We Don't Need More Leaders

November 16, 2009 2 Comments

follow-jesusAs I sit here at my desk and glance to my left, I see a whole section section of books on the topic of “leadership.” I must have several dozen of them. I also have several of these books on my desk, about two feet away from me, including The Leadership Challenge, We Shall Not Fail (about the leadership of Winston Churchill), and Lincoln on Leadership. Leadership and its related components is a hot topic among not only ministers, but educators, business professionals, and just about every other segment of society.

Here’s what I find interesting: in all of the instructions in the New Testament, and in the words of Jesus in the Gospels, we don’t find very much specific material about leadership. We do, however, find lots of material about what it means to follow Jesus and live our faith in the day-to-day world.

There is a great deal of conversation these days about how the church needs better leaders. Of course we need good leadership; that is a given. But what we really need are better followers. We need leaders who follow Jesus. In other words, we need people who are disciples first, and leaders second.

Jesus never said, “Go lead.” Instead, he said “Follow me.” We are called first and foremost to be followers, and then to be leaders. The funny thing is, I’ve had plenty of training on leadership–innumerable conferences, books, lessons, sermons, you name it–but precious little on “followership” (or what is called “discipleship” in the Bible). Ironically, the better we follow, the better we’ll lead.

I think we should put a moratorium on all the conferences, books and training related to leadership until we can all learn to follow Jesus just a little bit better.

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A Visit to “The Journey” Church (St. Louis)

November 1, 2009 2 Comments

thejourneyI had the past couple of Sundays off from my normal church responsibilities and took the opportunity to visit a couple of area churches. Last weekend I visited The Merge, a church plant led by a couple of friends and colleagues, Scott and Lisa Womble. That was a great experience (I’ll post about the visit soon). This morning while my wife was working (she unfortunately has to work Sunday morning once in a while), my son Ben and I visited The Journey, on Kingshighway near Hwy. 44 in St. Louis. We visited the 11:15 a.m. service at the main Tower Grove campus.

I wanted to visit The Journey because I’d heard some exciting things about their ministry. It’s a relatively new church plant with multiple locations in St. Louis.  Lead pastor Darren Patrick founded The Journey in 2002, and the church is part of the Acts 29 church planting network.

On my way to the church I drove right past it because the building (a former Catholic church) blends so well into the neighborhood. On my way back around the block I noticed where all the people were headed and followed suit.  We had to park a block away because of the number of cars parked on the street around the church (definitely a good sign).

The sanctuary was about two-thirds full when we came in, but was almost full later in the service. The congregation consisted of what appeared to be people in their 20′s and 30′s. The worship songs were familiar to me (except for one or two) and the worship band did a great job with the music (which was very guitar-driven but with more of an acoustic feel). I would guess there were about 300 people there.

After the music came the Scripture reading from 1 John 3.1-10.  I found this interesting because in most evangelical churches, the preacher reads the Scripture as part of the sermon. I liked having it read separately before the sermon–this somehow conveys a bit more authority and seriousness of Scripture. The women who read Scripture concluded it with a firm “the word of the Lord” (a nice touch that reminds us it’s God’s Word). Another interesting touch was the repeated reference to page numbers in the pew Bible, which was the ESV translation. This is the first church I’ve seen use the ESV for pew Bibles (score!). Nice touch.

Lead pastor Darren Patrick delivered a great sermon on dealing with sin in our lives. I believe it was about 45 min. long. He is a great communicator and has a very down-to-earth style. He has a gift for combining great biblical content with very practical application. He is very easy to listen to, which I consider a great compliment to any teacher or preacher. The sermon ended with several application questions for personal reflection.

I really enjoyed the communion time. One of the leaders/pastors gave a few brief instructions, they we were directed to come to the front, where several people held a loaf of bread a cup of juice.Ben and I stood up to get in the line closest to us. I tore a piece from the loaf, dipped it in the juice, and headed back to my seat. I loved taking communion this way.

The only real discernible difference between what I normally experience as part of a Restoration Movement church, and the Journey is that they didn’t offer a traditional “invitation” at the conclusion of the sermon. People were instead invited to talk to a church leader or pastor after the service. I assume if someone wants to become a Christian they would take the initiative to speak with someone from the church. Or perhaps there is something I missed. This approach seems fine because the process for someone coming to faith can happen a variety of ways. Church history tells us this much. The traditional “invitation” time is an innovation that has been around less than 200 years. There’s nothing wrong with it, of course; it’s just one approach among many that Christians throughout history have used.

The thing that impressed me the most about The Journey was the seriousness with which they approached worship. You hear a lot these days about young adults (and the Gen-X crowd) being turned off by traditional Christianity, but the worship I experienced this morning took a serious, hard-hitting approach to God, the Bible, and the need for obedience. Mr. Patrick’s sermon didn’t pull any punches.

In my view, the contemporary evangelical church has misread this generation (which is my generation). We aren’t looking for a church that soft-sells the Christian faith or portrays it as an easy road. On the contrary, young (and young-ish) people are drawn to a faith that is deep, meaningful and doesn’t pretend to offer easy answers to life’s pressing problems. They are looking for connection, meaning, and a transcendent connection with God. This partly explains why people are increasingly drawn to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. While The Journey is still solidly evangelical, this group of believers seems to be doing something right in reaching a generation that has basically lost interest in traditional Christianity. Surely there is something we can all learn from this.

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Simple Worship

September 25, 2009 2 Comments

easy-buttonMaybe it’s just me, but worship these days seems kind of exhausting. We have vocalists, worship bands, lights, complicated sound systems, computer projection, live video, a set list of worship songs we’ve rehearsed, and many other elements to coordinate. After I play or sings at our church’s weekend services (there are four of them), I’m pretty tired. (And I’m not even the worship leader or preacher–that’s much more exhausting!) I love being a part of our worship ministry, but anyone involved in contemporary worship would agree that it’s not a simple process.

Technology, worship teams, and the other elements that accompany contemporary worship aren’t going away anytime soon. But we don’t have to see those things as distractions. Really, leading worship is quite simple. All of the things we use in the process of leading worship (bands, technology, lights, etc.) are simply tools to help us lead people in giving worship to God. It can be easy to get overwhelmed by the technology and the details of a modern worship service. But when you realize those things can be a great help in leading people in worship, they cease becoming distractions and start becoming tools.

Worship today is complex, but it’s still very simple: we use the tools of our culture to help people worship God. The tools will change, but the goal remains the same. The challenge is to focus on the purpose of what we’re doing while skillfully using the many tools at our disposal.

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Abraham Lincoln and the Value of History

August 3, 2009 Leave a comment

abraham-lincoln-a-presidential-lifeYesterday I just finished a great little biography, Abraham Lincoln by James M. McPherson. (McPherson wrote a standard one-volume history of the Civil War, Battle Cry for Freedom.) It’s very short — less than 100 pages — and in a rare spur-of-the-moment reading decision I picked it up from my shelf in the afternoon afternoon and completed it in probably less than three hours altogether. Although there is much to be said for big books that go into great detail about their subjects, there is also a lot of value in short books that give you a concise picture of something. (In fact, I had a great deal of fun on Saturday at Barnes & Noble reading through a couple of “young readers’” biographies of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. You can always learn something new.) If you enjoy history or just want to review Lincoln’s life, this is a great book.

Speaking of learning history. . . . classes at SLCC begin in a couple of weeks, and this fall I’m teaching “Theology & History of Worship.” I teach it every other fall, and I always wrestle with how I can best make history come alive for students. Personally, I love history and what we can learn from it. But most people find history boring and irrelevant. This is a shame because history can be incredibly compelling if we approach it correctly. It’s a tragedy that most people have been taught history by boring teachers. In a sense, there is no such thing as history; there is only someone else’s “present” that happened to come before us. I love how historian David McCullough puts it in his preface to The Path Between the Seas (on the building of the Panama Canal): “I have tried to present the problems they faced as they saw them, to perceive what they not know as well as what they did know at any given time, and to keep constantly in mind that like all mortals in every age, they had no sure way of telling how it would all come out. This book is their story.” (pg. 12)

This is a great perspective. In the history of worship in the church, we have so many interesting personalities, stories and situations that are worth knowing. We can’t really understand worship today unless we know something about how we got here. Our struggles and arguments aren’t really new, for the most part. I hope that I can help my students develop a thirst for learning more about the biblical and historical story of worship. I can’t imagine doing anything better with my time.

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Two Great Worship Resources

May 18, 2009 Leave a comment

Here is a quick update on two fantastic resources for learning about worship:

The Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. Although the site is hoted by Calvin College in Grand Rapids, it’s very ecumenical and includes a whole array of thoughtful resources. There are a ton of great resources here, so check it out. The director of the Institute, John Witvliet, spoke at a music educator’s conference I attended last year, and he was great. My favorite related resource is the Calvin Symposium on Worship. You can browse through literally hundreds of audio files of main sessions and workshops by various speakers. Most of them include handouts and some have video. And it’s all free! You have graduate-level worship education right here at your fingertips.

The Institute for Worship Studies. This is the school founded by the late Robert Webber, one of my favorite authors. They have an alumni section with audio from various seminars from the past several years. Again, here you’ll find lots of good stuff available to download. (You don’t need to be an IWS alum to access the material.)

Do yourself a favor and check out these great resources. I spent about an hour tonight downloading audio presentations from both sites. I’ll transfer them to iTunes and have them ready to go in my iPod for my daily commute.

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God Loves Small Ministries, Too

March 30, 2009 1 Comment

smallchurchnd21One day a couple of weeks ago I went to a local church to provide music for a senior citizen’s luncheon. I drove there with my guitar in tow, led some hymns and sang a few “specials.” There were about 20 seniors there, and although a couple of them slept through the program, most of them were appreciative of my time. Afterwards, several people expressed sincere appreciation for the music.

What surprised me about this whole experience was how much I truly enjoyed it. I don’t mean to suggest that I was dreading it in any way, but honestly, it came in the middle of a week that was very, very busy for me. I spent several days last week leading worship for a revival that was a couple hours’ distance away from the college, and by Wednesday morning I was exhausted. The week wasn’t even half over yet! So you can understand why I was struggled to build my own enthusiasm for yet another ministry commitment in the same week. You have been there, and I’m sure you understand.

But even in spite of myself, I left the luncheon having been blessed much more than I probably blessed them. Even though I had led worship on stage several times the previous few days, the ministry highlight of my week was singing and playing my guitar for these dear saints in the faith…even though some of them probably couldn’t hear very well, and a couple of them were dozing off. (That may say more about my music than about them…)

I guess it is human nature to give the most attention to things that attract the most people. That is certainly true in the church world. The Christians who get the most attention are those with book deals, record contracts, megachurch staff positions, high-profile ministries, advanced degrees, media appearances, and titles of all kinds. The vast majority of these people are doing good work for God’s kingdom, making a difference in their sphere of influence. Yet it really bothers me that we often equate size and significance. Just because a church, ministry or Christian college is big does not necessarily mean that it’s making more of an impact. Being “big” does not necessarily mean you are “blessed” — it just means you’re big. (Here I would question Rick Warren’s statement that “you should never criticize what God is blessing” because he never defines precisely how you determine if something is “blessed.” By this definition, you could say McDonald’s is “blessed” because they sell more hamburgers than anyone else, but everyone knows their products are not very healthy.)

On the other hand, being “small” doesn’t necessarily mean you’re blessed, either. I believe size is basically neutral. It’s possible for a high-profile ministry to be largely ineffective, just as it’s possible for a small church to have a thriving ministry in its community.

In our American church culture, we have a fascination with measuring things that seems unhealthy and counterproductive. This is not to suggest that we shouldn’t measure things — I’m just suggesting that we attach way too much significance to them. The traditional “Three B’s” of church measurement are bottoms (attendance), buildings, and budgets. It’s important to know where you stand on these items because in some ways they can indicate a measurement of health and growth. However, the problem comes when we begin to judge ourselves and others by how they stack up against us. Read more of this post

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Whose Story Are We Telling in Worship? (Part 2)

March 26, 2009 Leave a comment

bibleinfo003In the previous post I asked how we might begin to inject the “big picture” of God’s story back into worship. I’m beginning with the assumption that this kind of planning doesn’t come easy for worship leaders and pastors. I think there are several reasons:

1. Contemporary, evangelical worship services tend to be fragmented. By this I mean that there are several parts (music, sermon, offering, communion, announcements, etc.) but they lack a cohesive, unified whole. I think thematic worship planning can be helpful here. Anytime we can tie the elements of worship together thematically, it gives the service greater focus. (You can overdo thematic planning by selecting trite worship songs that “go along” with the sermon, or by injecting “thematic” ideas into communion that distort its true meaning. But I haven’t seen this done very much.) I really like Dave Ferguson’s book The Big Idea because it goes into detail about how to tie the elements of worship together thematically. But it must be kept in balance.

2. Worship planning is hard work. Sundays come around with amazing regularity! It takes a huge amount of effort, planning, rehearsal and communication to lead a well-done service even in a moderately-sized church. It’s very difficult to get out of our usual patterns of thinking, and creatively reflect at a higher level.

3. Our blessings can in some ways be a curse. Our technology, media, worship bands, lighting, art of various kinds, and other elements of contemporary worship take a vast amount of our attention. We are so consumed with the techniques of worship that the overall message can get lost in the mix.

4. Our Western analytical mindset makes it hard for us to see the “big picture” of God’s story. When is the last time you heard a sermon that told the whole story of the Bible? Or a book of the Bible, or the life of a Bible character? We don’t usually think it terms because we are trained to analyze and look at small fragments of Scripture. But we can’t lose sight of the big picture in that process.

I have to stop here and give credit to the senior minister at our church, who began a series on God’s holiness from Leviticus this past Sunday. First of all, I just love his boldness in choosing this topic and Bible book! But second, he spent several minutes at the beginning of the sermon telling the story of Genesis and Exodus in a fly-by fashion. This was essential to help people get the context of Leviticus, and he did a fantastic job.

I am also encouraged by a greater interest in recent years in narrative preaching, a form that can powerfully connect to modern audiences. We all love a story, don’t we? This type of preaching can help us better understand the big picture of God’s story.

But preaching, by itself, is not enough. There must be a holistic effort in worship to help us understand that we’re part of a bigger story. A story that is bigger, grander and more wonderful than we can possibly imagine. Read more of this post

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Learning Worship Ministry from…Tony Bennett?

January 3, 2009 Leave a comment

tonybennettIt was a moment of total serendipity. A few weeks ago, in early December, I was poking around on iTunes and came across several songs being offered as a free download. One of them was “Winter Wonderland” by Tony Bennett. I love jazz, especially around Christmas, so I downloaded it and really loved it. Then it occurred to me that Tony Bennett is an American music icon, but I knew hardly anything about him or his music. How in the world did that happen? So I immediately ordered one of his CD’s (used) and checked out a couple more from the library. I prefer his music from the last couple of decades, but all in all I have greatly enjoyed developing an appreciation for Bennett’s music; he’s an American legend.

In particular, I checked out a CD I had seen before but never listened to: it’s called “Duets” and features Tony singing many of his classic songs with all kinds of artists. This is a really neat record, and I’d encourage you to check it out even if you’re not a big fan of Bennett’s. As I’ve been listening to it, there are a few things about worship ministry we can learn from him.

Artistry. It sounds almost trite, but the man is an artist, through and through. He is widely regarded as one of the only “American classics” left. When you listen to his voice, you are hearing someone who has spent decades honing his craft, perfecting vocal delivery, and simply being a great musician.

Creativity and Community. Tony Bennett was 80 years old when the CD was released in 2006. You would think that someone at his age, having had his success, would easily be able to churn out greatest hits records and call it a day. But not Bennett – he actually enlisted the help of nearly 20 other artists and recorded duets with them. The lineup includes the Dixie Chicks, James Taylor, Barbara Streisand (of course), Tim McGraw, Sting, Bono, Elton John and Paul McCartney. Not every song is a complete winner (in my opinion); in fact, James Taylor sounds like he barely even tried on his duet with Bennett. However, I love the concept of taking old songs and re-imagining them with different artists, many of which are a far cry from Bennett’s jazzy style. Give the man props for at least trying, especially at 80 years old! (He is now 82, and still performing and putting out new music.) Read more of this post

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The Luxury of Being a Critic

December 8, 2008 4 Comments

RAT_111It seems to me that there is a lot of criticism directed at the local church these days. I suppose this has always been true; as long as there have been churches, there have been critics. Criticism in not by nature a bad thing. At its core, “criticism” is all about analysis, and hopefully clear thinking. A “movie critic” or “art critic” is one who experiences a movie or other work of art, tells us what is good and bad, give us hints what to look out for, and generally should be a sort of tour guide in their field. So “criticism,” if it’s to be useful, should come from someone who knows what they’re talking about.

When given in the right way, and in the right spirit, criticism can be very helpful. It can raise things to a new level of excellence and productivity. But given in the wrong spirit, at the wrong time, or with a general sense of ignorance about the subject, criticism can be a terrible venom that burns like acid poured onto someone’s skin.

In the Christian academic world, it can be very easy to be a critic. Even though in a ministry training school most of the teachers have a ministry background, by and large we don’t deal with the day-to-day realities of vocational ministry. (Having been on both sides of the fence, I think there is a lot of misunderstanding from both the academic community and the ministry community towards the other, but that’s a topic for another day.) At my school, the faculty are very ministry-driven and I think we have a good relationship with local churches. But in the broader evangelical academic community, I just sense a lot of criticism directed toward the local church, and sometimes it makes me uncomfortable. Read more of this post

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Planning Worship in Tough Times

September 17, 2008 Leave a comment

This evening I was sitting with my son watching the evening news. (Actually, I was watching the news and he was bored, waiting patiently for me to watch Phineas and Ferb on the Disney channel.) The big story, of course, is the economy – in particular, the government bailout of AIG and the impending financial doom that seems to be upon us at every moment. Not far behind was a story about the hurricane aftermath in Texas. The upcoming election continues to dominate the headlines as well.

In my own small universe, there is a good deal of anxiety at my college because of a tight financial situation. My home church, where I’m fill-in preaching on Sundays, is dealing with the stress of looking for a minister. My current church, a much larger megachurch, is also looking for a senior minister. There are various other situations that seem to all come together in one huge cloud of uncertainty, fear and anxiety for many of us right now. No one would deny that right now we are in tough times.

Anyone who plans, leads or is involved in corporate worship should be concerned with how our worship interacts with our life situations. Below are a few simple suggestions you may consider as you plan or lead worship in the coming weeks and months, when we will surely continue to deal with lots of stress and fear due to situations both large and small. (I am not a big fan of “lists” per se but in this case it seems to fit.)

1. Make use of the psalms in worship. The Psalms are so powerful because they are honest expressions from every situation in life. They express every imaginable emotion: joy, pain, suffering, doubt, confession, conflict, fear, worship, etc. In contemporary evangelical worship we are very good at addressing the joyful aspects of worship, but we tend to avoid anything that resembles lament, sorrow or suffering. Psalms can be used to give voice to emotions and situations all of face.  We should not be afraid to acknowledge pain and suffering in life. For a helpful resource, check out The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship by John Witvliet. Read more of this post

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