Immersion Worship

It’s Creative Chaos day over at Los’s blog.

My entry this week is more of synopsis of a different type of creativity; the ‘let’s mmake do with that we’ve got’ type.

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day. The facility that we normally hold our services holds a Mother’s Day brunch; it’s the only day of the year that we can’t have a Sunday morning service there. Last year we did Saturday night there, but this year we decided to find another location nearby and hold a Sunday morning service. The location was just a couple of miles away, easy to find, and could accommodate us well.

When we got there, it was a slightly different matter. As is often the case in these types of scenarios, not all bases had been covered during the planning process. We discovered a distinct lack of power outlets, no loading bay, a ceiling too low for our projector screen and speaker stacks, and various other issues meaning we had to get creative with out setup.

I’ve always known that my team were awesome, but they really showed it on Sunday:

1. With no loading bay, it was a case of rolling everything in through the front door. With a trailer full of Road Ready cases, rolling apparatus, and staging, everyone chipped in to offload the trailer and get it all in place through the front door.

2. Our sound system usually runs on a dedicated ground, 240v circuit of clean power. Our sound team stripped the system down to the bare essentials and ran the entire thing off of two 120v outlets; board, processing rack, antennae, speakers.

3. With the projection screen so low, our video team brought the projector to front row, sat it on a small plastic table we found in some back room, ran a long VGA cable, and had the video sat towards the front, stage left.

4. The low ceiling meant we couldn’t stack our speakers as normal. So we did away with the subs and used the full range capability of the mains (we sacrificed some of the low-end doing this, but it wasn’t bad). Rather than put them on their usual stands, we just rolled in the now-empty Road Ready cases that the speakers are transported in, and stood the speakers on top of them. Perfect height.

5. With no kitchen facility to speak of, the hospitality team scrambled to get industrial amounts of coffee from the nearest Starbucks, and set everything up in the main hall, to the side of the seating, stage right. There was a brief moment of confusion when we didn’t know which coffee container had decaf in, but some quick coffee education from my wife on the taste differences between caf and decaf, it was quickly and accurately determined.

So with the band stripped down to an ‘unplugged’ type set (two acoustic guitars, one vocal), it had a real coffee-house vibe going on, and ended up being a really great morning with an absolutely killer message from Scott.

That’s this week’s Creative Chaos.

Alright, I’m in on the “Fat Arse” thing. There are a few things I’d like to make clear, though.

1. Updates will be on Mondays. I will be transparent enough to declare my weight and any sinful food I’ve eaten in the preceding week, but there will be no pictures. I don’t want to scare anyone, nor do I want my blog to get blocked by firewalls for being obscene.

2. I’m not going to give up drinking beer. I don’t drink that much of it anyway, but it’s a beverage that I enjoy, particularly with curry. I will, however, elect to find a “lite” beer that doesn’t taste like gnat’s piss (which already removes Bud Light and Miller Light from the list of possibilities).

3. There will be weeks where I don’t go the gym, but I will make an extra effort to do what I can to go to the gym at least three times a week.

4. I love hamburgers. Truly. In-n-Out’s Double Double is gastronomic heaven. And I also love chips (french fries to you troglodytes Americans). There will be times that both are consumed, separately or together. But I will cut down the amount that I eat.

5. Recently, my intake of fruits and vegetables has been mostly via V8 products. I need to eat more vegetables instead of drinking them. I’ll work on that.

I think that’s about it for now. Monday’s will be “Fat Arse Day” around here, so look for an update in 5 days.

Joel at CECWorship just put out the challenge. No more fat arse people in ministry. I’m one of them. I’m lugging around more pounds than I should, and it’s pretty much all on my beer belly (which I got by drinking beer, by the way, unlike Joel who openly admits he doesn’t like beer). I’m not saying that I’m going to commit to this just yet, but I’m considering it, since I need to lose about 30lbs. I’m convicted at the moment about leading by example and getting myself healthier.

The issue of punctuality has been on my heart for the last couple of days. We discussed it at the leaders meeting on Sunday night, and yesterday I communicated some thoughts to my team, but having chatted with a few other people on the issue, I thought it worth sharing some thoughts here as well.

Has there ever been a time when you’ve gone to some length to make plans with a friend or family member, you’ve made the effort to be ready and present on time, and then that person shows up unapologetically late? How did that you make you feel? What did you think when that happened? I can only speak for myself, but when stuff like that happens, it makes us feel that we’ve wasted our time, that the person who you’ve made such an effort for doesn’t value that work. It makes us feel let down, right?

Sunday mornings can be a stressful time. For most churches, there’s a lot to do and not a lot of time to get it done. I’m sure that, in your church, you have good people doing phenomenal work trying to make things happen in order and on time to support various ministries. Personally, I don’t want to be the guy who makes any one of them feel like their work is not appreciated, or that they are wasting their time in their efforts to be punctual, or that they are not valued in what we are doing. Most importantly, I want to give God my very best, including my best punctuality. Someone once told me “A good leader is never later than five minutes early”, and that’s what I strive for.

The same applies to individual worship team members. Each one of us needs to treat everyone else on our teams with the same kind of respect for their time. As leaders in our churches, we must have the highest level of commitment. Poor punctuality reflects a lack of discipline and respect for the standards of the ministry, and lets down those who make the effort to consistently be there on time. Romans 12:11 says “Never show yourself to be lazy or without consideration, but instead do the Lord’s work with vigor and enthusiasm”. The short of it is that being late without reason dishonours God, dishonours those who go to considerable effort to be there on time, and dishonours the rest of the team.

This is an important standard that we need to maintain, and sits directly alongside character and attitude standards such as integrity and honesty and purity. At some point, a consequence must exist for not maintaining a consistent standard if those standards are to mean anything. Other worship ministries that I’ve served with have put hard and fast rules on punctuality, like “If you’re 15 minutes late, you don’t play or sing that day” or “If you’re late three weeks in a row, you’re put on a leave of absence”. Personally, I’m not going to put such severe restrictions in place at The Summit, but there also needs to be a recognition that, if you are a team leader, the standards fall on your shoulders, as does any consequence of not reaching them or maintaining them.

Finally, we should also take in to consideration the effect that being late has on frame of mind. I don’t know about those of you reading this, but I spend time on Sundays before I leave the house getting my attitude in check and my mind and heart in the right place for leading the church in worship. That kind of thing can get easily broken by the negativity introduced by tardiness. A worship team will be far more effective if they can stand in unity, purity, and focus, rather than having any one individual being distracted by negative thoughts, frustrations, and emotions resulting from people being late.

Anyone else got any thoughts on the matter?

At last night’s Summit Leadership meeting, Scott took us through an exercise as we continue to shape the team and the church. He handed us three blank cards, a sharpie, some sticky stars. The objective was to write down the three values that we value the most in a church, then post them on the wall for everyone to see, and then with our sticky stars mark the values that other people had written down that, aside from our own, we valued the most. It was a really interesting exercise; seeing how each servant leadership capacity puts a bias on our valued values. For example, our media leader valued creativity a lot, while our hospitality leader valued reaching out. The good news is that there were common themes that everyone agreed on; putting God first, unity, love, servanthood, honesty etc.

My three values were:

1. Authentic worship
2. Relevance
3. Integrity/Purity

Ever tried anything like that at your church? How did it go? If you haven’t, what would be your top three valued values and why?

Worship leaders, I need you to answer one simple question for me and help give me further perspective.

Question: Would you use the song “I Can Only Imagine” in a regular worship set at your church? ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ is fine, but feel free to elaborate with reasons if you wish. Answers on a postcard, or in the comments since that’s easier.

Has it been a week since my last post?

Holy cow.

Well I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter. I’ll get a worship confessional up in a little while as well as a few other things that are on my mind.

In the meantime, I started reading a fantastic book this morning. I’m only in to the second chapter, but it’s really engaging and deals with something that is universally a challenge for every believer; how to be in the world but not of the world. It’s called ‘The Journey Towards Relevance’ by Kary Oberbrunner. Read it. It’s good.

Today I spent an hour in the company of 6 other Southern California worship leaders at a Worship Leaders Roundtable. The table, by the way, actually was round. That was the first thing that surprised me, since previous ’roundtable’ events that I’ve attended have either involved rectangle tables or, worse, rows of chairs facing a ‘facilitator’. It was good to be at a roundtable with a round table. What’s that saying about small things and small minds? Anyway…

I was invited to one of these events back in December but couldn’t make it, so I made a point of prioritizing it this time around. I think there is something inherently progressive and positive when people get together to discuss a goal they share. It serves to challenge and support and encourage, and I certainly felt that way when I left.

The discussion centered mostly around the issue of growing worship teams, something that is very relevant to The Summit’s worship ministry, and specifically the tough issue of auditions. I know that every worship leader has different approaches and different thoughts on auditioning prospective worship team members; how to do it, when to do it, who to accept, etc., but I left with a head full of ideas and possibilities. It’s fantastic timing for me as well, as I’ve been needing to hold some auditions for a month or two.

I need to process these thoughts some more and develop them in to something that fits The Summit, but I’m reminded once again of the power in community. This is iron sharpening iron. Embrace it.

A few weeks ago, Matt and Sarah Keller were with us from Next Level Church. In our service, Matt shared an encouraging word about being a ‘David’ in the face of the giants we will face as a young church that is growing; seeing God as the ‘God of the underdogs’. Later that evening Matt and Sarah shared at a leadership meeting as we started to strategize and prepare for continued growth at The Summit.

Some of what Matt & Sarah shared really opened my eyes to some of the challenges and opportunities that we are faced with at The Summit. Some of them are challenges that face us today, and others are challenges that we’ll face in the future, but regardless of the timing of them, it’s become glaringly apparent that we, as a team and as individuals, need to prepare for those changes now.

What does this mean? We have to recognize that what we’ve done so far has been great for a new church and great for a church of 100 or so people. We established some great momentum and have developed the beginnings of a healthy worship culture. However, it can’t stop there. It mustn’t stop there. What can be regarded as excellent for a church of 100 people becomes mediocre for a church of 250. What is excellent for a church of 250 becomes mediocre for a church of 500. What is excellent for a church of 500…you see where this is going. I’m also not simply referring to musical, creative excellence, but excellence in our hearts also.

Now over the last couple of weeks God has really challenged me on the questions of what am I doing to ensure the continued success of the ministry as the church grows, and I’m 100% certain these questions aren’t just for me. What are we doing? Where are we going? How do we plan on getting there? Perhaps most importantly, the one question that God put on my heart that I simply CAN NOT get away from is “would you want to be led by you?” Yeah. Heavy stuff.

So I started thinking about some of these things and trying to figure out how to shape some answers in to a vision that my team and my church can grasp…

What are we doing? What are we doing? It seems almost as if we have become collectively complacent about what our ministry is really about. We show up on Sunday mornings and go in to auto-pilot mode; unload the truck, set up the stage and audio, soundcheck and rehearse, eat a donut and drink coffee, pray, then play. Where in that sequence are we leaving room for what really matters? Where is there room for us to step away from the worship ministry, step away from each other, and go and find that visitor who is with us for the first time, or the returning guest who looks familiar but we’ve never talked to?

A couple of weeks ago an atheist woman came to The Summit because she received one of our mailers with her dead husband’s name on it. I’m ashamed that I didn’t spot her in the crowd, before or after service, and be the one who went and offered a hand of friendship and told her that I was glad she was there. I was too busy or too ignorant or simply wanted to chat with the people I already know. Not every one is called as an evangelist, be we are all called to evangelize. If offering a real, tangible, authentic extension of God’s love isn’t the single, pivotal focus of The Summit’s worship ministry and everyone involved in it, then we miss the mark, not only of what God’s idea of worship is, but also what God’s purpose is in our lives.

Where are we going? I don’t think it’s any secret that the vision Scott & Mary Turner have for The Summit is big. This is God’s church and He will grow it, not us. There is not one single thing that any man can do to make the church grow. But there is everything man can do to stop a church from growing. So the answer to where we are going is simple: Wherever God leads us. While that answer is simple, being ready to go wherever God leads us is not. It means being more prepared than ever. It means striving for the excellence of a church of 250 when we’re a church of 100. When we get to 250, it means striving for the excellence of a church of 500. It means setting and maintaining ministry standards and holding each other accountable to them. It means we never stop, never coast, never get in to cruise control, but continue to work harder and work smarter so that when God says ‘go!’, we are ready and prepared. When God first called David to be a king and a warrior, David was completely unprepared and unskilled to do so, but through perseverant determination and hard work and heart that jealously sought after God, he developed the skill and the strength and the desire and the mindset to do whatever God asked of him. That’s where we need to be. That’s who we need to be.

How do we plan on getting there? By changing. By taking a long hard look at who we are and what we are, collectively and individually, and affecting change in the areas that need change. It’s not easy to accept our own weaknesses. By the very nature of our humanity, we naturally want to recognize and play off our strengths and ignore our weaknesses. By doing that, we handicap ourselves. We leave no room for God to fill the void. This means asking ourselves some tough questions – what am I not good at? Think about this. This isn’t just a practical exercise, it’s a spiritual exercise. We have to find our Achilles heel, our weaknesses, and then we need to work at turning them in to strengths, through prayer as well as hard work. On the practical side, how often are we practicing our instruments at home? What are we doing to stretch and develop our skill and continue learning? Vocalists, what are we doing to bring further consistency and strength and projection to our voices? How are we working to increase our musical range and increase our depth of expression? On the spiritual side, how much time are we devoting to really preparing ourselves for leading His church in to His presence? Where are we placing prayer on the scale of important things we must do every day? What about fasting? What about spending time in His word? Are we really making ourselves available to hear from Him and to spend time in His presence, individually and as a team? Tough, tough questions.

Here’s the toughest: Would you want to be led by you? My answer right now, knowing what I know about me…no, I would not want to be led by me. Ask the question of yourself and investigate your answer. It might surprise you. Whether we like it or not, being up on the stage in the most visible ministry in the church, and being tasked with leading the body of Christ in to God’s presence, comes with more scrutiny than I think anyone is comfortable with. Whether we like it or not, we are viewed as leaders in the church. When we fall or when we step out of place, it becomes a little more apparent than, say, the guy who stacks the chairs. This has incredible impact on the way we behave, both in church and out of church. Why wouldn’t I want to be led by me? Because I know what I think. I know what I say and do when I think nobody can see me. I know that there are parts of my character that aren’t in line with God’s Word. And that’s what character is all about – who you are when no-one is looking. For me, this means that I must seek after…strive after…change in my life. It means really….REALLY…trying to become more like Christ. It means being a better husband. It means being more organized. It means taking things seriously that I haven’t taken seriously before. It means watching what I say. It means being patient and kind and less selfish. It means guarding my eyes, ears, and heart from things I might see or hear that are dishonouring to God. It means making decisions founded in God’s Word rather than my own impulses and feelings. It means seeking after a purity in my heart and my hands that reflect His will instead of my sinful nature. These things then lend credence to my position as a leader in the church and cause me to be a more effective, more willing, more loving servant. I encourage you to ask yourself this question and challenge yourself to become the leader that you would want to be led by.

This is heavy I know. And for my team, I hope you are not discouraged by any of this. In fact, I hope that you are encouraged, because above all else, we must remember that there are three things that we can be absolutely, 100% sure of.

First, YOU are anointed by God as a worship leader. Whether you lead a song or not is irrelevant. If you are on this team, you are a worship leader. God has anointed you to be that.

Second, YOU are appointed as a worship leader to The Summit Church. This is where God wants you. God puts us in situations and in places to grow us and shape us. That’s what being a disciple means. The challenges we face are opportunities for us to grow and learn; let’s see them as positive experiences.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it is in our weaknesses that God’s power is made perfect. He is the source of our strength. He is the source of our guidance. There is absolutely nothing that we can’t achieve if we put our trust in Him.

I am blessed to have such an awesome team of awesome individuals; I’m proud of all of them and all that we have achieved together so far, and I am excited for the journey that we will continue on together.

A few days ago I read this post over at Mandy’s blog, and have been intrigued by her question…

How human should those in ministry be?

It’s an interesting question, because I think the answer is subjective to church culture and will change from church to church, but I’m going to answer it from my point of view; the point of view of the worship ministry at The Summit.

Let’s take a look at the facts. We are human. We sin. There’s no getting away from that. Furthermore, it is us that puts our sin on a scale of ‘not-so-bad’ to ‘terrible’, not God. God treats our sins equally, but we say things like “it’s just a white lie, it doesn’t hurt anyone” and “sexual sins are worse than all other sins”, when personally I don’t see that reflecting what Jesus taught on how the Father deals with our sin.

So, with that said, how human can we be in our very visible ministry that, by it’s very nature, is under higher scrutiny and higher standards than perhaps most other ministries? My answer: as human as our humanity dictates. That’s not saying that there isn’t a time and place for people to take time off when circumstances require, but isn’t the whole point of ‘leading by example’ all about working out our faith against our struggles of the flesh? How relatable is a flawless robot to a congregation, versus someone who is simply authentic about who they are and don’t hide their humanity from the world?

Of course, one big question that I bet gets asked in every church, even if it’s a silent question that’s never addressed publicly, is “what about when sin is present?” Well, ignoring my statement above regarding the way we deal with sin versus the way that God deals with sin, I ask three simple questions:

1. If the sin was habitual, has it stopped?
2. Is the person repentant before God and before those affected?
3. Is the person taking steps to address any offense caused or taken?

If the answer to those three questions is ‘yes’, then the person serves. Yes, flexibility and understanding are required on the part of all parties, but the widespread sensitivity that exists when someone who has done nothing more than fallen back in to their own humanity is, in my opinion, unbiblical and uncalled for.

Also to bear in mind is that there are people out there, especially with the artistic and creative personality, that need to be serving in order to stay connected with their church and continue to grow. Alienation is hurtful and harmful; why would we want to go there?

Ultimately what it comes down to is that without authenticity, without a level of transparency that is indicative of our vulnerability and humanity, then we’re no better than the hypocrites Jesus bashed. Our responsibility lies in what the Bible tells us; guard our hearts, hide His word there so that we mightnot sin, love Him, love others. We can’t be perfect, and that’s what we need to recognize.