Tag: Ministry

Now Just Wait A Minute

1For some reason when I was in college I signed up for an elective called “Marketing 101”. One of the marketing concepts that we discussed was the “innovation adoption lifecycle” (are you impressed?) which breaks down customers into different categories based on when, in a product/innovation’s lifecycle, customers choose to adopt it.

Innovators adopt a new product at the very beginning. They’re the first in line, and they don’t wait to read reviews. Not very many people fall into this category.

Early adopters wait a little while to make sure the new product is dependable and then they quickly jump on it. There are more early adopters than there are innovators.

The early majority is just what it sounds like. The largest bloc of customers who adopt a product fall into this category. They get in on something just before it’s no longer new.

The late adopters aren’t too far behind. They didn’t need to prove anything and they knew how to control their impulses. This considerable population of consumers waits until the novelty wears off.

The last category of people have the unfortunate title of “laggards“. They’re the ones who are just now buying a cell phone and it’s 2014.

OK, so why all the marketing talk from a worship leader who majored in Psychology? Because I think far too many worship leaders can fall into the first couple of categories listed above.

Too many worship leaders try (or think they have to try) to be innovators or early adopters. Up on all the new fads. Incorporating all the new songs. Buying new equipment or new keyboard patches or new software or new albums. It’s a never-ending hunt for novelty which significantly increases the risk that they’ll unknowingly adopt a product or an innovation which has significant weaknesses.

There is wisdom is waiting. There is something to be said for taking a deep breath, taking a step back, gaining perspective, analyzing something, considering its integrity, and thinking carefully before adopting something new. It’s better to wait and see whether or not a new song is really worth singing, or if a new piece equipment is really the one your church needs to buy, or if that new church member who’s an awesome bass player is really committed to your church before putting them on the platform.

It’s not that being an innovator or an early adopter is always bad. The problem is when your quest is to always be an innovator or always be an early adopter, so much so that you can’t make yourself wait, discern, and consider whether you’re making the right decision or not. Novelty often covers up weakness. So wait until the novelty wears off.

But just like it’s unwise to be an impulsive, knee-jerk innovator who will find himself having adopted a new product full of problems, it’s also unwise to be a laggard. Laggards miss out, plain and simple. They bury their heads in the sands of security and miss out on opportunity after opportunity to participate in the life going on all around them.

Worship leaders shouldn’t miss out on the life, the songs, the movements, and the innovations that God is stirring up around them. Use whatever you can, whenever you can, for the glory of God. But worship leaders shouldn’t rush to always be the first in line to adopt what’s being stirred up. Some of what’s being stirred up is good, and some of it is weak.

So just wait a minute and learn a lesson from Marketing 101: it’s better to wait and be happy then to rush and regret it.

Is There Any Power Behind You?

1In 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.

Surviving and Savoring

1So 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

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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

1This 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.