What To Do With The Fourth of July

In case you haven’t noticed, the fourth of July falls on a Sunday this year. As a worship leader, what do you do? It can be an awkward Sunday to know what songs to pick, how much attention to pay to the fact that’s Independence Day, how much weight to give to people’s preferences, etc.

Here are some brief thoughts on what to do:

Submit to your pastor. Ask him what he has in mind. If you disagree, communicate that with him in a godly and humble way. But at the end of the day, you won’t be honoring God by dishonoring your pastor.

Choose songs wisely. I would strongly encourage you to stay away from most, if not all, patriotic songs in church. I think these songs are fine to sing at BBQ’s and fireworks shows, but not in the context of corporate worship. You want to avoid songs that sing to America or about America. Songs that pray prayers for the world, our nation, and/or our cities are more appropriate.

If your pastor wants you to lead a patriotic song and you’re uncomfortable with it, I’d suggest you do two things: First, see my first point. Communicate with him beforehand why this makes you uncomfortable, and propose a different song you think would be more effective. Second, if your pastor listens to you and still asks you to lead a patriotic song, then submit to him and do it.

When and if you have to lead a patriotic song that your pastor requests, then you might consider introducing the song on Sunday morning by saying: “Our pastor, (insert his name here), has asked that we sing this song together. So let’s stand and sing.” This way the congregation knows this is something their pastor has asked for, not you. Don’t do this in a subversive way. And ask him if he’s comfortable with you doing so.

Or better yet, ask your pastor to introduce the song himself. Tell him you respect his decision and will plan on using the song, but that since you’re uncomfortable with it, you’d really appreciate him introducing it.

Find ways, other than singing, to recognize and celebrate God’s good gift. Devoting a good portion of the service to praying for this world, this nation, our communities, the military, and our leaders is a good way to recognize that it’s the fourth of July. We don’t want to ignore the fact that it’s Independence Day. We just want to avoid the temptation to do so at the expense of the firm centrality of the gospel in our weekly meetings.

Worship God freely. God, in his sovereignty, has placed those of us who live in America in a country where we can worship him freely. By singing songs that magnify his glory and his grace – we are exercising that God-given freedom. So it’s good and appropriate to thank God for this country, thank all the men and women who have fought and died to protect our freedom, and pray for our leaders. But it’s even better to use that freedom to thank God for the victory he’s won for us through his Son. That victory is what we’ll sing about for all eternity!

The Wisdom in Having a Back-up Instrument Close By

Every worship leader who plays guitar dreads the moment when his or her string breaks in the middle of a set. It usually happens at the worst moment – either right at the beginning of a set of songs or on the song you’re playing the hardest.

I’ve written before on how to handle this awkward moment but I wanted to underline one point: the wisdom of having a back-up instrument close by.

A back-up guitar
If you play guitar, I strongly encourage you to have a second guitar tuned-up, on a stand, close by just in case you need it. You might not need it 9 out of 10 Sundays, but you’ll be awfully glad you went through the work of setting it up when you do feel that awful sensation of a string popping and twanging.

(You can fit two acoustic guitars on one guitar stand if you buy a double-guitar stand.)

If you don’t own two acoustic guitars, maybe someone in your church has a second one lying around. Or buy a cheap-ish one. Your back-up guitar doesn’t need to be very nice. It just needs six in-tune strings.

If you’re leading with a band
Switching to your back-up guitar can be pretty smooth if you can rely on the band to keep things going while you take the out-of-commission guitar off and put the new one on. I would wait until a new section of the song, motion to the band to keep it going, and switch guitars then. Most people in the congregation won’t notice. If they do, they’ll think you planned it.

If you’re leading on your own
If I break a string and need to switch instruments, I’ll wait until a new section of the song and say something like “let’s sing that again with just our voices”. Then I stop playing, make sure they start singing the next section, and then step back and switch.

If you happen to play piano also
Oftentimes when I’m leading by myself, instead of setting up a second guitar, I’ll just make sure there’s a piano or a keyboard close by with a mic. That way if I break a string I can just hop over to the piano.

This happened a few months ago at a healing conference my church hosted. I was in the middle of the song “Holy is the Lord” by Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio when my D string popped. I waited until after the bridge to move over to the piano. You can hear what it sounded like here:

In that moment when my string broke, I was very glad I had asked our sound engineer to make sure the piano was set-up and there was a microphone there. My strings were new and I didn’t think they’d break, but it’s better to be safe than sorry!

Learning from General Stanley McChrystal

The news story that has been all the rage in America for the last few days has been the fallout caused by General Stanley McChrystal’s interview with Rolling Stone. In this interview, both the General and his aides are openly dismissive and insulting toward other members of the United State’s national security team, the Vice-President, the President, and our allies in Afghanistan. The question on everyone’s mind has been “what was he thinking?” Apparently his answer to that question wasn’t very good, since he was fired yesterday.

How could he be so careless and undisciplined? How could he speak that way of his commander-in-chief? Didn’t he know what a stupid idea that was?

It’s a rare moment in American politics when people on both sides of the aisle can agree on anything. It seems like most people agreed on this: what he did was inappropriate.

Here’s my question for us worship leaders: what if a Rolling Stone magazine appeared on your pastor’s desk tomorrow morning with word-for-word quotes of things you and your “aides” have said about him? Your opinion of other people on your church’s staff? Your derogatory nicknames for certain people? Your critical words of him?

General McChrystal was careless in saying what he said in front of a reporter. But he was wrong to say what he said in the first place. It went beyond the appropriate communication of differences and the respectful dialogue between two people. It was more than confiding in a trusted friend your struggles and difficulties. It crossed the line and became insulting, petty, immature, and unprofessional.

We can all struggle with crossing this line – but in particular I think worship leaders cross it with respect to their pastors. We start off with our opinions, then our opinions become facts, then we tell people those facts, then we become careless about who we share those facts with, and before we know it we’ve said stupid things we can’t take back.

In Psalm 64:8, we see that one characteristic of the wicked is that: “They are brought to ruin, with their own tongues turned against them; all who see them will wag their heads.”

General McChrystal is an honorable man. And most of us worship leaders are good guys too. But we dabble in wickedness when we let our tongue loose. God cautions us in Psalm 34:13 to “keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.”

Of course this truth applies to everything we say – not just about our pastor. But every once in a while it’s good to be reminded to keep our tongues in check, to watch what we say, and to be careful who we’re saying it around.

Odds are that a Rolling Stone reporter isn’t listening in on you and reporting to your pastor what you’re saying about him. But it’s damaging and unwise and inappropriate nonetheless.

Let’s serve our pastors well, honor God with our tongues, and be faithful at doing our jobs.

Saying Less When You Could Say More

A few days ago I was going through old files on my office computer, and came across a “note” I had written several years ago in response to a member of my church who wrote to complain about the volume level at our 11:00am service.

This “note” was actually a full page, single-spaced, size 11 font, extended margins, behemoth. The middle paragraph was about eighteen lines thick. And to fit as many words as I could on one piece of paper, I reduced the space between paragraphs.

It was ridiculous.

But it wasn’t only the number of words and the length of the letter that was over-the-top, it was also my tone. Reading it now, after four or five years have passed, my defensive tone jumps out of almost every sentence. I quote this person’s original letter back to them in several spots, only to answer with a literary kick to the face.

It felt good to write it, I’m sure. It probably even felt good to stick it in the mail. But It must not have felt very good when the person opened it and read it, with my name signed on the bottom.

I’m learning (or trying to learn) that in those instances when I have a lot to say to someone who offers me criticism, I should actually say very little. This doesn’t mean being dismissive or curt – it means only saying what I need to say, all out of cross-centered humility.

This person’s note to me (if I remember correctly) was actually pretty harsh. In reply, I wanted to tell this person all about how hard we work to find a good mix, about how the acoustics in the room are tricky, about how our floor monitors put out a lot of noise, about how the bible encourages stillness and loudness, about how I don’t want anyone’s ears to hurt, etc. And so I did tell them all of these things. In really long sentences and thick paragraphs.

Bad idea. When you write someone a lengthy, sharp, multi-point missive, it can have the effect of hitting them like a punch in the gut when they read it. And while you might not ever admit this out loud when you’re writing it, you’re actually kind of hoping it comes across like one.

The fundamental problem? It’s gospel-less.

When Jesus was crucified in our place, there was a lot he could have said. And he would have been right to say it. But all he said was: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus, perfect in every way, having been condemned to death on a cross, responds by showing grace.

And it’s because of that cross that we are forgiven, we are freed from the idea that there is anything we can do to make ourselves righteous, and we are able to respond to criticism of all forms with grace, humility, and forgiveness.

There is a lot of “good news” in the Gospel. One piece of good news is that we don’t need to overreact and fret over criticism by writing ridiculously long “notes” in reply. There’s no worse criticism than knowing we deserved death – and Jesus has already paid it and raised us to life with him. Your responses to criticism should reflect the freedom that comes from this. Do they?