Left Turns, Crash and Burns

You don’t see a lot of right turns in NASCAR. 

I mean think about it for a second. With the exception of a couple of races each season, or the occasional burnout done by a winning driver (I’ve already given away too much about myself in regards to my knowledge of NASCAR), the driver’s job is to make left turns. This is a good thing to make sure a driver understands when they sign up for the job. I think that this avoids a lot of chaos, burning wreckage, and the like, that might be caused were a driver to suddenly decide to curve right instead of following the curve of the track and staying left. A driver knows when he gets into his car, exactly what his job is. Turn left. Win races. That’s it. Best not to deviate from the plan. 

Unfortunately, I think many worship leaders view their job in a very similar fashion. Many worship leaders view themselves as having a very narrow job description. Show up on a Sunday morning, stand in front of the congregation and play music for 30 minutes and “lead” people in worship (making sure to have smooth transitions, don’t forget the words, no downtime, less talking, more music), and then sit down.

Sounds a lot like NASCAR. Show up on Sunday. Get in the car and make left turns. Win the race, and go home.

Modern church culture tells us that is the appropriate role of a worship pastor. The Church teaches what worship is, but often worship leaders aren’t given the opportunity to truly lead the congregation in worship - whether that be through explanation or merely taking the time to allow the Holy Spirit to offer direction. And there are certainly many people who prefer their worship leaders to sing and be done. So what is that the extent of the worship leader’s role? Can our job be summed up in being a music leader? And how does this have an impact on the worship culture of a church? Does it have an impact on a congregation?

Simply put, worship is our response to God - God’s people responding to who He is and what he is doing in their lives and the lives of the people around them. Worship through music is one outlet that we have been given to respond to God. So what does worship look like to a non Christian? Or even a new Christian for that matter? If worship is a believer’s response to God, how does someone with little or no Christian memory worship? The missing ingredient is discipleship. Instruction.

A worship leader’s job goes far beyond being a music monkey at a Sunday morning gathering. The responsibility of the worship leader is to not only lead worship, but to also teach God’s people about what worship is and why we do it. This includes Christians of all spiritual maturity levels. Yes, this actually means that sometimes a worship leader must take a moment or two and discuss what worship is - help to usher the congregation along and talk them how to worship. Worship leaders won’t disagree with this statement. It’s common sense. I’m overstating the obvious. 

But the reality is that many worship leaders have reduced it to something much less. Let the weight of the role sink in. How does a worship leader disciple their congregation in worship? If you are a worship leader, the idea that you might be called to more than a five song set and a bit of prayer in between to smooth transitions might feel a bit unnatural. It may feel a lot like making a right turn on a left turn track. It feels like just maybe, you might hit the wall and crash and burn. But it’s simply a matter of realizing the bigger role of a worship leader. If you are a worship leader or worship pastor, consider what that looks like as you stand before your congregation. How will you play a role in discipling your church into worship? When was the last time you took a step back to consider whether your church is effective in truly leading God’s people into worship?

Might I add that a NASCAR drivers job is much more complicated than simply turning left and winning races. Drivers must have great situational awareness, great reflexes, be great strategists, communitcate with their team and do it all at 200mph. Thats some serious multitasking. The beauty is in the fact that they do it so well that you only see the obvious. 

Life On Purpose

I live in a bike town. I ride about 70% of the time when I travel around my town. If you’ve ever biked anywhere around town, you understand the amount of forethought it takes. When I am going for a ride, I have to plan out the route I am going to take. I have to think about which route is going to be the most bike friendly. What intersections are best to cross major roads. Where bike lanes are and where I may have to share the road with cars or when I’ll have to use a sidewalk. I have to think about how long it will take me to get from point A to point B. What I need to wear based on the weather. Are there any sections that are covered in snow and ice that could very well turn a simple bike ride into a death defying stunt? Choosing to have a bike commuter lifestyle has everything to do with being purposeful.

Creativity also benefits enormously from the artist being purposeful. When an artist begins a new painting, they never start with the foreground and then work backwards. They must start with the background and add layers. This takes a lot of forethought. Attention to color. Which colors are going to contribute to the overall purpose of the painting. They have to consider scale and perspective, what they want the painting to communicate. If these are not considered first and planned for, the sum of all of the strokes will not work together to make a cohesive work of art. And more often that not, the painting just looks awkward.

The same can be said for song writing. For instance, when I write a song, I usually start off with an idea of what direction I am heading before I start writing. The best songs I’ve written have had purpose behind them. That’s not to say that there are not moments that I am struck with a great line or musical idea, and I work to capture that and turn it into a song. That does happen. But I’ve found that most often, if I have an idea for a song, a destination, it’s much easier to fill in the content, and everything works together. Planning ahead often means the difference between great lyrics that add to the overall theme and direction of the song and poor or mediocre lyrics that sound like they were written just to fill space or make a rhyme.

Purpose also helps with arranging. Think ahead. One of the biggest mistakes singer/songwriters make is that in writing a song on their particular instrument of choice, they fail to plan for a band. It is very easy to write a whole song and use an acoustic guitar, for instance, to fill out the music as much as possible. And this works well if it is just you and your guitar. But what about when you get ready to add a band? If your guitar has such a big role, you may find it difficult when adding other instrumentation. The arrangement can often sound too busy and too bogged down. As a writer you have painted yourself into a corner. If you think ahead while you are writing, you can prepare for other music to be included in your song. Think about alternate melodies or riffs that other instruments might play as opposed to trying to do it all yourself. Your songs will sound more professional and less like you hired a mediocre band to back you up for a gig.

Hop on the creative and spiritual purpose-cycle. I just made that term up. Get it? Its a figurative bicycle that helps us to be purposeful. As Christians, we were created to live and act with purpose. Our Creator was completely purposeful when he crafted us together, and His desire for us is to be purposeful in what we do. So pedal on - in how we live, in how we create. We must be intentional in our craft if our responsibility is to communicate God’s truth and grace to the world.

FREE SONG DAY: The Road to Christmas Carol Recovery.

When I was younger (I can say that because now I’m older, in my mid 30’s, though hard to admit) I worked for three years in three different department stores selling men's clothes. Let me recommend that if you are looking for a job, you should avoid working at a retail clothing store. There is a long list of things that are more desirable than working retail. These include, but are not limited to: Pulling your toenails off. Hot waxing your own buttocks. Listening to long boring lectures about the merits of doing something that you’re not the least bit interested in. I could go on.

During Christmas, retail stores begin to play Christmas music on a continuous loop over the PA. Customers love this. There is something about hearing Gene Autry singing “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” that makes people want to buy stuff. And really, in small doses, it's great. It does put you in the holiday spirit. However, when you have to hear it all day, for say eight or nine hours a day, it can begin to have a negative effect. And while some of it is quite pleasant (Bing Crosby singing about chestnuts and open fires comes to mind), one can only take so many repeats of Mariah Carey singing, “All I Want For Christmas” before you want to drive your car through the storefront window.

So to be quite honest, being able to get to a place that I can enjoy Christmas music again has been a journey. Having a two-year-old daughter has helped tremendously. It’s hard to not be excited when I watch her dance all over the room singing “Frosty The Snow Man”. My wife Randi, who has great taste in music (editor's aside added), has a great playlist that plays a lot in our house that our daughter really loves.

So in celebration of my own ability to heal from the traumatic Christmas music experiences of my youth, I recorded a seasonal song, just for you. I say seasonal because it's not really a Christmas song per se. I think there are enough Christmas songs to go around, and being able to write one and say something that hasn’t already been said is pretty difficult. So instead I wrote a song about winter. It’s called, “Love Song For Winter”, and the title pretty much says it all. Download it for free from the music player above, and enjoy it all winter long.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Fly Fishing, Robert Redford and Discipline.

I have an old man hobby. Fly fishing. I can’t get enough of it. I am one of those suckers who saw the movie, A River Runs Through It, and I was mesmerized. It wasn’t just the gracefulness of it all, seeing that brightly colored fly line looping through the air and landing on the water so delicately, but also the nostalgia and purity of it all. And Robert Redford’s voice. It’s as if he was calling to me, telling me to try it. And who says no to Robert Redford? So I decided to take it up, and along the way I persuaded my friend to do it, as well. I figured if I can go bass fishing and fling a baitcast rod and reel around, I could fly fish. Unfortunately, this was a gross miscalculation on my part on the amount of skill required to simply cast with a fly rod, much less actually catch a fish. 

It took me well over a year to have a decent cast, and even longer than that to catch my first trout. Unfortunately, my overwhelming desire to become a fly fisherman didn’t quite match up with my skill level. I realized quickly that if I was going to have any sort of success, I had to invest the time to learn the skills required to fish this way. A new way of casting. Learning to tie flies. Learning aquatic entomology (incredibly nerdy, I know). I had to discipline myself in order to be successful at what I wanted to do.

I believe there are two aspects that have to be considered when it comes to pursuing a hobby or talent. There is the desire side of things, and then there is the discipline side. In the world of creativity, the desire comes from a very spiritual place. It involves understanding how God made us, and it is where our motivation and inspiration comes from. The discipline is the practical, process side of creativity. 

Christ’s desire is to work in and through me to create a picture of His truth and grace to the rest of the world. I understand that He is calling me to submit to His desire for my life. That the rhythm of life that I live by when living the Christ life is a very unforced, very natural rhythm. I understand that my inspiration to create comes from seeing God working in my life and seeing his evidence in the world around me. All of this is well and fine. And I believe that it is probably the most essential part of creativity. The desire to create must be present in our lives. 

But there is the other side of the coin. The practical side. The side that requires discipline. All the inspiration and desire in the world doesn’t make me a better song writer, or musician. Good intentions don’t make me great. What good is my inspiration to create something if I lack the skills to be artistic?  This I believe is the practical side of creativity. As artists, we must be constantly striving to refine and improve our skills. We must be disciplined and work out our creative and artistic muscles.

I cannot just expect to sit down and write a great song if I am not regularly disciplining myself. One of my prayers when it comes to my song writing, and even my understanding of God’s character, is that He would increase my vocabulary for Him. I want to see and experience God in new ways, which provides new and fresh inspiration, but I need to have the vocabulary to accurately describe that which I want to say about God. And on top of that, what good are lyrics without the ability to craft them into something musical? Am I spending time honing my skills not only as a lyricist but as a musician as well?

So what does discipline look like for me as a songwriter? It means practicing my art on a regular basis. A daily basis. That means practicing guitar or any other instruments that I play. It means spending time each day writing lyrics. And also spending time thinking about how to say what I feel inspired to say in a new and different way. In the last several months for instance, I made it a personal goal to be writing more often and consistently. The goal to be writing at least two or three songs each month, as long as I can fit it into my schedule. 

We were created to do things well and quality doesn’t come when we just do things on a whim. It requires purpose, and forethought. It requires discipline. I don’t think that we were called to do things with mediocrity, and I believe that God is honored in our pursuit of excellence. 

I'm A Nerd And That's OK.

I read something a few days ago about the four stages, I guess you could say, of the creative process. I wish I had saved the link so that I could repost it and everyone could read it. If I find it, I’ll be sure to do that. But as I read it, one of the things that struck me was the idea of immersion. In other words, if someone is a creative person, and they want to create things, then the first step in the creative process is to study the medium of your preference.

There is no room for the causal creative if one ever hopes to do something great. Being a musician means that I immerse myself in music. I listen to it, I study it, I practice it, and then I make it. Choosing to be an artist, to exercise ones creativity and do so with excellence, means becoming a nerd to the thing that you love to do. Not just being content with liking to paint, or to play music, or to take pictures, but investing and pouring yourself into it. And this applies not only to what we would usually consider to be creative mediums, but really to anything that we are passionate about pursuing.

Let’s take NASCAR for instance. My brother-in-law works in NASCAR, and he views cars in a totally different way than I do. He is at the pinnacle of his game, and has worked for the biggest names in racing. The way he approaches his job reflects that. When I (or really, most people for that matter) see a car, I think…steering column, gas tank and change the oil. He sees it differently. He and the people in his industry analyze every aspect of the cars that they work with. They get to know every part of it. They know what every part does and use that knowledge and passion for what they do to make the best race car they can. And as strange as it may sound, the way he does his job is graceful and artistic. He does his job with excellence and passion, and there is an art to it. There is something to be said for that.

Most people hear a song and to them it’s something to listen to, something that plays on the radio, something that makes them feel a certain way. For me, it’s a blend of notes and chords and theory and lyrics and ideas and images that all form together into something beautiful. I can’t help but analyze it and figure out what makes it work, and at the same time, challenge myself to create something better than I have before. To push my own abilities and perhaps even do something that hasn’t been done yet. Sometimes I wish that I could approach creative things in a less critical way, but it’s just the way God wired me.

We can only begin to create great things by first becoming students of the things that we love. We have to become experts in our fields. That takes an investment because we will never really reach a point of knowing everything. I believe that the people who do the best things are also those who recognize how little they actually know. We must be committed. We must be in it for the long haul.

God created us to do excellent things. Whether it be working on race cars, or making music, or writing, or whatever. That doesn’t happen if we only half-heartedly pursue what we love. Whatever it is that you love to do, do it with passion and a desire for excellence.