Ministry – Page 8 – Worthily Magnify

Is There Any Power Behind You?

In Isaiah chapter ten, the prophet is warning the nation of Assyria of their impending destruction when he asks an interesting question. Speaking to the king about his pride and arrogance and over-confidence in his military might he asks:

Can the ax boast greater power than the person who uses it? Is the saw greater than the person who saws? Can a whip strike unless a hand is moving it? Can a cane walk by itself? (Isaiah 10:15, NLT)

It’s a question that exposes the king’s “evil boasting” (Isaiah 10:16) and God answers it with a word of rebuke.

And it’s a question that people in ministry, particularly worship leaders, should consider. Because it gets at the heart of something crucial: whether or not there is any power behind what we do.

An ax looks awfully threatening, a saw looks pretty scary, a whip looks sharply painful, and a cane looks somewhat helpful, but unless these tools are in the hands of someone with strength, they’re dormant and useless.

You see, it’s not about your credentials or degrees or experience or resume or congregation size. That might get you to a certain level for a certain period of time but it won’t endure.

The only way you’ll endure as a worship leader is by the anointing (literally the conveying of God’s power upon you), or the “unction” of God. Without the power of God behind you, you’re a powerless ax, an un-used saw, a coiled-up whip, or a stowed-away cane. It’s the power of God, his anointing and his wielding, that causes you to have any power at all, any long-term effectiveness, and any fruitfulness.

May we never fall victim to the kind of pride, arrogance, over-confidence, and “evil boasting” that we see in the king of Assyria in Isaiah 10. May we always remember and pursue the mighty power of God to stand behind us and use as he wishes as tools in his hand for the glory of his name.

Are You In Prison?

Last week I had the privilege of having lunch with an old seminary professor of mine (I say that because he’s old, and he says so himself) Steve Brown (no relation). He was in town teaching a class at RTS (where I’m attending very, very part-time) and I emailed him to ask if we could have lunch. He said yes, so it was off to Silver Diner we went.

Three years ago I sat in Steve’s class “The Christian Life” in the back row and had my world turned upside-down. For the first day and a half of the class Steve went through what he calls the twelve “prisons” in which Christians can find themselves. Especially Christians who are in ministry. As a Christian in ministry who was a preacher’s kid for his whole upbringing, I sat there and realized that I was in every single prison. Every single one.

I wrote about these prisons three years ago (Pt. 1, 2, 3, and 4) but I wanted to post much of that content again. Too many worship leaders are in bondage without even realizing it. Do any of these sound familiar?

1. Sin
Most of us are in a dangerous place. We’re up front, on a stage, sometimes on a screen, and in a position of leadership. The congregation thinks we’re pure, holy, righteous, have a great prayer life, tithe, sponsor an orphan in Colombia, and never get angry or lust.

The problem is that we know we’re not wonderful. We know we’re sinners. There are things we’ve done that, if people in the congregation knew about them, we’d be humiliated and never want to show our face again.

We’re in a profession where we have to pretend to be who they think we are. This is a terrible prison. This is great bondage.

If you go around pretending you’re wonderful (but feeling ashamed of your secret sin), you’ll be miserable. And so will the people who work with you and serve under you.

Guilty people make people feel guilty. Free people make people feel free. We have been set free from our sin by the blood of Jesus. Yes, we’re depraved. But we’re redeemed. Do you lead worship like a free person or a guilty person?

2. Guilt
Conviction says I have failed to be obedient. Guilt is the feeling associated with that conviction, and its purpose is to send us to Jesus. But once we’re there, guilt has no purpose.

Sadly, we carry guilt with us for years and years, and it is a heavier weight than we realize. This weight weakens us, limits us, makes us do stupid things, and acts as a leash around our neck, keeping us from running free in God’s grace

In addition to making people feel guilty, guilty people are always trying to work towards their own freedom. Most of the time this takes the form of us punishing ourselves in the futile hope that this earns us favor.

Hanging your head low, saying “no” to great opportunities, and carrying crippling feelings of anxiety and unworthiness won’t make you free. They’ll keep you in prison.

Worship leaders who walk in the radical and total grace of God are more emboldened to lead their teams and their congregations with abandon. Are you ministering with abandon or do you feel bound up?

3. Failure
Steve Brown describes the problem this way: “There is a neurotic sense of Christians that they don’t deserve success because of their sin. This sense creates failure”.

Think about that for a second.

Too many Christians, and too many worship leaders, have a neurotic sense that they don’t deserve success because of their sin. And so they fail. Maybe they go to a new church and take a new job. But they still don’t understand God’s grace. So they don’t think they deserve success. And so they fail again.

The sooner we realize that our “sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and (we) bear it no more”, the more freely we can sing “praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!” Until we do that, we carry our sin with us, we don’t think we could possibly succeed because of it, and our songs are halfhearted.

4. The past
I have had incredibly painful experiences in ministry. Many of these came at a young age, leading worship at a small church, coming face to face with some very difficult people and situations.

You’ve had painful experiences too. People have written you vitriolic emails. You’ve made some bad mistakes. You’ve messed up. You’ve been beaten up.

I’ve had to deal with the meanness I encountered when I was a fourteen year old worship leader. I’ve had to really dig deep and forgive those people, repent of my bitterness, and let go of it. You need to deal with your past ministry-inflicted or otherwise-inflicted pain too (if you haven’t).

When we don’t deal with the past it affects the present. Oftentimes it affects us in ways we don’t realize and can’t anticipate. When we get a critical email from someone in our inbox today, we’ll blow up and freak out because we’re responding to the woman from 15 years ago. When our pastor critiques how we prayed in public we’ll overreact and draft our resignation letter because we’re responding to the nasty comments we heard two churches ago.

We get hit with stuff all the time as worship leaders. It will pile up if we let it. Let it go and drop it at the foot of the cross. Jesus has offered to carry our burdens, so let’s take him up on that offer. Break out of the prison of your past so you can be a better worship leader today.

5. Self-abasement
Being humble doesn’t mean being a pushover. Being a servant doesn’t mean being weak. Being conformed to the image of Christ doesn’t mean we can’t be ourselves.

It’s possible to be humble and be strong. It’s possible to be a servant and be bold. It’s possible to be conformed to the image of Christ and be ourselves.

The good news of the Gospel is that we are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. We’re covered. All the time. We’re not in danger of becoming un-reconciled because we speak up a bit too loudly at a planning meeting when we disagree or make decisions that will offend the pastor’s wife who always wants to play piano (but can’t).

This prison – this bondage of always hanging our head low and apologizing for ourselves and polishing our shoes and taking the easy road and doing the same old bad songs to keep people happy and avoiding difficult conversations – will drive us to insanity.

Being a wuss doesn’t make God any happier with you! Nothing you do makes God any happier with you. God is only happy with you because of Jesus. You’re covered. So, in Christ, be yourself. Break out of this prison of self-abasement.

Yes, wash people’s feet. Yes, serve them. Yes, love them. And yes, pursue humility. But don’t be a pushover. Don’t be weak. It doesn’t make you a better worship leader.

That’s good news. And it should make you feel free.

6. Perfectionism.
Our assumption that perfection is possible is a fatal error. God knows this. So oftentimes God will give us a thorn in our side to prove this isn’t possible. Just because he loves us.

Sin and failure are God’s methodology of showing love to us and receiving praise unto himself since the only way we can really know and appreciate the depth of God’s love is to be unlovable. We are. And the only way to really be grateful for that love is not to deserve it. We don’t.

We all (hopefully) agree in theory that we can’t be perfect. Jesus is the only one who was ever perfect, and it’s through him, the perfect sacrifice, that we are reconciled to God. We don’t deserve God’s grace but it’s been lavished on us.

But in practice we often live in the prison of trying to be as perfect as we can be, in the hopes that it makes God happy with us. This makes us really nervous worship leaders.

Worship leaders who are trying to be perfect in order to please God are in a dangerous place. It’s only when we get it – really get it – that we’re only made righteous through Jesus and because of this we live in tremendous freedom – that we’ll be able to help our congregations get it. Break out of the prison of perfectionism and rejoice in the freedom that comes from the One who is perfect on our behalf.

7. Fear
In 2 Timothy 1:7 we’re told that God has not given us a spirit of fear – but a spirit of power and love and self-control. Why, then, are we so afraid of so much, and afraid so often?

There are some worship leaders who constantly live in a fear of shame, conflict, the unknown, difficult people, new ideas, being exposed, losing their job, missing God’s will, ruining a service, etc. The list goes on. This prison of fear kills worship leaders. We have to break out of this one so God can use us.

Sometimes God puts us in situations that cause fear because then we can realize where we need to trust him more. If we didn’t have a Savior who had known excruciating fear but persevered all the way to the cross for our sake, we would have reason to be afraid. But Jesus took care of any reason to fear. He is our Redeemer and Mediator, our Father is sovereign and good, the Holy Spirit is the Comforter. So relax and get out of the prison of fear.

8. Needing approval
Steve Brown gives this list of six “nevers” for people in ministry.

–       Never grovel (kiss up)
–       Never apologize when you’re right
–       Say no more than twice
–       Never lie
–       Never pretend to be someone’s Mother
–       Never take responsibility for something that isn’t your responsibility

I don’t know about you, but each one of those points resonate with me and are incredibly freeing to consider. What is he getting at in each one of these “nevers”? Get rid of your need for everyone’s approval.

Living in the freedom of God’s grace doesn’t mean being a jerk, insensitive, undiscerning, un-pastoral, harsh, arrogant, sharp-tongued, or politically stupid. Not by any means.

What it does mean, though, is that once we know – really know – that because of Jesus Christ we are completely loved, accepted, ransomed, redeemed, covered, and freed. I love the line from “Be Thou My Vision”: “riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise, Thou mine inheritance now and always”. What an inheritance we have in Jesus. We don’t need man’s empty praise.

9. Obligation.
No one told me, when I first started leading worship, how often I would end up come face-to-face with various problems over the years.

Some problems are small: the music stands are broken, the chairs are in disarray, the website hasn’t been updated, the piano tuner needs to get into the church but it’s locked, etc.

Some problems are big: the drummer (I can pick on drummers because my brothers are drummers) cursed out the sound engineer, a small coalition of longtime members are petitioning the pastor to get your music out of the service, etc.

Worship leaders will face lots of problems over the course of their ministry. They get in trouble when they think they’re the solution to each one of those problems.

Repeat after me: I am not the solution to every problem.

Feel better? You should. That’s what God’s grace will do to you.

10. Rules
Believe it or not, people will try to manipulate you. They might not even realize they’re doing it, but they are. Don’t be manipulated by the rules people try to set for you. If you want to stay out of the prison of these other-people-imposed rules, you’ll need to set boundaries.

You might recognize some of these:
– Jerry needs a worship leader for his Tuesday night men’s ministry meeting. He asks you. If you say no he won’t have anyone. So you say yes even though it means you’ll be away from home for a fourth straight evening.
– Your bass player refuses to use the online rehearsal resource that the rest of your worship team uses. So you print out chord charts and mail him a CD and spend an extra two hours just on him.
– Amy Amison, a woman who has always sung solos at your church, wants to sing “O Holy Night” this Christmas Eve. She’s not very good. But she’s always sung. You’d rather not have her sing, but you hear from several people that you don’t really have a choice.

So rules get imposed on you. You have to lead worship for the men’s ministry meeting. You have to cater to your uncooperative bass player. You have to let Amy Amison sing.

Why? Because you have to.

You’ve been manipulated.

Being a Christian, and being a worship leader, doesn’t mean you lose your right to set boundaries, to say “no”, to go against unhelpful traditions, and to ruffle feathers. You will burn out more quickly than you can imagine if you allow the prison of rules to keep you locked up.

11. Religion
Leading people in magnifying and exalting the greatness of God in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit is exciting. Leading musicians in using their gifts to passionately, skillfully, and humbly lead the congregation in singing praise to God is a joy.

But presenting people with a safe, predictable, and polite collection of songs is robotic. Playing chords and melodies to please the ear and manipulate emotions is dangerous.

In the first example we have a picture of the church gathering to celebrate the glory of God. In the second example we have a picture of a religious institution that wants nice music.

When people get really excited about Christianity as an institution, then they’re in prison. The same principle applies to worship leaders. When they get more excited about presenting a polite collection of impressive songs than they do helping people encounter and exalt God’s greatness, they’re (no pun intended), behind bars.

If you find yourself dreading leading worship or coming into the church office to prepare for services and rehearsals, that might be a red flag that you’re in a prison of religion and need to be refreshed and amazed again by the freedom of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

Jesus elicits our worship. Religion elicits our duty. If you’re duty-bound, then you really are bound. Worship Jesus, not the institution.

12. Prison of gurus.
The last prison that entraps worship leaders is the prison of gurus.

There is no shortage of worship gurus out there. To learn from them, be mentored by them, and follow their example is a good and healthy thing (depending on the guru). To worship at their altar is not healthy. In fact, it’s idolatry.

We all have people we put on a pedestal. We think that by emulating them and following them we’ll be more sanctified. But we’re not. We’re less so. We’re fake and in bondage.

There really is incredible bondage in worshipping other worship leaders. There is freedom in worshipping Jesus. Be intentional in seeking out good role models. But be careful not to cross the blurry line into idolizing them.

My prayer for myself, and any worship leader who reads this blog, is that God would continue to break the chains of bondage that seek to hinder our effectiveness in ministry, and that we would be set free, by his grace, more and more every day.

Surviving and Savoring

So it turns out that having three children in the house is actually pretty crazy.

In the months leading up to Catherine and I welcoming baby girl # three into our family, we kept hearing the same line from parents who had been through the transition from two kids to three. It always went like this:

“Good luck moving from man-to-man defense to zone defense!”

I remember thinking several things whenever I’d hear this:

First, it sounds like you’re saying my life is about to get crazier. That’s wonderful. I’m so glad I ran into you.

Second, it sounds like you’re saying that this isn’t going to be easy. Is that right? I hadn’t thought of that.

Third, thanks for the terrible advice.

And now, just three weeks into the transition, I see that there’s really nothing else than can be said to parents about to enter the vortex of insanity which is the reality of being outnumbered by children who depend on you for everything. It’s such a privilege. And it’s such hard work.

Of course Catherine and I know we’ll survive. We’ll know we’ll look back on this time and it will have gone by in a flash. We know that we’re so blessed. We love our little girls so much and the minute they’re (finally) asleep, all we do is talk about how much we love them.

Parents live in this tension of savoring the moment on the one hand, and trying to survive on the other. Savor and survive. My goodness our girls are beautiful but if my four-year-old decides to change her shoes again before we leave we’re going to be here until next Christmas. All of this in one thought.

People in ministry experience this same tension. It’s demanding but it’s rewarding. Sometimes a lot more demanding than rewarding, and oftentimes we don’t see the reward for years after living with incessant demands, but faithful sowing always yields some sort of fruit in God’s timing, and whether in this life or the next we’ll eventually be able to savor the sweetness of being a part of God’s work.

Sometimes all you can do is just hang on and try to survive. And then sometimes you can step back and savor. But through it all, God is upholding you and remaining faithful. There will be seasons ahead that are crazier. And seasons ahead that are more calm. And then one day, like a breath, it will all pass away. In the meantime, just hang on and God will get you through it and teach you a lot in the process.

When a Congregation Resists a Worship Leader

The dream of every worship leader is to serve a congregation who makes their job easy. They sing every song with gusto. They never complain or gripe. They learn every song after singing it once. They’re always just begging for more. It’s like you’re in heaven every Sunday. Freedom abounds.

I suppose these kinds of congregations exist, but my hunch is that they exist, blissfully, mostly in the dreams of delusional worship leaders.

The reality of most worship leaders is that they serve congregations who don’t exactly make it easy. There are weeks, and seasons, and years of painful slogging. There are particular people who seem to relish the opportunity to criticize you. Songs fall flat. Excellent musicians don’t exactly fall out of the woodwork. And as you look out over your congregation you get the distinct impression that they’re just not that impressed and they’re just not that into you.

Congregations can tend to be, in a word, resistant. And this is the phenomenon referred to as “reality”. Real people, the people who are actually sitting in the pews on Sunday mornings, tend to like to feel safe, and tend to want to avoid having their personal sovereignty threatened. And few things threaten the personal sovereignty of people more than heartfelt worship. It gets at our pride in a unique way that’s both good for us and painful for us at the same time.

And when a worship leader faces resistance, he or she can handle it one of four ways.

First, give up. They’re resisting your leadership, so they’re all cold hearted atheists, and you should take your talents somewhere else.

Second, double down. They’re resisting your leadership, so they need to have a fire lit underneath them, and you need to rock their faces off until God sends revival.

Third, embrace the status quo. They’re resisting your leadership? You didn’t really notice. You pick some songs/hymns. You lead them. You get your paycheck. You go home. Why rock the comfortable boat?

All three of those options are tempting at different times. Most worship leaders (myself included) have chosen all of those responses at different stages.

But there’s a better option and a wiser response when you find yourself leading worship for a congregation who’s resistant: take it slow. They’re resisting your leadership, but you don’t need to give up, and you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot by acting in a way that would make yourself the poster child of what they’re resisting. A bit of their personal sovereignty is at stake, after all, and if you try to take that space by force, there will be casualties.

So unless you’re one of those worship leaders who leads the congregation of your dreams, I suggest that you face resistance, you take it slow. Evaluate. Build trust. Serve them on their level. This isn’t you lowering yourself. It’s you incarnating yourself. And there’s a big difference.

Once you’ve done that, then you can begin to actually lead the people that are actually in your congregation. and you’ll slowly begin to see people’s personal sovereignty begin to soften in worship, creating a more conducive environment for heartfelt praise in response to the glory of God in Jesus Christ, the one who came to serve and not be served, and to set the captives free. Be encouraged that God’s longing for freedom in your congregation is unfathomably greater than yours.

Don’t Be Financially Reckless

This morning I spent two hours working on something really exciting.

Receipts. Requests for reimbursements. Check requests for different people/things. Getting these various requests approved. Figuring out mileage reimbursement and printing out a Google Map to account for the miles.

Actually, it wasn’t exciting at all. And for a guy who left his final math class in college and literally put his hand on the wall when he walked out and begged God to give him a C (I got it), it’s not my cup of tea.

But if you’re in ministry and you’re financially reckless, it could end up ruining you. Maybe not at first, and maybe not in a dramatic fashion, but it could happen eventually.

If you’re financially reckless and don’t keep track of receipts or consistently go over budget or break policies, the first thing that will happen will be that your church leadership will see that you’re immature and untrustworthy. If you can’t be trusted with simple things like coding a receipt or making sure you don’t spend twice as much on supplies than is budgeted, then how you can be trusted to lead a ministry?

The second thing that will happen will be the people who oversee the finances at your church will permanently red-flag you. You might be at a church that preaches and sings the Gospel of Grace until they’re blue in the face, but if they’re smart, their finances are overseen by strict, grace-less, rule-following, rule-setting, policy-wonky Keepers Of The Law (let’s call them K.O.T.L. for short). You don’t want to get on the K.O.T.L.’s bad side. It could make life very uncomfortable for you. If you respect their rules and do your part to honor their necessary standards for financial integrity, then they’ll be your friends. And you need friends.

The last thing that will happen if you’re financially reckless in ministry is that you’ll make a huge mistake some day, or you’ll make a series of small mistakes that equal a huge mistake, and because you’ve not been careful, you’ve gotten sloppy and you’ve all of the sudden given your detractors the ammunition they need to get you pushed aside. If you think this kind of thing isn’t possible in ministry, then you’re in for a surprise. It’s entirely possible, and it happens all the time. The ministry battle field is dotted with defeated youth pastors, worship leaders, senior pastors, and sound engineers who made one too many financial errors and it finally came back to bite them.

Keep your receipts. Stay in (or under) budget. Follow the policies. Email the finance people when you have a big expense coming up, or when you make a mistake (like the time I was accidentally logged in to my work iTunes account and I bought an Elmo app for my 4-year old). Play by the financial rules and you’ll get to stay on the field for a long time in relative peace.