Last week I wrote a letter to all the worshipers of the Lord everywhere. This week I write a letter to all my fellow worship leaders who are leading God’s people in worship week after week.
Dear Worship Leader,
You are leading so you must serve.
God has placed you in a place of leadership and you must serve your people. You must love them. You must care more about their experience than your musical ability.
You must take charge and then you must let go and let the Holy Spirit lead you and guide you. It’s not about you. It’s not about your music or your riffs. It’s about God and his people meeting and you must, you must get out of the way. I know. Because I am a worship leader and I have screwed up and missed God’s message by getting in the way of what he wants to do.
The temptations are great. We are tempted by pride. We are tempted by whether people are engaged. We are tempted by compliments or the lack thereof. We are tempted by our musicality or the musicality of the people on our teams.
But when we are humble and hungry for the new work of God in each moment of each Sunday or Saturday or whatever day you stand before your church and lead, we can touch the presence of God. Then we need to step back and let God touch the people you are serving.
It’s not about how many new songs you can write or sing or introduce. It is about letting a song get into the fiber of your church and let them own it. It’s about letting it become their cry to the Lord. It’s about letting the song become their heart’s anthem. It’s also knowing when to retire a song so it doesn’t become words sung by rote memory. It’s about knowing the musical ability of your church so that you pick songs that are singable so that more people can be bold enough to engage. It’s about their experience with the Holy Spirit moving in your midst. We as worship leaders can help or hinder that.
If I may?
It’s not about us. As much as we are in the spotlight, we must aim the spotlight to the One who we are worshiping. So we must stay aware of our own weaknesses and tendencies and counter them with humility and hunger. There are times that I write ‘S.H–S.H’ on my hand before I hit the stage on a Sunday morning, especially if I have been in battle with my pride and insecurity that week. Stay humble. Stay hungry.
We are all worshipers, whether we realize it or not, we all worship something or someone. We were designed that way, and we will fill our spirit’s with something or someone until we surrender to the living God.
Worship is all about relationship. It’s about relationship with the Holy God who needs nothing from us yet longs to know us and be known by him. So, first, as a worshiper of the one true God and as a worship leader in my local church body, I want to encourage you with some truths I have learned along the way…
You delight God when you bow your heart before him.
You delight God when you bow your body before him.
You delight God when you sing a new song.
You delight him when you remember all he has done in your life.
You delight him when you choose thanksgiving over fretting.
You delight God when you obey him.
You delight him when you join together in unity with other believers in one voice to sing of his goodness and mercy.
You delight him when you allow yourself to be overcome by the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit and you lay your inhibitions down and care only what your God thinks of you.
You delight God.
You delight him when you look up to him with hands open ready to receive whatever he has for you.
You delight him when you lead out in song of praise to him.
You delight him when you choose his ways over your ways.
You delight him when you seek to understand what he wants from you in worship/life.
You are his delight.
You are.
He sings over you.
As you sing of your delight in him, he is singing of his delight over you.
He dances all around you.
As you engage in a physical expression of praise, he dances with you.
You delight him when your mind and your spirit is wholly engaged in spirit and in truth.
You are his delight.
So, my fellow worshipers, worship is much more than congregational singing, it is a way of life. Worship is not static. Worship involves movement, literally and figuratively. Move your heart closer to him through your daily choice to obey him. As you do, you will be changed, never to be the same again.
Our human nature is bent towards compensation. We screw up and try to fix things by doing more or giving more. Our kids are mad at us for a decision made and we try to ‘make’ it up to them through various ways–whether it’s a gift or privilege or event. We hurt our spouse and try to compensate by buying them something or taking them somewhere. We feel inadequate in our jobs or volunteer position so we work harder or volunteer more and longer. It becomes a continuous cycle of do more, try harder then repeat.
The Israelites were great at offering sacrifices. There were numerous sacrifices and the priests were busy day and night presenting the sacrifices of the people to the Lord. And somehow, we, along with the Israelites think that is all that is required of us.
But what if it isn’t?
What if we have it all wrong?
What if it isn’t in our serving, our giving, our support of missions, or our doing the ‘right’ things? These are so important, but can easily distract us and deceive us into believing we are giving God exactly what he desires.
What if we are missing the mark in understanding what God really wants?
Look at what the Lord says in Psalm 50:7-11:
“Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.”
Do you hear the Lord’s cry? He is not rejecting all that we give and do for him in his name, but he is calling us to something greater.
Psalm 50:14-15
“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
The three things He longs to receive from us are:
…thanksgiving
…fulfill your vows
…call upon Him
Thanksgiving. It seems too easy. It seems too hard. In the good times, thanksgiving doesn’t seem like it is ‘enough’, and in hard times, thanksgiving is too ‘hard’, so we think we need to ‘supplement’ thanksgiving by doing more and giving more and being more. To offer thanksgiving with a heart fully engaged does require sacrifice on our part. In the good times, we need to be satisfied that our thanks is enough and sacrifice our desire to do more on the altar of His acceptance. In the bad times, it is a sacrifice to give him our thanks because it hurts and giving and doing more doesn’t hurt as bad as standing before the Lord and telling him, ‘This is awful, I hate what is happening, but you are good and I thank you for your kindness and mercy and grace and greatness,’ and really mean it.
Vows. It seems as though vows don’t hold the same weight as they once did, it seems as though commitment is a choice based on the whim of the moment or what is best for ‘me’. But the Lord says to fulfill our vows to him. When we accept Christ’s redeeming and resurrecting work in our life, we enter into a covenantal relationship with the Lord to believe him, to be faithful to him, to trust him, to be made like him and to stand firm. That is fulfilling our vows to him.
Trouble. It follows us. We cannot escape it. What we do when trouble smacks us along side the head will show us where we place our trust. Do we ‘pull up our boot straps’ and dig in? Do we face it with a ‘stiff upper lip’? Do we try and deal with it in our own strength, which is so very feeble and inadequate? Do we call upon the Lord only when we have exhausted all other options? Look what the Psalmist tells us: ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you’. The moment we run into trouble or trouble comes running into us our very first response should be to call upon the Lord. Do you? Do I?
Three things the Lord counts as sacrifices offered to him:
thanksgiving,
commitment to him,
and dependence on him.
In this we will honor him and isn’t that what we want to do? Isn’t that what this life surrendered wholly to him is all about?
