Didn’t come to Lingle WY to lead worship but they asked me so I am excited. Here’s the set list.
Opener: Your Grace is Enough
Welcome/Announcements
Let God Arise
Mighty to Save
Better is One Day
Revelation Song
Your Love is Extravagant
Come join us I’m really looking forward to it.
This morning I ran across a case study of the very point I am trying to make regarding the church being increasingly run by the doers rather than equippers.
A Church in Hattiesburg MS. has decided to outsource it’s worship by hiring multiple worship leaders to come in on a rotating basis to lead worship. Here are the advantages he lists:
Jeff says this strategy offers several advantages:
LeadingSmart: Outsourced Worship
What I see happening in the church is it is increasingly run by the doers not the equippers (Ephesians 4:11-12).
The very first benefit Jeff lists proves the point. They are looking for a gifted worship leader rather than an equipper to be the pastor/leader. What they need is someone who can recognize, call out, equip, and release the gifting of those entrusted to him or her.
Someone there is doing the administration the difference is they should be raising up worship leaders in their body not from unplanted gifted people who have no real relationship with the congregation.
The best doers are rarely the best equippers. Those who are gifted to lead worship are rarely the best at leading people, teams, and organizations.
We need to make the equippers the pastors and leaders so they can release the doers to do.
The church in America has missed the point a bit. What would your church look like if it were run by equippers and everyone was walking in the fullness of their calling.
Every need in the church can be met in the church. Nowhere in scripture is anything ever outsourced. In acts 6:3 they didn’t go looking for recent graduates from Bible college or Seminary they chose from among them.
As I sit here listening to Monday night football from my bed where I have been all day, I wonder about the purpose of pain.
I have ignored my back tooth for almost 5 years because I thought the worst case scenario was in play. My understanding was that the tooth was doomed and would need to be pulled and implants put in place. Big money that I didn’t want to spend until it was absolutely necessary.
Recently my good friend Dr. Garner looked at the xrays and believed it could be restored. So 3 weeks ago he took out the decay, filled the tooth and said lets see how we do. One week later the pain returned and he decided to go ahead and do the root canal. The root canal couldn’t be finished because of the infection in on of the roots so he sent me home with some medication to clam the infection before finishing.
I felt great for a week and today the pain is back so severely that I’m almost wishing i could die. It’s amazing how debilitating pain can be. I know one of the purposes of pain is to let you know something is wrong. Without it we wouldn’t address problems until it’s too late.
Is there any other purpose for pain? Love to hear what you think.
and have an Olson guitar:
This is excellence personified. Look how much fun he is having.
Speechless.
Jeff Miller over at Consuming Worship has an excellent post with video from the opening of the 2007 HIllsong conference. The money quote in my mind is this:
No one person pulled this off. It took the time, talent, and treasure of a multitude. Sure, Hillsong has the resources to throw at it, but that’s just something the rest of us use as an excuse to not take the risk to do something incredible ourselves.
How do I know? I’m guilty too.What happens when even a small group, say a church of 100 or less throws everything they’ve got into risking something for the Kingdom?
Unanimity Unleashed | Consuming Worship
Jeff’s post is entitled “Unanimity Unleashed” and makes a great point, I want to make a different point.
So many times when talking with churches the conversation is around resource or lack thereof. I know you’ve heard this before so don’t tune me out.
Your Father has infinite resources and witholds no good thing from His people. (Psalm 84:11) You have the resources you need to accomplish what has been put in your heart.
The most valuable resource you have are those people who have been entrusted to you. Don’t try to be Hillsong, or New Life, or Willow Creek, or you fill in the blank. Do what you can do well. Be faithful with what’s in your hand. HIllsong has the resources it has because it was faithful with what was in it’s hands from day one. They were faithful with the little things. Most importantly they were faithful with those entrusted to them. Allowing the gifts in the body to grow, express, and flourish.
Make people your aim, use events and resources to serve people don’t use your people to serve events, causes, or needs. As you are faithful with what is in your hands more will be added.
Instead of looking at your various church fund accounts look at the people who have been entrusted to you. Recognize, call out, equip and release the gifting of those entrusted to you into the body and watch what happens.
Ephesians 4:7 says; when Jesus ascended He gave gifts to men and gave them the grace to walk in those gifts. Create an atmosphere where the gifting in the body can flourish. Cast a vision big enough for others vision to come under and grow and contribute.
Go ahead and throw everything you’ve got into risking something for the Kingdom!
The Key word here is “Pastors”. We have tons of technicians, musicians, etc. etc. but a shortage of pastors.
Glenn again nails it here. So I will re-post in total
Thanks Glenn:
Over the past seven years, I have served as the Director of the New Life School of Worship, a 9-month program designed to train worship leaders for local churches. We believe that to effectively prepare our students for local church worship ministry they need to be trained in more than music. They need to be grounded in theology, familiar with church history, and responsible with their handling of the Scriptures. Moreover, they need to learn what it means to be a pastor: to shepherd the people under their care.
But it seems that some churches aren’t looking for that. They would prefer a musician who can lead the “singing”, oversee the tech team, and produce recordings of their original songs. None of these are bad expectations, of course. But are we looking for these trade skills at the expense of other, more essential pastoral qualities? Are worship leaders simply highly skilled technicians who have a “steady gig” at a church?
Today’s worship leader may spend more time with his Macbook than with a real book. She may be more familiar with GarageBand than the people in her band. He may be better versed with directing the choir than providing spiritual direction.
Of course, the trade side of being a worship leader and the pastoral side are not mutually exclusive. A person can be good at Pro Tools and at pastoring the people on his team. The trouble is we’ve lost the sacredness of the pastoral vocation. Any person who says their core role is to pray, study, and provide spiritual direction is not as “useful” to the corporation we call church. What else can you do? we ask. Then we proceed to fill so much of their time time with scheduling bands, arranging music, and working with the latest recording software that they are no longer doing any pastoral work. Musicians and singers become cogs in a wheel, things we use to fill slots. True, the administration needs to be done. And yes, musical excellence is valuable. But at what price?
Ross Parsley, the long-time worship pastor here at New Life, is fond of saying that music ministry is not about music; it’s about people. Worship ministry is first a sort of a “helps” ministry that serves the Body of Christ. But more to the point, it is an excuse for us to connect with one another. Music is the table we gather around, the place where we see each other face to face, and then learn how to walk alongside one another in this life of faith.
Perhaps the question every church who hires a worship pastor– and every aspiring worship pastor– should answer is this: What will Jesus ask us about: the music we produced, the services we programmed? Or the people we pastored, the sheep we fed?
Take time today and think about the people on your team. Pray for them. Pick up the phone and call them. Break bread with them. Talk to them about more than the setlist. Remember your calling as a worship pastor, not a music program manager. Clear some of the clutter from your week. Maybe it’s time to appoint others to do the tasks that are keeping you from your role as a shepherd. You have never met a mere mortal. Our music will not last forever; these people will.
As most of you know I’m an unapologetic Husker fan. I’m not a rabid foaming at the mouth fan who thinks my team is #1 all the time. I’m a realist but I always love my Huskers. Win or lose doesn’t matter.
A couple weeks ago we went into Blacksburg and lost a one point game in a heartbreaker. We outplayed them and should have won however the inability to put the ball in the endzone and a phenomenal mental breakdown that had us 1st and goal inside the ten yard line and ended with us punting on 4th and 42, I know wow, made us our own worst enemy.
Sorry a little detour now back to why I’m proud.
The following week there were letters to the editor in Blacksburg newspapers from Husker fans thanking Hokie fans for the way they were welcomed and treated. Then I found out because they were treated so well in Lincoln two years ago they wanted to return the favor. Not that they aren’t great people anyway. It was nice to know the kindness was a return of the kindness they received.
Then this. A blog post from Jay Walker. A sports writer from Louisiana writing for ESPN. I won’t repost the entire thing here just a couple of key quotes:
Been to Manhattan, Lubbock, Austin, Stillwater and College Station. College Station was probably the best. Folks say “Howdy” when they see you. And they say “welcome.”
Haven’t been to the Horseshoe, the Big House or Happy Valley. Nor have I seen Touchdown Jesus.
But I’ve been to College Football Nirvana.
It’s located in Lincoln, Nebraska.
And finally:
If the two teams should play again in the future, plan ahead Cajun Fans. Make the long drive or the relatively short flight. Come in Friday…leave Sunday. And, you will learn what REAL college football atmosphere is about.
Because, trust me…..there is no place like Nebraska.
So I’m always a proud Husker fan but today even more so. Thanks Husker fans for being the best in College Football.
Click through and read the whole thing, you’ll be proud too.
The SEC THINKS it has great atmoshphere……. by Jay Walker “from the birds nest” at ESPN1420 blogs
When was the last time you sat in total silence?
The greatest struggle in my life is finding a quiet place to sit in total silence waiting for the still small voice of my Father.
I love our house the back of it faces the front range of the Rocky Mountains and often in the morning I will sit at my kitchen table gazing at the beauty of God’s creation. Katharine Lee Bates was on Pikes Peak when she wrote the lyrics to “America the Beautiful” and I am blessed to have Pikes Peak framed in my sliding glass doors . But we are also only 200 yards from I-25 and the noise that comes with it. I have learned to ignore it somewhat but it is a significant enemy to silence.
When Kim and I were first married we talked about having a house full of activity. A place where people would find refuge. A place where all our childrens friends would want to come. God has answered that prayer. Our home is full of activity with people coming and going. We love it but it presents a unique challenge when searching for a quiet place.
In Chuck Swindols book “Intimacy with the Almighty” he lists four disciplines essential for intimacy two of them are silence and solitude. Which to me are almost the same thing. In A.W. Tozer’s “The Purpose of Man” he lists seven keys to intimacy and the very first is quiet. Tozer says “I put quietness first bcause unless we can find a place without distraction, the rest is undermined.
Once we have made a practice of dwelling in a quiet place we are more easily able to dwell in the secret place. Brother Lawrence in “The Practice of the Presence of God” says “what offering is more acceptable to God than thus throughout the day to quit the things of outward sense, and to withdraw to worshp Him within the secret places of the soul?”. Unless we have practiced being in a quiet place it is very difficult to dwell in the secret places of the soul throughout the day. Cultivating intimacy and recognizing the voice of God only comes through time and proximity.
I know I’m not alone in my struggle to find a quiet place. We must fight for it, make it a high priority, or we will slowly drift away from that most precious dwelling place where we are changed from Glory to Glory, where we become “like Him”, where we find rest, where He is my strong tower.
David understood the importance of dwelling in the secret place. I believe it was this practice that made him a man after God’s own heart. It was a recurring theme throughout his life and his writing. Among others he wrote:
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91:1), One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple (Psalm 27:4).
My prayer for you, and for me, today is that we would get a fresh revelation of His love and passion for close intimate fellowship with us. Make it a priority to find a quiet place this weekend and then go there often.
Blessings as you walk in Him.
Our family has only one car and in a city the size of Colorado Springs with a family as active as ours this can present quite a challenge on some days.
Recently Kim and I were looking at our schedule for the day and realized we needed to be in several different places at the same time. Since I ride my bicycle a lot and don’t have to be dressed professionaly I volunteered to walk from a meeting at the church which is about 5 miles.
It was a beautiful day I had plenty of time and was in no particular hurry so I strode away from the church at a purposeful but leisurely pace. Very soon I began to catch up with a young man just ahead of me. As it became clear I was going to overtake him I began the conversation in my head.
Should I just walk on by? should I acknowledge him, engage him in conversation? should I walk with him? Very soon the decision was made for me. He turned and said “Good Morning, where are you headed?”
As I walked with him I learned he is 21 yrs old from Nevada where he was the son of a prostitute and grew up in a crack house. Began selling drugs at a very early age and at the age of 17 he and his fiance came to Colorado to deliver some sold product where he was arrested and placed in jail in Colorado Springs. While there he received his GED and a certificate in computers. He now holds a good job but does not know how to drive and must rely on others to drive him. Today the ride didn’t show up thus the hike.
We also talked about his faith and his understanding of God and how God had a plan for him. At the end of the line for him I was able to give him my phone number, pray for him and encourage him to press into relationship with the Father who loves him and wants him to walk in the fullness of all He has created him to be.
The longer I study and consider Jesus time on earth the more I am convinced He came at a time without mass media, email, public transportation or interstates. He came at a time when people walked together. I think of Jesus walking for hours along the road with His disciples and the day of His resurrection when He walked to Emmaus with two men. Things were discussed and taught in ways we very seldom have opportunity for in our cars driving 4.5 mph over the speed limit.
Teaching classroom style certainly has it’s place but it’s only the beginning. We must spend time with those entrusted to us walking with them and answering questions in context using our surroundings to teach and illustrate. So much is missed and incorrectly inferred when we download information to those entrusted to us and leave them to work it out on their own.
This week as you are considering the conversations your going to have with those entrusted to you or with your wife, husband, children etc. etc. consider going for a walk.
Do You Know Him?
That’s My King! from Albert Martin on Vimeo.
