I help with music at the church that endorses this blog. In Christian circles, what I do is often referred to as "leading worship," and so I reluctantly bear the title of "worship leader." I'll just say to those dismayed or surprised by my disdain for the title that it has nothing to do with the associated roles and responsibilities; it has everything to do with how presumptuous and arrogant it is to try on a label that should be reserved for Christ only (read Hebrews if you're confused why I'd say that). I bring this up because a passage of scripture I read recently reawakened me to the exclusivity of Christ's role as worship leader.
Here's the passage: "As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever." - 1st Peter 3:10-11.
I was happy to come across this, because it gives legitimacy and perspective to something the other musicians and I constantly pray and hope for, which is that God would be glorified through our service to the congregation. I have often wondered if it is just a platitude, though. Is it really possible for a bunch of amateurs playing music and singing to glorify God? We can put some songs together and sometimes it sounds ok, but is it glorifying to God?
The answer is no, at least, not without the critical vector Peter mentions: Jesus Christ. You see, when we "worship" (that's churchspeak for singing hymns of praise together during a service), sometimes we are under the dangerous--and possibly subconscious--impression that there is some sort of value to the medium. This impression is manifest in our hyperemphasis of style over content, length over depth, beauty in the flesh over purity of the heart. Frankly, anytime our worship service becomes about what we do and how it's done rather than whom we do it for, we've strayed towards some form of idolatry. Unfortunately, we musicians often buy into this thinking and even reinforce it by trying our darndest to "beautify" our craft, as if by making it prettier it will somehow become more acceptable, more glorifying to God. Yuck.
The fact is, however, no craft of man will ever be pleasing to God outside of the redeeming work of Christ. This is why Peter is careful to say that "God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." Had he left the last part off, the implication would be that the use of our abilities alone is itself enough to glorify God, which I'm grateful is not the case.
This whole passage in Peter puts abilities and ministry opportunities into an appropriate context for the church. We employ our God-given talents in ministrations of service for the Body of Christ, and to no other end than that, through Christ, God would be glorified. As musicians, we appreciate the opportunity to create something we enjoy and provide a point of participation for the Body of Christ. We do so with gravity, and an attitude of service to the church, which Peter articulated well here. It's a matter of stewardship. The details of exactly how Christ takes our music and humility of spirit during our times of corporate worship and transforms it into true worship, I don't rightly know yet. But I do know that without Christ, the whole exercise is pointless.
We musicians dare not suggest that what we do and how well we do it brings you into the presence of God. That's Christ's job, as the Mediator. So, I ask Christians everywhere not to project that on the musicians in your church. It's not a job we want to do for you, and more importantly, it's not a job we can do for you. You may not think you project anything of this sort on us, but I can tell you, I have often heard and even been the recipient of both criticism and compliments that suggest otherwise.
The challenge, as a church, and on a grander scale, as the Church, is to realize this issue doesn't just affect music ministry. There are other areas where ministry can become idolatrous, Christ-less. Do we see our service to the kingdom in it's proper context, which Peter outlines here, or are is it just another subtle attempt to get to God apart from Christ?
11 March 2012
05 February 2012
Living With(out) Fear
There's an album by the metal band "Zao" titled "The Fear is What Keeps Us Here." Couldn't have said it (or screamed it, as Zao does in the final track) any better myself.
Fear is universal, and my, how numerous are the ways in which it manifests itself. Approach anyone--man, woman, or child--ask enough questions, and eventually you'll uncover something he/she is afraid of. There is a whole industry (advertising/marketing) bent on finding slick ways to make us afraid without our even knowing it, keep us afraid, or make us even more afraid than we already are. Some fears are subtle, some overt. Some of us may be phobics, others just scaredy-cats. And if those labels don't quite fit, fear goes by other names too, sometimes perverting perfectly good descriptors: cautious, tentative, risk-averse come readily to mind.
My point is, fear seems an awful lot like something we just have to live with. . . right? Because if we don't, then I'm afraid (no pun intended) I've been wasting a whole lot of my life, immobilized from doing the right thing, or mobilized to do the wrong one. All this because of my various fears.
It turns out, though, living with fear may not be all there is. The band and I read Psalm 3 this week, a chapter which ought to utterly crush our fear. Basically, the Psalm takes us through that moment when all seems hopeless, we come to the end of ourselves, and finally realize we aren't really in control. We realize, as David did, that salvation belongs to God.
There are those who spurn this last part. They say faith in God is a crutch, a weakness. They say all we really have is ourselves, and when that's not enough we can spin tales about a higher power to make us feel better about our circumstances, or we can just face it like men. In other words, their advice is to live with the fear.
Personally, I've lived with fear. If there's a better way, I'll take it. So, I'll keep my faith, along with Psalm 3's reminder that God is sovereign, and I am incredibly not.
Fear is universal, and my, how numerous are the ways in which it manifests itself. Approach anyone--man, woman, or child--ask enough questions, and eventually you'll uncover something he/she is afraid of. There is a whole industry (advertising/marketing) bent on finding slick ways to make us afraid without our even knowing it, keep us afraid, or make us even more afraid than we already are. Some fears are subtle, some overt. Some of us may be phobics, others just scaredy-cats. And if those labels don't quite fit, fear goes by other names too, sometimes perverting perfectly good descriptors: cautious, tentative, risk-averse come readily to mind.
My point is, fear seems an awful lot like something we just have to live with. . . right? Because if we don't, then I'm afraid (no pun intended) I've been wasting a whole lot of my life, immobilized from doing the right thing, or mobilized to do the wrong one. All this because of my various fears.
It turns out, though, living with fear may not be all there is. The band and I read Psalm 3 this week, a chapter which ought to utterly crush our fear. Basically, the Psalm takes us through that moment when all seems hopeless, we come to the end of ourselves, and finally realize we aren't really in control. We realize, as David did, that salvation belongs to God.
There are those who spurn this last part. They say faith in God is a crutch, a weakness. They say all we really have is ourselves, and when that's not enough we can spin tales about a higher power to make us feel better about our circumstances, or we can just face it like men. In other words, their advice is to live with the fear.
Personally, I've lived with fear. If there's a better way, I'll take it. So, I'll keep my faith, along with Psalm 3's reminder that God is sovereign, and I am incredibly not.
23 January 2012
the irony of excellence
Can church be so "good" it discourages participation?
Excellence has become a modern buzzword for Christian events and services. I've been playing music in churches since I was young, and I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say things like: "our goal is excellence," or "we need to be polished so we're not distracting to the congregation" or "David played skillfully before the Lord, shouldn't we?"
It sounds like a good thing and a worthy goal because of the contrast. If you're not excellent, you're subpar or mediocre--at best, just okay. No one want those words to be used to describe his craft. But endorsing excellence overtly seems rather silly, because it almost communicates that there might be some other goal--almost as if someone might undertake something in hopes of doing it poorly.
Now I'm all for a good focus on excellence in a team environment. People in charge of things should get together occasionally and discuss ways to improve. But I do question why we make such a big deal of it in church, and that question raises the other I posed in the first sentence of this article.
There seems to be a modern movement in Christianity to try to produce quality stuff--stuff we hope can suffice as Christian alternatives to secular I think there are two noticeable arenas where this movement has become very pronounced: music and church services. I'm going to leave music aside for a moment, although I will point out an interesting blog article I read recently by Michael Gungor of the band "Gungor" in which he discusses at length the bizarre approach Christian artists have taken to music. If you're interested, find it here.
Instead, I'll focus on my area of familiarity: church services. I have participated in hundreds of church services over the years. I know what it's like to be onstage, and to feel the pressure of wanting a flawless presentation. I've also experienced countless services from the pew, and I know what it's like to feel bored at church. It really does feel like we've come to expect our church services to entertain us, at least in the evangelical church. We've done away with traditional liturgy in favor of a more "modernized" service, including updated music, more engaging messages, captivating multimedia presentations, etc. None of this is necessarily bad, and I'm not trying to say otherwise. I'm just pointing out a trend.
There is much we could say about this trend, but to start, I'm curious what happens when we finally attain that excellent and polished service we've always wanted. Will anyone else even want to participate? Or will we be too worried about polluting it with our own less-than-perfect voices, or too engrossed in watching the production unfold that we forget why we came in the first place?
I bring this up because in my view, a church service should be designed for participation. At least, that's what I've been led to believe over the years. Why else do we sing songs together and call it worship? Why are people encouraged to take notes during the message? Why did liturgy ever come about in the first place? The congregation should participate in the service, but they may not feel encouraged to do so if they feel somehow unqualified.
Just trying to explore the thought. There is certainly also a great danger in a haphazard approach to a church service. But it's interesting to me that the very thing a church service should engender could be threatened, at least in theory, when we achieve excellence. And the whole thought experiment begs other questions about the purpose of church, and the irreconcilability between an entertainment mentality and a participation mentality. Another time, perhaps. For now, I just wanted to ask the first question.
Excellence has become a modern buzzword for Christian events and services. I've been playing music in churches since I was young, and I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say things like: "our goal is excellence," or "we need to be polished so we're not distracting to the congregation" or "David played skillfully before the Lord, shouldn't we?"
It sounds like a good thing and a worthy goal because of the contrast. If you're not excellent, you're subpar or mediocre--at best, just okay. No one want those words to be used to describe his craft. But endorsing excellence overtly seems rather silly, because it almost communicates that there might be some other goal--almost as if someone might undertake something in hopes of doing it poorly.
Now I'm all for a good focus on excellence in a team environment. People in charge of things should get together occasionally and discuss ways to improve. But I do question why we make such a big deal of it in church, and that question raises the other I posed in the first sentence of this article.
There seems to be a modern movement in Christianity to try to produce quality stuff--stuff we hope can suffice as Christian alternatives to secular I think there are two noticeable arenas where this movement has become very pronounced: music and church services. I'm going to leave music aside for a moment, although I will point out an interesting blog article I read recently by Michael Gungor of the band "Gungor" in which he discusses at length the bizarre approach Christian artists have taken to music. If you're interested, find it here.
Instead, I'll focus on my area of familiarity: church services. I have participated in hundreds of church services over the years. I know what it's like to be onstage, and to feel the pressure of wanting a flawless presentation. I've also experienced countless services from the pew, and I know what it's like to feel bored at church. It really does feel like we've come to expect our church services to entertain us, at least in the evangelical church. We've done away with traditional liturgy in favor of a more "modernized" service, including updated music, more engaging messages, captivating multimedia presentations, etc. None of this is necessarily bad, and I'm not trying to say otherwise. I'm just pointing out a trend.
There is much we could say about this trend, but to start, I'm curious what happens when we finally attain that excellent and polished service we've always wanted. Will anyone else even want to participate? Or will we be too worried about polluting it with our own less-than-perfect voices, or too engrossed in watching the production unfold that we forget why we came in the first place?
I bring this up because in my view, a church service should be designed for participation. At least, that's what I've been led to believe over the years. Why else do we sing songs together and call it worship? Why are people encouraged to take notes during the message? Why did liturgy ever come about in the first place? The congregation should participate in the service, but they may not feel encouraged to do so if they feel somehow unqualified.
Just trying to explore the thought. There is certainly also a great danger in a haphazard approach to a church service. But it's interesting to me that the very thing a church service should engender could be threatened, at least in theory, when we achieve excellence. And the whole thought experiment begs other questions about the purpose of church, and the irreconcilability between an entertainment mentality and a participation mentality. Another time, perhaps. For now, I just wanted to ask the first question.
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