday mornings to become a weekly determiner of how to feel about yourself. Approach worship leading with a confidence and conviction founded in Jesus, and then regardless of a great response or a royal flop, you’ll be anchored to the unchanging verdict of the Gospel.

Pressing On, Feeding God’s Sheep

dry You’ve been a worship leader at your church for nine months now. When you took the job you had high hopes for your new ministry. You really clicked with the pastor and some of the search committee members. You had a deep peace that God was leading you to move to this new city and take on a new challenge. And you knew it would be a challenge. The worship team was a mess, the congregation was opinionated, the sound system was laughable, the song repertoire was weak, the drummer couldn’t keep time, and the previous worship leader had quit after six months. You were comfortable where you were but took this new job out of obedience to God.

Nine months later and it’s been more challenging than you could have imagined. You’re frustrated with your pastor. A few members of the worship team have stepped down and been vocal in their criticism of you. You look out on Sunday morning and it doesn’t look any one wants to be singing any of the songs you’ve chosen. Whenever you try to introduce a new song people ask why you “sing so many new songs”. You sit in your office during the week and feel like you’re trapped in a bad dream. You visit other churches or attend worship conferences and leave more discouraged and weary because you can’t imagine your own church ever looking like that.

Am I even all that good of a worship leader? What am I doing wrong? Was that person right when he quit the worship team and called me an egotistical control freak? Did I make a mistake taking this job? Would anyone care if I just slept in on Sunday and watched football? How amazing would it feel to tell my pastor “I quit”?

You’re confused, burned out, beaten up, angry, and disappointed. Your body is in church on Sundays but your mind has already packed up and moved away. It’s a lost cause. You’ve come to the realization that you’re not cut out to be a worship leader, the church you’ve been serving for two years will never change, and you made a mistake ever taking the job.

Don’t give up, worship leader friend. Press on.

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! (Psalm 126:5)

You are in the thick of real-life church ministry. It can be discouraging, tedious, boring, low-paying, and dry. But your labor is not in vain. Every day you are able to drive to that church and serve those people, buy your drummer a cup of coffee and then head back to church and practice with him, talk with your pastor, and get up on Sundays with a desire to help people encounter God in corporate worship, you are making the soil more fertile. One drop at a time. You didn’t make a mistake taking this job, you might have just made a mistake thinking it would be easy. It won’t be easy. But if you’re faithful, it will be fruitful. You will reap that fruit one day.

You are doing the hard work a worship leader. It isn’t glamorous. Your worship team won’t be recording an album anytime soon but you love them and encourage them anyway. Your congregation won’t suddenly look like the crowd at the worship conference you attended but you model and encourage heartfelt singing anyway. Your pastor won’t be speaking at any huge conferences next week or writing any books but you honor and pray for him anyway. Your Sunday service is a bit boring and predictable but you keep praying for God to bring a freshness and vibrancy. There isn’t a worship leader in the world who can change a church through his polish and skill. There is a God who can change a church by his Holy Spirit. Keep doing the hard work in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So you’ve been sowing in tears for nine months. You can’t even imagine what shouts of joy would sound like. You’ve worked hard, labored faithfully, and done all that you know there is to do. Your high hope has become deep despair.

To the worship leader ready to quit and walk away in retreat, imagine the story in John chapter 21 went like this:

Jesus says to you, “worship leader, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

He says to you: “Feed my lambs.”

Jesus says to you a second time, “worship leader, do you love me?”

“Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

He says to you: “Tend my sheep.”

Jesus says to you a third time, “worship leader, do you love me?”

“Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.”

He says to you: “Feed my sheep.”

Press on, worship leader friend. May your love for the Savior compel you, and may the power of the Spirit sustain you. Your tearful sowing will one day turn to joyful shouting. Don’t stop feeding his sheep.

Don’t Be A Monkey

Early on in my experience as a worship leader, I was pretty convinced that whenever I ran into any sort of opposition or problems or inertia, the solution was that I needed to get my way.

Service feels dead? I should be allowed to do whatever I want to do.

Musicians not performing well? You should let me clean house or crack the whip.

Only time for two songs? If you loved Jesus you’d give me time for at least five.

You don’t want to project lyrics? Then obviously you’re a neanderthal.

I’m supposed to get advice from a committee? A waste of my precious time.

I can’t have my own office? I’ll make as much noise for as many months as it takes for me to get what I want.

No one is singing? They’ll catch on soon enough once they come to appreciate my underlying brilliance.

You thought I repeated that song too many times? I should have repeated it more.

You want me to submit my song list to who? I hear directly from God.

The list could go on but I’ll spare you any more glimpses into my immaturity (none of which still exists today, of course… ahem…) or self-centerdness. I was convinced when I was first starting out leading worship that I had (a) all the answers, (b) all the insight, and (c) all the skills rolled into one worship leading powerhouse package: me.

And my artistic temperament coupled with my sinful nature and with a dash of preacher’s kid-itis thrown on top resulted in a working assumption that my degree of satisfaction and my ability to thrive in ministry was directly correlated to much freedom I had to do things my own way.

I once heard a statement (I can’t remember from whom) that the higher a monkey climbs up a tree, the better you can see his butt. This would describe the worship leader I was when I first started out. A monkey who wanted to climb high, high, high up the tree all on his own and be allowed to swing freely from the branches doing his own thing.

The problem? I’d eventually fall off one of those branches and I wouldn’t be able to blame anyone else but me.

Here’s my point: don’t make the mistake of thinking that the solution anytime you face opposition, or problems, or inertia, is that you be allowed to get your way. Many times that is completely the wrong solution.

Consult with others, submit to others, team up with others, bounce your ideas off of others, learn the political landscape from more experienced people around you, listen a lot, keep your mouth closed in meetings unless you’re sure you have the right thing to say, pursue humility, and above all things, make it about Jesus, not about you.

Too many worship leaders make mountains out of mole hills when they reflexively turn away from conventional wisdom or common sense or pastoral restraint, and instead do things their own way. When you do that, you’re the monkey climbing the tree. You’ll have fun and get some “oohs” and “ahs” at first, which will feed your ego, but then you’re in for an embarrassing fall.

Take it from me! Getting your own way is not always a good idea in the long run. There’s a difference between getting your way and implementing a vision. Pursue the latter option.

The Point Of A Worship Leader Is To Point

This week my church is hosting “Genesis Arts Camp” for 200+ sweaty K-6th grade students in the morning and about 50 middle/high school students in the afternoon. I’ve had a blast leading worship in the morning, and sharing a quick teaching about some aspect of the gospel (this camp draws a good number of kids from outside of our church and from families who don’t go to church at all).

In between the songs and the teaching we’re also goofing around a good bit. We’ve thrown in some David Letterman-inspired bits (complete with their own theme songs) like:

Mr. Gil Tells a Joke
In which Mr. Gil comes up and tells a joke. The theme song would get stuck in your head if I shared it, so I’ll spare you. Unless you click on this link, in which case prepare yourself for getting the theme song stuck in your head. You don’t want to click on this link. Really. Don’t click on it.

Kalisthenics with Kirsten
In which Kirsten comes up (to the band rocking out to Van Halen’s “Jump”) in her 80’s head band and leads a couple hundred kids in doing crazy exercises. We’re doing some pretty aggressively contemporary stuff at this camp for sure 🙂

Superhero Art Tryouts
In which two superheroes (Flash and the Green Lantern) attempt to get a job as teachers at Genesis Arts Camp by demonstrating their different “gifts”. They could use some work. Their interpretive dance to “Let it Go” was particularly moving.

Teaching
At the end of each session I’m sharing a quick teaching with the kids, in an attempt to communicate the gospel to them in a clear, understandable way. On Thursday or Friday I hope to invite kids to put their trust in Jesus for the first time if they haven’t ever done so. I’m excited!

On Monday I held up a bull horn and told them I had some really good news. “God loves you!” “God will always love you!” And how did God show us he loves us? By sending Jesus to die for us on the cross. We looked at a bunch of different logos. The kids knew all of them! I asked them what would God’s logo be? God’s logo would be a cross. He didn’t didn’t tell us he loved us. He showed us!

On Tuesday we looked at a bunch of pictures of cute babies. We oohed and ahed at the cute babies. But I told the kids that even the cutest babies are still born sinful. No one teaches a baby how to grow up and steal a cookie! No one teaches a little boy how to grow up and hit his sister on purpose. We sin naturally. It’s like I was born with a red choir robe on me (and I donned a lovely red choir robe for this example). And no matter what I do (give money to my friends, give food to the poor), I can’t get my red robe off. Then I walked up to the cross on stage, which had a white robe on it to show that Jesus died on the cross, but he was perfect. He took my sinful robe off of me! But… it didn’t stick to him.

Jesus defeated my sin! He stomped on it (so I stomped on the robe). He beat it (so I beat the robe). And he threw it far, far away (so I threw the robe far, far away). And he gives me his white robe (I put a white robe on). He makes me clean. He makes us new.

Today (Wednesday) I shared how Jesus wants to be our best friend. He wants to be by our side for our whole life (and after). He wants to be with us when we’re happy, when we’re sad, when we want to sin, and when we’re scared. Who would say “no” to having this kind of friend? I did a bunch of silly shenanigans like riding my daughter’s pink bike, and a pretend horse, and pretending to be scared of thunder… All to show that Jesus is with me all the time.

And the week will wrap up with me reminding the kids of what we’ve learned… and that Jesus is knocking on the doors of their hearts (and they should let him in!)

We’re singing mostly upbeat, action, call-and-response type songs. There’s a large number of little kids who can’t read, much less handle wordy songs. It’s been a lot of work but it’s been a lot of fun. And it’s reminded me of one major worship leading lesson.

I do the pointing. Jesus does the work.

Not everyone will sing along. Not everyone will get it. Some people (i.e. the super cool 5th grade boys) will sit there with their arms folded. Some people just won’t like it.

But if I use my microphone/guitar/pink bike/pretend (or real) horse/superhero skits to point people to God’s great love for them in Jesus Christ, then I don’t have to worry. My job is simple. Whether it’s a summer camp or a Sunday morning. Whether I’m leading 3rd-graders or 70 year-olds. My job description always has the same basic instruction: use your platform to point to Jesus. Then let him do the work.

The point of a worship leader is to point. Every context, every age group, every time you stand on stage.

May God increase our desire to see his name, and his name alone, exalted in the lives of those who sit in our churches. Even the sweaty ones.

From Joshua Spacht

Almost two years ago I had the joy of meeting Joshua Spacht for the first time. Joshua is an amazingly gifted worship leader, orchestrator, composer, arranger, and musician extraordinaire. He’s become a great friend, and in his relatively-recent role as Director of Worship at McLean Presbyterian Church in McLean, Virginia, he’s also become a neighbor. I’m impressed not only by Joshua’s worship leading and wisdom, but also by his musical creativity (you can hear his string orchestrations on this Advent EP that I produced and sang/played on with my former church last year, or at his Sound Cloud page). I asked him some questions about music and worship leading and I think you’ll find his answers encouraging and helpful.

1. How do you stay fresh musically?
I listen to music – lots of it! I listen at several different levels. Everything from superficially skimming through an album to listening to one section of a song over and over. I have friends whose musical tastes are different than mine, and I ask them to provide me with songs, bands, or entire albums that I “need” to listen to. I then systematically work my way through the recommendations. I don’t have time to sort through lists of bestselling recordings or scour blogs for what’s new and fresh. So, I ask others to fill me in and keep me in the loop. Even music I don’t prefer can have a positive impact on my writing and arranging.

If I only expose myself to my musical preferences, I will stagnate as a writer and all my ideas will inevitably begin to sound the same. Listening to things outside your comfort zone is like trying to increase your vocabulary. You have to actually find new words before you can begin to use them in normal, everyday conversation. The same is true with our “musical vocabulary”.

2. What are two things the average worship leader could do to grow in musical creativity?
Listen to things you don’t gravitate towards naturally – particularly music that doesn’t have an immediate payoff and may require several listens. This is one of the beauties of classical music. It’s layered, nuanced, and requires an investment of time and thought to fully be appreciated. I’ll often make CDs of classical music for my rhythm players – particularly baroque music if they’re a drummer or bass player. Rock-and-roll didn’t appear in the 20th century, it existed long ago in the music of rockers like Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel! There’s a drive, pulse, and “pocket” in their church music that long predates Chris Tomlin.

The other thing I’ll often recommend to worship leaders who want to grow creatively is that they simply watch themselves leading worship for several weeks (or even months) in a row. The recording doesn’t have to be professional or fancy, an iPhone will do. But look for patterns, monotony, thoughtless patterns that creep up in playing, speaking, or praying. We don’t just want to eliminate mistakes in our leading, but we want to eliminate those quirky things we all do that aren’t obvious to us (but often are to others). Sometimes the best way to give a freshness to our worship leading isn’t by adding more elements, but by removing unnecessary phrases, licks, whatever. Space can be a beautiful thing!

3. How should worship leaders handle criticism when they’re pushing the musical envelope in their congregation?
Arguing my case and musical convictions has yet to produce one convert to my perspective! You can’t strongarm or manipulate people into realizing the “superiority” of your opinions. You earn trust over time, which then allows you to speak into the “music transition” issue with credibility. You need to first build relationships with team members and those on your committee/elder board. Take people out to lunch – start with the most difficult cases. Leadership isn’t as simple as telling disgruntled individuals to “take two Bible verses and call me in the morning”. Change takes time, time, and more time. We should all understand this because of the slow process of growth we see in our own lives. You need to pray – not just that the Lord changes others’ hearts, but that He melts yours with love for the folks you’re supposed to be leading.

Don’t talk about music, talk about Christ! Reinforce this statement at every meeting, rehearsal, and service: “Content is King”. Few people will oppose that statement. Rally your music ministry and your church around the truth that what we sing is far, far more important than the form of our singing.

Be deferential and loving to naysayers by being willing to do things and choose songs/hymns that are meaningful to their particular spiritualheritage and tradition. Afterall, contextualization doesn’t only mean adopting practices that are perceived to be “hip and cool”. We also need to contextualize for those who are more traditionally and conservatively oriented than we are.

4. What’s some of the best musical/worship leading advice you’ve ever received?
I asked my dad, who was a minister of music for 30 years, this question on the phone in the last meaningful conversation we had before he passed away. He paraphrased Robert Murray M’Cheyne and said, “Pursue holiness. All else you do will be null and void without spiritual integrity.” There’s a lot of truth in that. We can debate techniques, philosophies, musical styles, sound amplification, drums as the day is long. However, all those issues are secondary to the importance of pursuing godliness.

Now, I know it’s Christ who qualifies us salvifically before the Father. And I know it’s Christ that mediates for His children as they sing, not our integrity and practical righteousness. But, let’s not pretend that our personal pursuit of the spiritual disciplines has no affect on our hearts and dispositions – your spouse will be the first one to agree with that statement! How much more will you benefit, protect, lead, and serve your congregation by pursuing Christ through His Word and prayer and by actually saying “no” to sin and “yes” to what pleases Him?

On another note, my dad used to say the phrase “loud and proud” to describe how a worship leader should speak when giving short exhortations or reading Scripture, etc. We all need to slow down and ruminate on what we’re actually saying. Don’t be hasty or apologetic. Be predictable, coherent, and purposeful in everything you say and sing.

And one final nugget of advice from Chuck Spacht, let’s occasionally pretend like we enjoy what we’re doing and smile at our people (note sarcasm)! It might feel a little awkward and doesn’t do much to feed our “rock star” personas. But, it goes a long way to demonstrate that we’re happy to be there and we’re not the “worship artist” that’s putting on a show and can’t show weakness. A smile says “I’m one of you. I’m a worshipper, too. Let’s rejoice together!”

Thanks, Joshua, for these fantastic words of advice, encouragement, and wisdom!