A Worship Leader’s letter to his congregation

Posted on October 30, 2012 by

Dear church family,

Most of you know that I lead the singing at Church.  Often, we refer to this act as “worship.”  It’s sort of an unfortunate thing that this word has become so closely associated with the songs we sing at church.  It’s not that singing these songs isn’t worship; it’s just that this is only a sliver of what worship is.  The danger is that after having referred to these songs as “worship” so many times, we start to lose that distinction.  Soon, we lose sight of the fact that worship is something that permeates everything we do.

Apparently God’s people have had this problem for some time now.  We have thought that doing certain things was what God actually wanted from us, but it turned out that we were missing the forest for the trees.  In passages like Isaiah 1, Isaiah 58, and Amos 5, we discover that God really didn’t care about Israel’s “acts of worship” (in this case being things like fasting and offering sacrifices) when they weren’t actually living out what it meant to be God’s people on a daily basis.  In Isaiah 1 God tells us what he really thinks of Israel’s acts of worship:

“What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?”
says the Lord.
“I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of fattened cattle.
I get no pleasure from the blood
of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to worship me,
who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony?
13 Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts;
the incense of your offerings disgusts me! (Isaiah 1:11-13)

Instead, God wanted Israel’s worship to look like this:

Learn to do good.
Seek justice.
Help the oppressed.
Defend the cause of orphans.
Fight for the rights of widows.  (Isaiah 1:17)

How I sometimes wish that God had said something different!  If only he’d said, “Learn to sing on key.  Seek beats two and four.  Help the tone deaf.  Defend the cause of the sound system upgrade.  Fight for the rights of guitarists to have more of themselves in the monitor.”

But he didn’t say that, did he?

As a worship leader, these verses are some of the scariest verses in the Bible.  If I’m supposed to somehow lead people into true worship, I need to ask myself to what degree my own life reflects justice and righteousness.  Because otherwise, I’m fairly convinced that God might be about as sick of the songs I sing as he was with Israel’s burnt rams.  Maybe even more so, because I claim to be a “professional.”

Now, I said that these verses are scary to me, and they are.  But on the other hand, they’re beautiful.  They’re beautiful because they reveal what kind of God we’re actually worshiping.  Turns out that he is a God who doesn’t clamor for our attention out of some tyrannical need to be praised.  Instead, what ticks God off is when his children go without, when widows are harmed, when justice is not served.  And when it comes right down to it, that is a God who I don’t have a hard time worshiping.  That’s the kind of God I have no problem boasting in.  That’s the kind of God I can clap my hands for, lift my hands to, write songs about, and dance in the streets before.  That’s the kind of God before whom I can stand in awe.  He is a God who has every right in the universe to turn his nose up at us pesky humans, but he doesn’t.  Instead, his heart breaks for us.  I don’t understand it.  But it’s awesome.

So we’ve come full circle.  I hope that The Ransom continues to be a church that worships passionately.  By that, I mean a church that reflects God’s heart in the world.  Let my guitar go out of tune, my voice disappear, and every speaker fall from the sky.  But let this church forever pursue the forgotten and the lost.  Let us pursue the very heart of God.  Because when we do, then we will find that we have something to sing about.

See you Sunday.

Phil

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Happiness a virtue?

Posted on October 19, 2012 by

I’ve been having some discussions lately with a fellow who is questioning the existence of God, at least in the sense that Christians understand God to be.  We’ve gotten into issues of what the “highest good” is, and how our own happiness plays into that.

Happiness, I contend, is not a virtue.  It may (I say may!) be the result of virtue, but it is not one.  Happiness is no more a virtue than being full is a food.

Nor is happiness the goal of virtue.  If it becomes that to me, then perhaps I’ve ceased to be virtuous.  The goal of eating is nourishment, not to feel full.  Otherwise it wouldn’t matter what I ate.

For a Christian, I believe that the point of virtue lies outside of ourselves.

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“It’s like weightlifting for your lips!” (Or, why Christianity doesn’t work like you think it should)

Posted on October 16, 2012 by

As a trumpet player, we have these things called lip slurs.  It’s where you glide from one note to another using nothing but your lips (more formally, your embouchure) without moving any valves.  I was told that the key to playing high notes was to do a lot of lip slurs; they were like “weight lifting for your lips!”  Welcome to the wacky world of playing a brass instrument.  We lift weights with our lips, blow spit on the floor, and think we’re cool doing it.

Anyway, I took this advice to heart and spent the summer before my freshman year of high school doing hours of lip slurs.  I remember I did a minimum of 30 minutes a day of just lip slurs – not including the scales and etudes I was working on.  I got better at lip slurs than all the other trumpet players at school.  In fact, I have not met many people who could do lip slurs faster than I can.  Seriously.  I was a terrorist with the lip slurs.

But something funny happened.  Despite all the slurs, I could never play high notes.  I kept thinking that over time, with hard work and patience, that screaming double high C would eventually come. (In case you don’t know, playing high notes are for trumpet players what the length of your drive is for golfers or the number of points on your buck is for hunters.  It basically tells people whether you are awesome or not).  I don’t know if it was my overbite, or the way I used my air, or what.  But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get nearly as high as tons of kids whose trumpets collected dust all summer.

In some ways, I made up for it in other areas – technique, tone, whatever.  But the bottom line is that I really wanted to play up in the stratosphere and I never could, no matter how hard I tried.  Eventually I resorted to more desperate means.  The time spent doing lip slurs turned into hours spent pushing the horn into my face, hoping that I could force something out.  But it never came.

There is a moral to this story.  I was told that if I did lip slurs, it would give me what I wanted – increased range and endurance.  I was assured that it would work.  

Sometimes we fall into this trap with following Jesus.  Yes, in many ways, following Jesus will complete your life.  It will give you purpose you never thought possible, and you’ll find a fulfillment that cannot be found anywhere else.  In Christ, there is new life, new hope, forgiveness, and the eternal promise of His presence.

But on another level, being a Christian does not work.  Life does not necessarily get suddenly easy and effortless.  The high notes don’t suddenly come naturally.  There is still toil, hardship, and pain.  In fact, by becoming a Christ follower, we are in more ways than one placing ourselves in the line of fire: “You will be hated by everyone because of me” – Matt. 10:22.  Jesus didn’t beat around the bush when it came to the cost of discipleship.  Sometimes I fear that today we don’t just beat around the bush; we avoid it altogether.

Loving your enemies, as Jesus commanded, doesn’t always work - sometimes it gets you persecuted or killed.    Loving your neighbor doesn’t always mean that they’ll return that love.  And apparently, even speaking truth doesn’t always mean you’ll win the conversation.  I can think of one teacher who received a crown of thorns and a free ride on a Roman cross for the truth he spoke.  Peter was crucified upside down.  Paul was beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked.  John lost his head.  Another John was exiled to an island.  Stephen was stoned.  For these folks, following Jesus was not just 5 easy steps to a successful career.

No, it was something much greater than that.  Something that shone so brightly that their own lives paled in comparison to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ.

So if you’re looking for an easy button, the gospels may be the wrong place to look.  I say “may be” because I don’t want to ignore the fact that God does heal addictions and restore relationships and work miracles.  His “yoke is easy.”  But before we can put on his yolk, we have to take ours off.  That’s often where the pain happens.  We’re so used to our messed up way of doing things that moving from our way of life to Jesus’ way of life might just turn your world upside down.

Check out Philippians 3:10-11: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”  Becoming like Jesus in his death?  Doesn’t sound very pleasant to me.

But somehow, in dying we live.  In giving, we gain.  In surrendering, we win.  Sounds backwards.  Sounds illogical.  Sounds like it would never “work.”

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  1 Cor. 1:18

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There is a sermon illustration in here somewhere…

Posted on October 13, 2012 by

…I just have to figure out what it is.

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A Theology of Boredom

Posted on October 12, 2012 by

The prophet Elijah was fleeing for his life from a vicious queen Jezebel (who I always imagine to resemble Cruella Deville) after he righteously owned some prophets of the false god Baal in 1 Kings 18.  Scared for his life, he is ready to throw in the towel.  But God has something to teach him first.  So he takes Elijah to a cave and sits him down.  ”I’m going to show myself to you, Elijah.”

The story is well known.  First there is a violent wind, but God is not in the wind.  Then there’s an earthquake, but he’s not in that either.  Suddenly, there is a mighty fire, but God is nowhere to be found.  Finally there is a whisper…there it is.  God is in the whisper.  Elijah pulls his cloak over his face and carefully steps to the mouth of the cave to meet with this God who is about to put his finger directly on his fears, hurts, and insecurities.

We live with constant noise.  Not just noise of the aural type.  I’m talking about constant stimulation in the background of our lives.  When you ride in an elevator or are on hold with your credit card company, you’ll probably be accompanied by the smooth sounds of Chuck Mangione’s flugelhorn.  It is there to distract us from what we’re actually doing, which is nothing.  Doing nothing is to be avoided at all costs.  And we’ve gotten quite good at it.

I was watching a medical drama recently where a patient had to be drugged to within an inch of unconsciousness.  They had him on a constant IV of some medicine which continually crept into his bloodstream, keeping him just below the threshold of any real pain.  Though something was terribly wrong, he didn’t have to feel it as long as the drugs were flowing.

I realized recently that I’ve connected whatever part of my brain that registers boredom to an IV.  As longs as the drugs stay on a constant drip, my brain won’t register said boredom.  Those drugs are my social and digital media outlets.

Today the average internet surfer spends less than one minute per page.  Researchers say that our attention spans are significantly shorter now than they’ve ever been, due largely to television, the internet, and the like.  This means that if God is still whispering, we won’t hear him because we’ll get bored halfway through the mighty wind.  We’ll change the channel before we even make it to the mouth of the cave.

For a reason that I don’t really understand, yet I really appreciate, God goes about his business in pretty much the opposite way I do: slowly.  He doesn’t appear to be in a hurry.  I remember a Steve Deneff sermon I heard once where he essentially said that the degree to which I hurry is the degree to which I am most unlike God.  God does not seem to pander to our neurotic sensory desires.  If we’re going to hear God speak it seems that we’ll have to learn to sit down in our caves and not come out even when we hear the wind, earthquakes, and fires going on outside our door.  To sit still is torture.  To be silent is to starve ourselves of the attention we crave.  To be bored is to check ourselves into a rehab center and stay strapped to a bed while our body goes through a screaming withdrawal.

But when we make it through the night and the dawn breaks, we’ll awaken with a new sense of wonder.  We’ll step to the mouth of our caves with our faces covered as we experience for perhaps the first time the gentle voice of our Creator.  In the silence, we’ll exclaim with Jacob, “Surely the Lord was here and I did not know it!”

Because he has been.  We’ve just been drugged the whole time.  So it’s time to remove our IV lines and wake up to the gloriousness of silence.  It might just turn out to be anything but boring.

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My ongoing struggle with contemporary worship leading…

Posted on October 8, 2012 by

Every Sunday morning all throughout our country, thousands of twentysomething guitarists in thick rimmed glasses fashion their hair to look like they just got out of bed, slip into some skinny jeans, deliberately neglect to shave, strap on their Taylor guitars, and take the stage.  There are lights, subwoofers, cameras, and sometimes even fog machines.  These people are your contemporary worship leaders, America.

And I am one of them.

At least, minus the skinny jeans, Taylor guitar, and fancy hair.  Maybe someday, if I’m lucky.  My hair is thinning after all, and perhaps there are better ways to hide it than the haircut I’ve sported since my freshman year in high school.

So I have a confession to make.  Sometimes when I observe one of my peers in the professional worship leading field, I…struggle.  Yes, I struggle.  I have a good deal of tension about all this.  I admit it; I’m a skeptic when it comes to my own job.  Please know, this struggle not because I think I’m better than other worship leaders.  It’s because I’m just plain uncomfortable with the entire paradigm itself.  When I see others lead, it’s a rare opportunity to look in a mirror.  And I can’t help but think about how much…attention we worship leaders draw.  That seems a bit backwards, doesn’t it?

Bottom line, I’m uncomfortable with the way that we’ve practically venerated our worship leaders.  Not sure what I mean? Watch a few seconds of this:

Is it awesome?  You betcha.  Is it worship?  Sure.  Of whom?  Please don’t make me answer that.  Besides, I really can’t.  Only God knows the heart.

But I will say this.  In his book The Pastor, Eugene Peterson argues that while Pastors rail against abusing such things as drugs and sex, many are being seduced by something equally addictive: crowds.  I’d probably ignore Peterson’s observation and convince myself that he’s just an old grouchy pants.  That is, if I didn’t know firsthand how right he was.

But seriously, what is it about the fact that I can watch the video above and be more drawn to the fact that there are five electric guitars on stage (5!) or the perfectly messy hair than the Exalted One that they are singing about?  And yet, I can watch a similar video by, say, Casting Crowns and be truly drawn to Jesus, “friend of sinners.”  What’s the difference?  Am I just shallow enough that I have a hard time worshiping the God of the universe just because the people on stage are wearing ball caps and beanies?  If so, then shame on me.

But this all serves as a good reminder.  As worship leaders, we are setting the stage for Jesus to be exalted.  But if our attitude is anything other than John’s, who referred to Jesus by saying “the thongs of who’s sandals I am unworthy to untie,” then we’re idolizing ourselves and inviting others to do the same. The line is so thin that it scares me.  I guess what I’m saying is, perhaps we’ve become a bit too cavalier with that line.

So my job is to elevate God in the midst of a paradigm (rock and roll) that has literally conditioned us to elevate man.  That’s no small task.  But I believe that God can bring redemption even in the midst of our broken means of worship.  Every day, I have to humbly place my Telecaster at his feet.  Who knows…if I’m lucky, maybe someday I’ll have awesome hair that I can place there too.  And a Taylor.  And while we’re at it, a Vox AC30…

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Scripture and the Authority of God: Chapter 1

Posted on September 21, 2012 by

I’m continuing to interact with N.T. Wright’s “Scripture and the Authority of God.”  My meanderings on chapter 1:

Christians have always agreed that the Bible is God’s authoritative word.  However, we haven’t always agreed on our understanding of how it is God’s authoritative word.  I think Wright is dead on when he differentiates between the notions of “authority of scripture” and “God’s authority exercised through scripture.”  The Bible is nothing apart from the God who breathes it.  If we are using the Bible to come to conclusions that don’t bring us closer to the heart of God or nearer to His kingdom ideal, then we need to scrap our interpretation.  We’ve become whitewashed tombs.

Wright points out the need to unpack the phrase “authority of scripture” in the same sense that we need to unpack the word “atonement.”  Both these phrases have entire books contained within them.  When we unpack the phrase “authority of scripture” we discover that the Bible can only be authoritative when we understand it’s authority in the sense that it is God exercising his authority through the scriptures.

In the discussion of authority that ensues, Wright remarks that all the parts of the Bible, when taken together, are best described as story.  So, how can a story be authoritative?  We don’t normally think of a story as being authoritative; we think of the constitution or a stop sign being authoritative, but not a story.  Imagine a secretary of a cycling club who can’t get the members to abide by the safety guidelines.  Instead of posting a list of rules, she posts a true story of a tragic loss of life due to the very negligence that has been going on in the club.  That story, in a real sense, just became authoritative.  This is just one of many ways that stories can be authoritative.  In order to understand the nature of the Bible’s authority, we must once again read it as story.

The recent popularity of using “story” language to describe scripture’s authority is understandably resisted by some, as though it reduces the Bible to a fairy tale.  It should be noted that Wright and others who are discussing the Bible as Story do so in the same way I might draw an identity from the story of my own life.  Born in Iowa, a musician, husband to Natalie, graduate of IWU, pastor of The Ransom – these are parts of my story that tell me who I am, just as the story of God’s creation, our rebellion, God’s incarnation, atonement, resurrection, and return all tell me who I am, who God is, and what the point of everything is.  When we read the Bible as story we open ourselves up to a power that is often not inherent in prepositional arguments.

He goes on to expose the flaws in what may be the prevailing use of the Bible’s authority in many circles today.  The one I’ll touch on is authority of scripture as “language of protest.”  This is when we use the Bible to discern what we are against, to draw lines in the sand, or to categorize people.  We’ve too hastily subdivided people who read the Bible “this” way or “that.”  There is a positive method of using the Bible in this way, though; we do it almost every time we preach or teach.  The danger Wright is pointing out is when we use the language of protest to get our own way, not to submit to God.

Bottom line for Wright in this chapter is that God is on a mission that involves the inbreaking of his kingdom into the world.  Scripture plays an important role within that mission.  To do this, it “reminds us that the od Christians worship is characterized not least as a God who speaks, who communicates with his human creatures in words.”  Second, it “is central to early Christian instruction that we be transformed by the renewal of our minds,” and finally it “reminds us that the God we worship is the God whose world-conquering power…is on offer to all those who ask for it in order thereby to work for the gospel in the world.”  Thus, the Bible reminds us of the incredible intimacy of God and his radical desire to partner with his people in bringing about his purposes.  The Bible is one way in which He is doing just that.

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