I had a great conversation with our worship pastor, David Walker a few months ago that really stirred my heart. The question posed was, “Could you be our worship pastor if you lost your voice and hands?” In other words, if your talent was taken from you, could you lead in worship? Just days after our conversation, I was laying in the bed watching the Academy Awards with my wife. Billy Crystal was hosting the show due to a last minute cancelation by Eddie Murphy. Crystal has hosted many times in years past and always does a phenomenal job with his quick wit, articulate tongue and engaging monologues. I was blown away with his talent as I watched him whip thousands into a frenzy with his talent and skill.

What saddened me was the conversation with my wife that followed. We both agreed that Billy could take the pulpit in many churches today and offer up the same whit, articulation and persuasive speech and many would leave the building talking about his “anointing.” Talent and anointing are two different things. The best worship leaders are the ones who learn the art of ministering to the Lord without a guitar, a crowd or lights.  These are the ones who face the wall in the “secret place” and join in with heaven.

The human soul is amazing. It is a God-given processing system, where our mind, will and emotions parse the “every-day-ness” of life. It can also be dangerous as well because worship (musical worship especially) is designed to engage the soul (hence soul music), enabling a response to God that is demonstrative, contemplative and full of impact. However, the Bible teaches that the Word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword, dividing the soul from the Spirit. The Word of God separates the things that “feel” right from the things that are right.

Below are 3 things that I wish every Senior Pastor could say to their worship leader.

1: We need a Worship Father, not just a Worship Leader. Fathers are concerned with passing on DNA rather than transferring information or wowing a crowd. Get to know the people you are leading in worship. Your true gifts will be celebrated more in the context of family than fanfare.

2: Your private worship to the Lord is more important than your public worship. Sharing what the Lord is showing you in your intimate times of worship open’s our hearts and enables us to follow you to the throne of God.

3: Your blog, albums and itinerary should be exporting the best of your heart. It is not just a tool that creates a platform to make your name greater.

4: There will always be a need for more resources, so be faithful with what you have. If the lights, new sound system, and equipment are the only things that can make you better, then you may be missing the point.

5. The journey is the destination. The grass is often greener over the septic tank! Bloom where you are planted and learn the art of leading a family and not just the crowds on the road. The crowds don’t go home with you, but your family does.

But what happens when this musical expression becomes the central focus, instead of the King who it is for? As worship gatherings happen all over the world week in and week out, how much time is the church actually spending worshipping the King of Glory, and how often are people instead worshipping worship itself?

From what I have seen and experienced, this addiction to worship is a common problem. So how do we break out of worshipping worship? Maybe a story will help.

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A few years ago, before my wife and I had kids in our house, I actually had a room in our home that was mine. It was my little quiet place to do songwriting, study, and read. (Disclaimer: I wouldn’t trade my kids to get this room back.) One particular evening I was lying on the floor reading through Psalm 149 as worship music played in this room. When I got to the verse that read, “Let them praise His name with dancing,” I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to begin to dance.

Well, my first reaction was not to dance. I didn’t want to feel stupid. I didn’t want to feel embarrassed. So I didn’t dance.

I read on into Psalm 150, where I came across another verse, “Praise Him with the tambourine and dancing.” Again I felt a prompting in my spirit to respond by dancing. Now at this point, my face was turning red. I’m embarrassed to tell you that I responded in such a way to the Lord, but I did.

Finally, I gave in and began to dance like a little 3-year-old kid in this room, where it was just the Lord and I. At first I felt awkward and weird, but as I began to focus more on the Lord and less on myself, something changed in my mind and heart. I realized that the breakthrough I wanted to see corporately as a worship leader must first happen in my own life. Private breakthrough in worship always precedes corporate breakthrough.

In that small room, while I was alone, this monumental moment with the Lord took place, and I was forever changed. I discovered that worship isn’t about how I feel like responding but rather about simply being obedient to what I was created to do – to worship. It is the natural response for disciples as they relate upward to God.

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I share this story because I think the church has perhaps forgotten the “wonder” of simply responding to a King who is worthy. Perhaps the Church is being trained to respond in worship only when seeing the right lighting cue, hearing the right song, or resonating with someone else’s passion for Jesus expressed on a platform. This is worshipping worship, and it’s addictive because it’s so emotional.

But this addiction to the feeling of worship is a major problem. We have to ask a question: Have we lost the art of cultivating sincere worship when there is no platform, no lighting, no band?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t live like this. I can’t maintain the demand of a worship addiction that grows as I go to more and more church gatherings, more camps, more retreats, more worship. There must be more to worshipping as a disciple of Jesus.

In my opinion, a piece of the “something more” is the saints realizing Jesus is available to be worshipped all the time – not just when the band is ready to roll and the lights are pretty. These things can help us worship, but they are not required for worship.

The relationship Jesus intends us to have with Him should look far more like a marriage than an affair we carry on gathering to gathering. In a marriage there are ups and downs, highs and lows. In this kind of relationship, we recognize that He is worth our devotion all the time, not just when it feels good to worship. The encounters we have with Him can and should drive our devotion even when no one else is around.

When it comes to worship, does your life look more like an affair with moments of emotion but no sustainable discipleship? Or does it look like a marriage relationship that persists no matter what the level of emotion is?

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I’m reminded of John 4 when Jesus encountered the woman at the well. In the dialogue with Jesus, the woman mentioned the Samaritans’ claims of where it was proper to worship. In verse 20 she says, “Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim the place we must worship is found in Jerusalem.”

Jesus responded in verse 23, “A time is coming and has now come that the true worshippers will worship in Spirit and in Truth, for these are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”

We can be these kinds of worshippers and disciples.

So wherever we find ourselves, may we choose to let our worship be defined by who Jesus is instead of by how we feel. May we choose to let our daily encounters with Him drive our devotion for Him. May we choose to let corporate worship be an inspiration that helps us follow instead of the climactic moment of our lives with Jesus.

And in doing these things, may we choose to break the worship addiction and instead worship in spirit and truth.

What ways have you found to overcome the addiction to worship personally? What about with the people you lead? Share your ideas in the comments so that we can learn along with you.

-The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want…

Normally you will find yourself in wanting when you’re more concerned about the destination than rather than the Shepherd. The Shepherd will take you to the unknown because He’s like the wind of the Spirit. So it’s easy to want when your focus is on the location instead of the Shepherd. When you have revelation of the Shepherd you’re never in wanting and it doesn’t matter where you are or where you are going because He always walks alongside you. If you find yourself in wanting you don’t have revelation of the Shepherd.

seek |sēk|

verb ( past and past participle sought |sôt| ) [ with obj. ]

attempt to find (something): they came here to seek shelter from biting winter winds.

• attempt or desire to obtain or achieve (something): the new regime sought his extradition | [ no obj., with infinitive ] : her parents had never sought to interfere with her freedom.

• ask for (something) from someone: he sought help from the police.

• (seek someone/something out) search for and find someone or something: it’s his job to seek out new customers.

I’m beginning to rethink this idea of “seeker sensitive worship.” There are legitimate “seekers” of the Truth out there, but when it comes to musical worship we’ve defined “seeker” as someone who wants a show, who we don’t want to offend. We do this in an attempt to lead them to make a decision for Jesus through our musical worship simply being the holster for the message. Somehow, we’ve watered down our expression of worship in order to give them a sport to spectate instead of an expression that which leads them to participate. Whether your attractional, missional, in-between, charismatic, liturgical….and the list goes on….. The Church has got to start processing through the worship of our King and the people who the Church would define as seekers. I think for the lot of us we’ve decided to react to this issue instead of respond. In our generation, more than any other form of expression found in the Church is music. It’s a center piece of our culture at large that we gather around. So how does the Church integrate this properly for both people who find themselves on the fringes and the people who are devout to the Faith?

My friend, John Pinkerton loves telling people to “own it”……I love that. With whatever you’re doing just “own it.” There’s no doubt the Church, for the most part is “owning” the musical expression of worship but what if we’re “owning” our reactions instead of “owning” how we should respond? Let me explain, if we’re positioning ourselves as the Church to react to how people may subjectively feel before how we should respond to God then there lies the problem. Worship is for the Church to respond to the presence of their King. Worship is not for the Church to react to people as they respond to their King. We are called to respond to His presence.

Psalm 40 is one my favorite passages throughout all of scripture. In one of the lowest points of King David’s life, his honest response is to do the following……sing a new song in his heart and a hymn a praise on his lips so that many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. I think in our pain and in our joy our response to God should be the same. It’s not and should not be watered down for people. It’s apparent that in David’s vulnerable, honest place of expressing worship that was real, people took account and put their trust in the Lord.

Is this how we lead worship? Is this how people are being moved to trust in the Lord through worship? It wasn’t solely King David’s pain or joy people identified with. It was the presence of Yahweh in David’s expression that caused people to be moved into trust. Why did David respond like this? Simply put, because he had relationship with Yahweh.

Have we replaced this type of expression with a bunch of peripheral elements? Have we replaced the simple, supernatural presence of God with models, programs and methods that pull on people’s cultural tendencies of what we think they want? In my pain and joy I want the presence of God to pull and play the strings of my heart. I want the presence of God to rise up in the corporate worship assembly of the Church and let the “seekers” on the fringes see, fear, and put their trust in the Lord. Whether in pain or joy, an authentic heart in response to God’s presence is actually causing people on the fringes to trust in the Lord.

May the presence of God rise up in your worship today. May it be powerful to release victory for the oppressed and forgiveness for the shamed. May the motive of all of our hearts no longer react to the ways man and what they might want but respond to the presence of God….be encouraged today…..for in His presence is all we need.

Probably the biggest thing I learned during the process of the album was patience. Most things are slow moving and anything worth giving your life to typically is. My personality is driven by fast paced ideas and efficiency, so is our culture and so to commit to something for the long haul is a real challenge especially when it has high’s and low’s.

When worshipping, I’ve made it a point in the last few months to wait for the song, in other words, stay in a moment of worship while reflecting on scripture or listening to the voice of the Spirit to give an impression or a word. I’ve had two songs come out of those times. Since then, I’ve taken those songs and built a framework around them, which I’m now leading consistently at City Church.

I’m leading two songs now that are working corporately. What I’m trying to convey in so many words is the idea of recording songs on a corporate worship album before they’ve been led corporately in church may not be the best idea. If it’s birthed from a place of worship it will typically work in corporate worship. So stop writing songs for efficiency sake to throw on an album. Write songs that move your heart and the heart of God….wrestle with them, hold them with an open hand and above all else be real.

The band and I are going into the studio next week to record these two songs. After leading them for a while now, we know what they have to offer and they’ve come from a real place in worship.

“Beautiful Rescuer” and “What a Love.”

Here’s an acoustic video of “Beautiful Rescuer” the first week after we led it corporately. Some tweaks have been made since then. Stay tuned…..“Beautiful Rescuer“

One of the practices we’ve started incorporating is reading through the Moravian Texts every evening. We’ve been reading through the Gospel of Matthew right now specifically the journey Jesus takes over the last few weeks before the cross.

In Matthew 26 starting in verse 36 you begin to see the emotive picture that is Jesus praying and pressed in Gethsemane and then Judas, friend and betrayer arriving with a mob to take Him away. Concluding with the soldiers seizing Jesus, the discourse in verse 56 reads, “then all the disciples deserted Him and fled.”

To be quite honest, when I read this last phrase, I said in my spirit, “I want to be better than that, I would have never fled from the one I’ve been following in His darkest hour.”

Maybe that’s pride on my part. Maybe it’s something else.

The more I learn from Jesus, I realize I don’t just need Him as a brilliant teacher in my life. I need Him as the central point and demonstration of how to live, move and breathe. Just choosing to learn from Jesus is much different than submitting your life to Him. When we choose to die with Him we are raised up in and through Him.

My prayer would be we choose to enter into the reality of Jesus this week and recognize His life wasn’t taken from Him but He willingly gave it up. The tendency would be to simply remember the resurrection because it’s so sweet, however, the weight of what He gave up to get to that triumphant place is something I want never to flee from. So may we remember this week and remain steadfast in His vast love for us.

This is Part 1 of this 2-post series.

Here we go…

-I am not the table that supports your showbread. In other words, I want you to know what I’m doing isn’t holding up the “Word” you’re about to give. I need you to begin to believe that worship is the Word of God and through the musical expression of the Word, people encounter the Living God just as well.

-Consider not using me as the emotional manipulator for your invitation or altar call. While the nature of music is emotive please ask yourself why you want me playing music underneath every invitation. Is this causing the congregants to react or respond? While there are times for response in worship musically during invitation, does this pave the way for you to rely more on the music or the Spirit?

-I care about the text your teaching from. Please open yourself up to sharing how the word you’re teaching is flowing through your life that particular week. This enables me to respond to God in a similar way. I want our corporate gatherings to feel fluid and rhythmical as ONE experience instead of music then the message.

-Do you care more about my well-being or the gift I can bring to a particular worship context? I need you to pursue me, get to know me as a person and not for my functional gift on a stage. Please invest in me!

-Don’t take spiritual inventory with me based on how good my skills are. Please don’t assume because I can play and sing well that my life with God is doing well. Talent can be deceiving.

-Be an advocate of responding to God through musical worship in outward expression. Biblically speaking, outward expression often reflects the inward expression of your heart. Your leadership off the stage during our worship services defines the culture of worship corporately. Whether you like it or not, if you’re thumbing through your sermon notes, got your arms crossed, or seem disengaged during the musical part of worship you can guarantee the church culture will follow. Culture is indicative to leadership, (even off the stage.) You’re the leader and you’re creating the culture. Do you like the worship culture you see?

-Know that I actually lead people into the presence of God by providing a framework for them to enjoy and move with the Spirit of God. I’m not just singing songs. Spiritual entertainment is not what I do.

-Do you want me to be a spiritual leader outside of Sunday mornings? What does that look like for you and what do you see me doing in defining the church culture? If I had to put my guitar down and couldn’t sing for a year, would you still want me to be a leader? Again, it’s got to be more than the talent I bring to the stage.

-How do you measure my success? Are you basing it on others subjectively responding in the congregation? Are you spending more time measuring the things I do on the platform or off?

As I’ve been spending a lot of time with Doug Paul, one of the issues we’ve been processing together is the idea of being a family on mission. Last week he asked this question, “What does it look like for you and your wife to be on mission together?” Let’s start with my wife, Lauren. There seems to be this stigma that comes with being a pastor or church leader’s wife; you “support” what your husband does. This typically looks like some of the following….smiling at the church services, helping out in the nursery, watching our kiddos and then offering the encouragement after an emotional draining day  to remind me that I’m still doing a great job!

I love putting my hands to new things, going into new places and leading worship to propel people into new territory. Some would call this apostolic, which is my strongest gift. Until recently, Lauren and I have never taken the time to really assess how my gifts integrate with hers outside of the supporting role. Well, it turns out that Lauren is highly pastoral and is naturally drawn to care for people. The gifting that I am the weakest in, is precisely the one she is strongest in. The Lord know’s exactly what He’s doing; He knows how to orchestrate the most beautiful mission for our family to be on. The movement of mission doesn’t just have to do with me holding an instrument in my hand and singing a song. It has to do with me and my wife seeing the Kingdom of God advance through our gifting together. To be honest, it’s a process that it is ever unfolding. As more and more people move into our lives, we are learning how to best utilize and play off the strengths of one another through the power of the Holy Spirit. We want to see people’s lives changed.

So how about you…what is your gift mix?

Better yet, what is your wife or husband’s gift mix? (If you have one)

Are you living an integrated life that’s moving with a mission?

Here’s a tool that has really helped us with this. Fivefoldsurvey.com