Strength of our Worship Teams

Psalm 19:9-14:
the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Even though my church is relatively small (about 125 people on average), we're lucky to be blessed with a number of talented musicians. Their talents are not only a blessing to the music ministry, but their lives and Christ-like attitudes are what make our music ministry great. In a word, we're "perfect". Ok, well, maybe not. We are still human... I think.

I hope!

I digress.

We’ve heard it said many times before that when a ministry is really starting to succeed and do its best work, that is when the Devil also exerts his best work. That is, in a ministry's greatest time of growth comes Satan’s greatest moments to destroy. We need to keep ourselves aware of that. We are an imperfect people; myself included. That is why we also need to be keeping ourselves away from sin, distraction, and situations that can cause wrong-doing. In order to have strong worship ministries, we need to have strong worship ministers.

I believe that sometimes there are issues in each one of our lives that we bring with us to the stage when we worship, sometimes even unconsciously. It happens. If I'm being honest, there are Sunday mornings where I do not feel like leading worship (for whatever the reason). Maybe a fight with my wife, maybe I’m upset with someone who hurt me, maybe my spiritual life had been crappy that week, maybe I'm not feeling confident in my abilities. Satan uses these thoughts to fool us. Maybe he will have us think we’re not playing well, or that we aren’t good enough, or we aren’t worthy enough. Those are called lies. But, all these things are not what worship is about… they are what worship is for. Worship is about laying aside ourselves and our “stuff” for an hour or so and leaving it with God, praising him in the good times and the bad times. Either way, Jesus wants to take our burdens from our shoulders and replace them with blessing.

Furthermore, it’s also important that we be a people that seek to be holy both on and off stage, whether at rehearsal or on the stage on Sunday morning, whether at the local pub or at our workplace. That’s not always easy but we can make sure we are doing our best as Christians to be “clean”, “true” and “righteous altogether” (v. 9). For in acting in such a way, “there is great reward” (v. 11). For our ministries, it means that whereever we are, we need to make sure we are being the same people on-stage as we are off-stage; striving to be like Christ. That means keeping our language and actions clean, respecting our spouses in every way, respecting our leadership in every way, respecting each other in every way. Doing these things is respecting God in every way. The things we say, the jokes we make, the thoughts we have, and our actions must be pleasing to God (v. 14) in order for us to succeed; in order for the Devil to fail in destroying all that our churches and ministiries have worked so hard for.

I am not writing this to point judgment at any person, any church, or any ministry in particular. I’m just as guilty as the next person. I am not immune to any of this. None of us are. As leaders of a significant part of our church culture we need to make sure we are living the way Christ intended us to. And if we’re not living in such a way, He is there to help us through and get us to where and who we need to be. So how do we do that?

Hebrews 13:1-6:
1Let brotherly love continue. 2Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. 4Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 5Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." 6So we can confidently say,
"The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear;
what can man do to me?"

In order to keep our worship ministries running successfully (whatever that means) we need to be accountable for each other and ourselves. I've been struck with something as I've lead our teams over the past few weeks. The more I dig into God's Word, the more effective I am as a leader. Sure, that statement isn't rocket science but since I've been intentionally looking to God's word for guidance and direction in my life and the life of my church's music ministry, the more I've felt the Spirit lead through me and for me. I'm not saying that I've been perfect, without sin, or cleaned up my act (though I'm trying), but the Lord is starting to make me more aware of the power that His spirit holds on us and the great things that can be unleashed through it. The onus is on us to follow suit.