Thoughts for the Worshipper and Worship Leader.

I just finished possibly the best chapter of any book I have ever read. It's no secret I have been on a Chris Tomlin kick as of late. Ok, a kick may be the understatement of the century. But there is something undeniable about his heart for worship, worshippers, and ultimately, the Lord. His book The Way I Was Made has been on my shelf for years. I bought it in college, gave it a half-hearted read and put it back on the shelf. A recent explosion of passion for worship and worship leading has put the book back in my hands (as has an obsession with his music). The chapter is called "Spirit Overflow" and the big idea is Chris just sharing some knowledge of worship leading and worship in general. Several things jumped out at me starting off with this one.

Chris tells a story about playing a summer festival and in the middle of a song, he noticed people cheering at incorrect spots during the song. He stepped back to see the crowd and he saw them doing the wave and playing with a beachball. He instantly had a choice to make: Let them continue and not have to challenge anyone and thus be liked! Or talk to them and risk losing them, but keep the integrity of the worship pure. He chose to talk to them. They settled down and the rest of the service was without incident and powerful. He says, "I wasn't up there on that stage to make music or be popular. I was there to lead worship."

I find myself occasionally struggling with that. I sometimes make worship about fun and easy. I know I need to grow in worship being all about God and not me or the entertainment value.

Another thing that Chris said was that the Spirit is the ultimate lead worshipper and we should follow Him wherever he leads, no matter what the cost. If we do that, our worship will always be pleasing to God.

However, the most challenging thing that I read was this: " The truth is, the more competent and prepared you are, the more you are able to be invisible. It becomes just the music, the worshipper, and God. That's the real goal of excellence for any worship musician." Ah! Become invisible! That's the goal! It's not a cool chord change! It's not that awesome lead lick! It's to fade away... be invisible... If we did that perfectly, worship would be so much more powerful. That should be what we strive for as a worship leader and band. The personalities of the individual should disappear. So easy to say, so hard to actually do...

Finally, he addresses the issue of song selection and the leaders role in how the service goes. I have to admit this was pretty eye-opening. It's not that I didn't care about the songs that I picked. But this just helped me to see it in a new way.

1. Don't start with, "We always..."

Don't get bogged down in tradition.

2. Listen to God's heart

Let God move you.

3. Favor God-focused songs

Pay attention to lyric content and remain true to real worship. It's all about God.

4. Keep the motion in mind

Think about how the songs will work together to lead the worshippers to the end goal.

5. Feel the tempo

The tempo will affect the attitudes of the worshippers. Don't have three fast songs in a row or three power-anthems in a row.

6. Think about flow

Do the songs, tempos, and keys fit well? This is how you can become invisible.

7. Teach new songs

New songs are new breath and new blood to a steady group of worshippers. New songs keep worship fresh.

8. Keep a list of options

Have a main setlist, but have backup songs to allow the Spirit to lead you away from your predetermined songs. To be flexible you must be prepared to be flexible.

9. "Live it through" before you sing it through

Be the spiritual leader. Pray through the list. Sing through the list. Get your focus right before leading.

10. Read the audience

See how the worshippers are responding to certain themes, lines, and songs. React accordingly and you can really take it to the next level.

One last departing thought. Competence is not a fruit of the Spirit. You don't have to have it all together to be a worshipper of God. None of us do. Not one. By grace we all approach the throne of God. We live and breath in the righteousness and mercy of Jesus.

All My Fountains...

So I stumbled upon a song by Chris Tomlin yesterday. It instantly was a hit with me. I loved the groove of it. I loved the melody lines and the words. It was just refreshing. It uplifted me and had me dancing in my room (which isn't hard to do, but an achievement nontheless).

The lyrics were interesting to me though. Catchy, yes. Painted a picture, yes. But there was one line that threw me for a loop. Here is the chorus:

Open the heavens

Come living water

All my fountains are in You

Strong like a river

Your love is running through

All my fountains are in You

All my fountains are in You? It isn't something that makes sense right away. It takes a little thought. But a instance that happened today blew open my understanding of that line.

I was approached by someone and was spoken to quite roughly. I felt turned upside down, mistrusted, and judged. I was hurt by what had transpired and was fairly upset by it. Then that chorus started playing in my head and the meaning of that line opened up. Fountains as something that brings up life-giving water to us. We choose what our fountains are. We can choose to have our fountains be in our jobs, cars, relationships, people's approval; whatever our heart's can contrive. The lyrics are portraying exactly how we should be living. Our fountains should be found in Christ and not in the things of this Earth. Like in John 4:13, God's living water is the only water that will leave us refreshed and never thirsty. If we put our fountains in God, we will have that water.

A Message for the Consumerist Christian

As I am sitting here, I am trying to write a song. It's not going so hot. I have these deep thoughts of God and I'm having a hard time explaining them in poetry so I'm trying my hand at prose.

I had a conversation with my dad last night about my sermon topic this week which is how a consumerist society has affected our attitudes towards worship. In the middle of discussing this with my dad, I feel like my eyes were opened. It's not just worship that we treat with a "I want that and I want it this way" consumerist mindset... It's how we view our entire faith!

If you look at Christianity when it first started, you would find a bunch of people sold out for Christ. We're talking people being burned alive, decapitated, crucified upside down and living in constant fear. Or at least we would be afraid. One of the more graphic stories about martyrdom is that the Romans would force feed giant apples to Christians and then put them in the Coliseum with completely starved dogs and the dogs would rip open their stomachs to get to the apples. But in the midst of all this happening, Christ was still being preached and guess what? It was growing! Exponentially! So in light of that it makes me wonder, what is the difference between then and now? Was it that Christ's life was only a generation or so away and now its been almost two thousand years? I hardly think so. Those people were still living in faith, not seeing Christ alive like us. I really narrowed it down to one major theme. They weren't living for themselves.

I think about my walk with Christ. A lot of it has to do with the regularity of my devotions, my involvement with church, and maybe attending a few prayer meetings. If I can do those things and somehow avoid sinning in my personal struggles, I feel like I am growing. I know people who are obsessed with spending hours with God in prayer and worship. There is a whole group of thousands of people just a thirty minute drive away who are worshiping all day, everyday. So I'm asking myself, what's so wrong with all that Micah? Well... nothing really. It's all great and I can give scripture to support how important those things are. The church seems to be preoccupied with the presence of God and we judge the successfulness of a church service on if it had the "it" factor. Did God show up? Did I feel Him in the room? Was I touched by Him? Again, what's so wrong with wanting God to show up? We need Him more than anything so how come I shouldn't want to be in His presence? Well here's where we go wrong, and I'll tell a few stories to get to the point.

I'm sure we are all familiar with Acts 2. A gathering of believers in the upper room and the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit fell. But what we miss, or at least I do when I read this, is that the believers didn't say, "Oh my! The Spirit is here! Lets pray for each other and soak this up! Let's just stay in this moment and savor it!" What happened? They left the room and poured into the streets! Peter, the man who had coward when asked if he was one of Jesus' friends now stands on a street corner in the middle of the biggest celebrations in Jewish culture and proclaims God's power and the resurrection of Jesus! One more story...

In the following chapter, Peter and John are just walking around town. You know, just like we would do if we were wanting to get somewhere near our house (come to think of it we probably would just drive). So they are just walking around and they come across a lame beggar. Not lame like uncool, lame as in his legs were deformed and he couldn't walk without assistance from a healthy friend or relative. He asks Peter and John exactly what he asks everyone, for money. The Holy Spirit falls on Peter and he instructs the beggar to get up and walk and low and behold, the man who was deformed just moments ago, stands up and starts dancing! God is awesome!

So back to us. We cry out for the Spirits outpouring and yearn for his presence. But when you look at the Bible, God pours out His spirit so that we can MINISTER, not hoard it for ourselves. We have become so "us" focused in everything we do. There are many, many more examples of how God poured Himself out and almost all of them have to do with giving someone the ability to minister and witness.

If we truly want to overcome our sin and struggles, if we really want to see lives changed, if we really want God's power to be revealed in this earth, we have to witness. It's the only way. God didn't come so that we can experience Him and hoard his life-changing power to ourselves. Say someone went through medical school and became Joe Schmoe Ph.D. At the end of his long life of being a doctor a man stands to evaluate his life. "Joe, being a doctor you took your knowledge and kept yourself healthy and sickness free your entire life. Good job." Somehow I think that misses the mark. Doctors are doctors to make the sick, well and the injured, healthy again. In that same way, we have life-giving knowledge why must we keep it inside our walls?

My challenge to all of us is to recognize in what ways are we self-serving in our faith? How can we change that? What are we going to do today to impact those who don't know?