For a long time I have heard that Worship Leaders “usher people into the presence of God”. While this does Promote a significant weight to the task at hand, it may be to close to an overly religious view of what is going on when we gather to sing.

I’m currently reading through Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin, and he says well something that I’ve been feeling for a while.

“Apart from Jesus Christ, we cannot approach God. This makes a huge difference as we lead others to worship God.”

“Biblically speaking, no worship leader, pastor, band, or song will ever bring us close to God… Worship itself cannot lead us into God’s presence. Only Jesus Himself can bring us into God’s presence.”

“Try as hard as we can, our hearts and worship will always be tainted in God’s sight.”

In the old testament the people of God relied on the Priesthood to mediate between God and man, and even then only certain people from certain tribes could offer specific sacrifices in specific ways on specific dates. Then came Jesus. He called Himself “the temple”(John 2:19), was sacrificed as “the lamb”(John 1:29), and now sits as our “High Priest” (John 10:19-22). (the significance of Jesus sitting is not to be overlooked. It is a sign of completion, the priests didn’t sit during their duties because the sacrificial system was never complete. But in Jesus it is finished.)

The point here is that all Christians can come to God purified, and this is because of the work of Christ. We as worship leaders don’t usher in the presence of God, we don’t lead people to anyplace that they aren’t already. We as worship leaders point to Jesus. And even this we do only by the power of the Holy Spirit, who was given to us through Jesus.

This shouldn’t diminish your view of what we do.

Jesus says in John 15:26 ” When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me. and you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”

God, the Holy Spirit, testifies about Jesus, and we get to join in that ministry!

But let’s not lay too much significance on ourselves. It is the Holy Spirit moving in people, at the bidding of the Father, to glorify Christ.

If we see ourselves as being in a more priestly role, we can start to think that how good we do will affect people’s ability to worship. This can cause us to slip into perfection mode, which is unhealthy. Granted we don’t want to be a distraction, but as we’ve already said it’s ultimately the work of God. We need to be striving for excellence because that’s what God deserves, not because that’s what the church needs.

How awesome is God that He chooses to use us to lead his people in ascribing Him glory while still working out the fullness of the act within Himself.

We point to Jesus. We don’t usher in the presence of God, and if people feel that way when you step up to lead you are robbing them of the presence of God in every other moment of the day.

Let us faithfully and steadfastly point to the Glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

Leading music in a corporate gathering can quickly become something that we “just do”. We can spend the majority of our time preparing for it; picking music, planning the structure and flow of the service, arranging the songs to fit our people and that specific service, practicing, rehearsing, setting up, media production, fixing the problems that will come up. And in the middle of it all we can lose sight of what it is we are doing.

Time and time again the psalms exhort us to “Sing to the Lord”,
Psalm 33 “Sing to Him a new song; Play skillfully with a shout of joy. “
Psalm 40 “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.”

So what are we doing when we sing?

Looking at the psalms again, in a broader view, can give us great insight. There are songs of praise, songs of thanks, songs of lament, and songs of battle(imprecation). All of these are in response to something. We praise because we see Gods glory, We give thanks because of what He has done, We lament because we have/are fallen, We call for help in battle because we are being warred against.

For me the first three are easy to understand. They are natural reactions to things we see and experience regularly. But it’s always been harder for me to connect with the Imprecatory(cursing/battle) psalms. But the truth is that as followers of Christ we are constantly in battle. We are not in a war for our souls, that was decided by Christ on the Cross and through the Holy Spirit in our sanctification and justification. But we are warring for obedience, for the glory of our Lord. Since we are secure as the children of God we are targets to be made lame, spiritually. Singing songs is a rally cry, it’s raising the standard for the soldiers of Christ to regroup and bolster up.

This puts so much weight on the songs we choose. There needs to be solid doctrinal truth that is communicated simply and effectively. Otherwise, we are merely tickling ears. The truths that we sing together are the things that will follow us throughout the week.

I am convinced that the Christians most powerful witness to the reality of the resurrection is expressed in and through the dynamic experiencing and expressing of the Gospel-shaped life.

One of the greatest tragedies of historical theology i.e., the movement(s) of interpretive process and practice within God’s Word in Church history, is found in Christianity’s seemingly unreconciled dualism between faith and works. For centuries, Christians, and even those from other faith based religions, have always had the proclivity to pit the practice of one’s faith against ones faith professed.

Today, things are no different.

Social sensitivity (works) and dogmatic doctrine (faith) continue to have just as much a grip on today’s young evangelical. Those that resonate with more socially sensitive action (orthopraxy) seamlessly throw out the confessed creeds of Christianity, whereas those that empathize more with the profession of Christian doctrines (orthodoxy) are stereotyped as sterile and socially inept.

However ongoing this battle has raged, it will, and continues to be one of the primary tools used by Satan to disprove the validity of the Christian faith and deflate the gospels power.

It is only, and only when the Christian begins to experience belief (faith) and observable obedience (works) as inseparable that the Gospel of Christ is truly and powerfully expressed. In fact, it is in the Gospel message itself, namely satisfaction in its workings, that the Christian receives the gutsy grace to faithfully witness through good works to a watching world. This is the Christians point of reference. His or her grid. The timeless example. This is what I like to call the Gospel-shaped life.

Time and time again, God through the Holy Spirit, empowered writers of the Scriptures to point us here: it is in our savoring of the saving and enduring gift of grace that our capacity to also extend this grace is found.

John, in his first letter to the church in Ephesus makes this quite clear “we love because he first loved us”. John also encourages these believers again “beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another”. The writer of this letter is calling for the community of believers, and us today, to the task of continually putting before ourselves the Gospel as the grid for daily life. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in Him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

Right doctrine should always lead to right behavior. If the Christian fails to express this claim, James himself states “his or her faith in dead”. Gospel-shaped living bids the Christian to come and die (a life of self-sacrifice) in order to experience the greater joy found in bearing daily witness to the cross of Christ for the fame of Christ, for the salvation of all peoples. Christian, know that God wants to partner with you so that more would experience the grace of God for the glory of God.

Root your praxis of practice in the life and death of Christ. Place all dependence on God’s preserving grace for the enduring work of witness, so that, others would turn from sin and be found righteous in the cross of Christ.

Relevant citations (1 John 4, 1 John 3, James 2)

I am convinced that one of the greatest joys and inheritances of the Christian faith lies in making sense of suffering.

Existing as one of the most interconnected experiences known to humanity, it is in our shared familiarity to suffering that we are all joined to the adverse effects of human depravity and Adam’s sin. By God’s design, it is in and through our shared experience of pain that the hope and power of the Gospel is magnified, put on display in and through the testimony of His broken bride: the Church.

One does not have to wait long until the everyday drudgery of life bears witness to the brokenness of the human experience. It doesn’t take much and we again find ourselves pressed, persecuted, struck down, emotionally distraught. Numerous happenings unearth these emotions: a broken promise, an evil glance, an unfair illusion, a yell, a devastating phone call, death. While these and many more human sufferings may be universal, it is in the purposeful perspective and perseverance of the saints that the graciousness of God, the Gospel of Christ, and the power of Spirit bear witness to a new heavenly-hope.

The Christian’s great joy and inheritance lies in his or her capacity to have a God-enhanced perspective on the tragedies of life.

In his first letter, the apostle Peter took the time to remind scattered distraught Christians to “not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you, as though something strange were happening to you.” Our expectations of life must begin to be funneled through the realization that we are nowhere promised that life is meant to be easy and pain free. Once a person receives the grace of God to view their experiences through this lens, can he or she have the gift to look at suffering in a more clear and steady way.

Making sense of suffering lies not only in the Christians God-enhanced perspective that suffering is inevitable, but more importantly, in sufferings purpose.

James, the brother of Jesus, charged Jewish Christians to “count it all joy, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” In essence, James pressed this dispersion of believers to let the trials and sufferings of life “do their worst”, in order that, a watching world would witness a realized Gospel. Its pinnacle of purpose being in that more persons would experience and express trust and worth to the Sovereign Lord.

In order for the Gospel of Christ to remain powerful in the eyes of a watching world, Christians must be able to face the reality of pain and suffering, and not only face its torrents, but explain and express how one can stand amidst the storm. In fact, it is in the very act of enduring, persevering, and persisting that the most glorious demonstration of Christ’s Spirit is put on display. It is in this very state that we express our graftedness to the greatest suffering and the greatest sufferer of all time, the Suffering Servant, Jesus Christ. “But rejoice insofar that you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” This, Gospel-shaped display, testifies to the Christians call for exemplary dependence on the grace of God for the glory of God, while placing future hope in the day when all brokenness will be made new.

Christian, watching world, no doubt your suffering will be painful. See the pain for what it is: to make you rely more on the enduring grace of God. I pray that in the midst of your daily sufferings that you would find yourself more grafted and more reliant on the Sovereign God, the One who will be with you amidst your sufferings, moment by moment.

Relevant citations (1 Peter 4; James 1; Titus 2)

Often times, I feel the “religious epidemic” of spiritual discontentment can be avoided when our expectations are grafted into the true heart of God. The Heavenly Father does not say “work harder, perform better, be spiritual enough”, but merely “walk”.

Walking is earthy and bland, not as flashy as a good hard run, or a exasperated sprint. Yet when we truly reflect on the whole of life, we find that most of our time is spent “walking” through the mundane. I am convinced it is in these daily experiences that the the true medal of our dependence on the Spirit’s power, or that of ourselves, is revealed. It is in this place, the walking of life, not in all the pomp and circumstance, that we experience some of the Gospel’s most supernatural expressions. It’s in a mother gently rocking her baby. A smile to a stranger on the sidewalk. A father welcoming home a wayward son. A man being slow to anger. A wife graciously forgiving a forgetful man. The list could go on.

Time and time we will perform for the “big show”, time and time again we will muster up enough grit to go on the stage of life, only to find ourselves exhausted and disappointed. God’s desire is that we would “walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). And not only that, but that we would wait upon the Lord for the strength to endure the race, not the sprint, but to compete well in the marathon of life.

When this God-enhanced perspective reaches a person they are set free (Romans 8). No longer bound to perform well by our works, we truly grow to cherish the precious work of the cross, while learning to daily rely on God’s grace for all our “walking moments”.

The writer of Hebrews leaves us with the great encouragement to fix our eyes on the One who is “the perfecter of faith”. In essence, in Jesus’ death and resurrection, the greatest stage was constructed and last performance was made. Jesus, the Great Performer, took all of God’s righteous expectations on Himself because of His deep hatred for sin and His great love for you (Titus 3:3-7). What a precious truth!

Allow the peace of God to wash over your daily walking. Know that in Christ all of our struggles, all of our trials, and of our shortcomings are made new (James 1). Ask Christ’s Spirit to explode in and through the mundane task at hand (Galatians 5:22). Today, cast your performance on the sufficiency of the Greatest Performer so that you may walk and not grow faint.

There are three categories: follow the links to the right to get complete listings of each section.

Music|   Where we will review new music, discuss styles and arrangements, and share ideas and resources.

Praxis|   Where we offer practical thoughts, advice, and solutions to issues that the church faces.

Theology|    Discussing some of the very important but sometimes abstract parts of ministry.

This is a song that we will be introducing at Calvary in August, it has depth and passion and, like a lot of Hillsong songs, evokes an emotion of deep seated worship and awe.  It is off their recent album “Across the Earth//Tear Down the Walls”.  This video Gives the story of one of their worship leaders, and her connection to this song.  The song starts at 4:35.

(C) 2008 Hillsong Church

At the Gospel Coalition this year John Piper and D.A. Carson gave partner talks on the pastor as scholar and the scholar as pastor. Afterwards they did a Q&A together.

here is the link to that Q&A

They spend some time talking about their concerns for the Church in the upcoming years, and the one that has been on my mind, since I listened to this podcast 2+ weeks ago, is John Pipers last concern (at 19:50).

He says that he is concerned about contemporary worship styles being able to maintain the weight of the glory of God over the long haul (my summary)

He is talking not just about the music, but also the manner with which we speak about what we do, they ways we interact with the congregation and they with each other. There is some part of us that want’s our gatherings to feel “homey” and almost “campy”. But what do we do when we are addressing the fact that we are hopelessly sinful and that the grace of God is the only thing that can save us? Is that a light topic to be trounced on by songs that are “just fun” or superficial greetings that are sappy in the face of an almighty God?

Worship is a weighty thing. We are coming before the Lord Most High. We are gathering as the body of Christ. We are praising through Jesus, To Jesus, about Jesus.

I am begining to feel the weight of this wonderful task, and have begun to earnestly seek God’s face in this.

Lord let us not become singers of trite songs, let us proclaim with powerful verse your holiness

Let us not be speakers of cavalier words, let us declare your glory with every breath.

In a week from today a new record label will be launching. It is called Re:Sound. It’s a part of The Resurgence which is a theological and ecclesiological organization who’s mission is to make available to all Christians resources for spiritual growth and maturation. They are reformed in their theology and bible based in pretty much everything.

The things that gets me most excited about this new record label are this;

1) New Congregational Music that was written for the church and has strong doctrinal truths in them.

2) The way they are doing copyrights for the music is the way that all worship music should be done.

- They are allowing free sharing and adaption(remixing) of the music (which all churches pretty much do already anyway)

- The only conditions of the use of their material is that you attribute the artist

- This means as a general rule they are waiving the right to collect royalties. This is the part that makes me excited. There has been a general malaise surrounding copyright laws and church music since the internet made it easy to find and print worship songs on your own.  The easiest way to use a lot of worship songs is to buy a CCLI liscense. The point of this is that the artists register with CCLI and collect royalties based on how often their song is being copied/projected. You pay CCLI for the right to project and copy the songs/lyrics and eventually they ask what songs you used that year and then distribute your money accordingly. Resound artists on the otherhand simply waive the right to collect royalties (they still reserve the right to collect if they want to).

I know that might have been more than you wanted to know but I’m really excited about this. I hope that this will be a trend starting in Christian music.  That instead of just letting churches (knowingly or unknowingly) break the law by copying their music, they just intentionally allow them to. Most artists want churches to use their songs to praise God and would never sue. (there was one case of the Arch-diocese of Chicago being sued, that’s the basis for the CCLI being formed, and pretty much the only case of that)

3) Streamlined Projection.  Resound artists only require the that the title of the work and the author of the work be listed as attribution. This means on Sunday the title slide can look like

Hallelujah by John Doe

instead of how CCLI requires that it be displayed

4.2 Church agrees that each reproduced version of a Song will contain the Song title, writer credit(s), and copyright notice in substantially the following form:

“Hallelujah,” words and music by John Doe
© 2000 Good Music Co.
Used By Permission. CCLI License #____________

As a general rule I get around the CCLI requirement by putting that whole fun thing on a bottom corner of the last slide of a song in 8 point font (or anything that is only readable by those with 20/20 vision)

But with resound songs you don’t have to do that at all.

Resound has released a sample EP of 8 songs, with chord sheets, in anticipation of the launch. I have listened to them all and they are generally good songs. Some are downright Great. (I got goosebumps and it’s 70 out). And they have great content. Some of the styles are not going to work so well for all churches. But you can take the words, structure, and music, and adjust it to fit your church (something I think we should be considering with most of our music anyway)

And so i am eagerly awaiting the upcoming Launch of Resound, and anticipating great things from them in the future.

The idea that I’m about to present came about during a late night talk in college. We were talking about the limitations of our internships, of our schooling and what we wished we could get out of all of these. The result that came during the conversation was the age old system of Apprenticeship. To partner with a master of the craft. To live with them and learn the ins and outs of one who lives the life of a craftsmen.

(those involved in the conversation were a bible major, a film major, a political science major, and a musical composition major.)

Our Complaints|

The educational system that we are all put through teaches a great deal of information. We are expected to transfer that information into knowledge. But what we need is wisdom, or less accurately the practical working out of that knowledge.

The solution to that, in recent history, has been the internship. A time spent working a lesser version of the career you wish to pursue. The result of this is that you vaguely know the “on the job” expectations and have some working knowledge. But for us this fell short.

Our Desire (solution)|

Not so long ago there was, and in some places there still is, a system of education called Apprenticeship. The main idea is to live with a master of the field which you want to study and be intimately taught one on one.

For the most part we agreed that if we had the chance to apprentice with someone we respected we would do it.

How does this apply to worship and biblical values?

I’m glad you asked.

In 1 Kings 19  God speaks to Elijah, THE prophet of the day, and says that he is to anoint a new king of Aram and Israel and his own successor. Now God does not just tell Elijah to pick someone he thinks might be good for the job, or to wait for the man to ask for the honor of following the prophet, He tells Elijah to go and find Elisha the son of Shapat from Abelmeholah. Lots of names we don’t really understand, but the point is this, God says “I have the man for you.” His name is Elisha. He lives in this town and this is his father. That’s pretty specific.

Elijah gets up and goes to find this young man. At this point Elijah is pretty well recognized as a Man of God, in the strongest sense. Elijah walks up to Elisha and puts his cloak on Elisha’s shoulders. Elisha knew exactly what this meant and asked to say goodbye to his family, then he offered up a sacrifice to God and followed Elijah.

The connection here is that Elisha left home and followed Elijah. Day and night, helping when told, and observing the actions and listening to the teachings of this amazing Man of God.

Fast Forward|2 Kings 2

Elijah is about to be taken up to heaven in a whirlwind and Elisha will not leave him. The amount of dedication Elisha must have had towards Elijah. Elijah kept telling him to stay behind as he went where the LORD was leading him. But Elisha would not stay behind, because he knew what was about to happen.

Elijah is taken into heaven on a chariot of fire

Elisha becomes the Man that God called him to be|

After Elijah’s ascension Elisha calls out to God. “Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?”2kings2:14

God splits the river just like He did for Elijah. After that Elisha doesn’t miss a beat. The people of Jericho approach him with a problem with the drinking water. Without hesitation he tells them what to do and God purifies the water. The Shunemite woman approaches him and he tells her just what to do. The time that Elisha spent living and learning from Elijah gave him the confidence to trust God in all things. It makes me wonder, if we did things this way would we have the confidence to lead as Elisha did, With no fear of man?

Increasingly in today’s society we have a loss of moral values. We have boys who won’t grow up. We have girls who are searching for any kind of acceptance. We have a culture that stands for nothing but the maintenance of the status quo; minimal conflict, greed, comfort, and individuality. What we need is more people who understand what it means to be Men and Women of honor and are willing to teach all of what they know to someone else. It’s not enough to teach best practices anymore, because we will abuse that knowledge and twist it to serve our selfish desires. What we need is to be taught how the way of life, God’s way,  makes life worth living.

My hope is that we will one day do this for the next generation. Pick one or two men or women of promise, take them into our homes and our lives, let them become like second children to us, teach them the values behind the work, teach them the importance of rest and the rhythm of life. Let them into our hearts and show them what this work will do to you.

I don’t know what this looks like yet, but I guarantee it’s messy and not systematic or professional. It’s going to hurt, the mentor and the mentee are going to fail, we all might look like fools. But what will the result be? Men and Women who love God and understand why their work is important to Him. Men and Women who stand in the gap and say “No, I can’t do that. It’s not right.” instead of “We’re going to make so much money off this.”