What's In Your Job Description?

Here's a quick thought today for worship leaders (and pastors in general, I suppose) -

If your job - your worship ministry - were removed from the picture, would you be ok with that? Take it all away, and what would you do? Who would you be?

God has called his people to first and foremost spread the gospel. To be living pictures of his truth and grace to the world. In order for that to happen, we (his children) must be living life in such a way that our lives are:

1) intersecting with non believers and
2) interacting with those non believers.

If you're ministry keeps you so busy that you spend all of your time in an office researching the latest presentation software, the best online service for distributing charts to your musicians, which projector is the best, which loudspeaker system to put in your ministry wish list, etc... chances are your ministry is keeping you from doing your ministry. In other words, if your life is wrapped up in being a worship leader, then you need to reconsider a few things.

Being a worship leader is and always will be secondary to the call on your life to tell others about Christ. I'm the first person to advocate quality in our music and worship, which requires a time commitment. That is in fact what many of the posts on my blog are about. But this question is more about identity. Is your identity wrapped up in being a worship leader? Your identity should be found first and foremost in being a child of God and in being a minister of the gospel. Certainly God does gift many of us with musical abilities, and does call many of us to be worship leaders. It is a great responsibility, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. But being a worship leader is not meant to be the overarching purpose of our lives.

You can have one of the best worship ministries in town, you can have your music featured on the latest Worship Leader Song Discovery CD, you can be so big that people are paying you to go all over and talk about how to lead worship and build a worship ministry. But if you aren't getting out and meeting people that don't know Jesus and living life with them, then you've missed the point. I'm talking about actually investing in people that don't know Jesus. Doing things with them. Inviting them to your house for dinner.

It's sobering to realize that as a pastor, you don't actually know any non christians. There is no question that in the past I have been in this boat. I'm curious, do you find that your ministry keeps you from your true ministry? If your worship ministry were removed from the picture, would you have a ministry? Where do you find your identity? Is it in being a worship leader, or something more? Do you as a worship leader have relationships with people who do not know Jesus? Think about this throughout the week. Ask God to lay on your heart one individual that you know who does not know Christ. Make a plan for how to build a purposeful relationship with this person.

Lessons from The A Team.

I grew up watching the A Team. Not the new one. Not the one that came out in theaters last year. I mean the original, old school A Team. The one with Mr. T. It was an awesome show. Predictable? Absolutely. Great plots? Negatory. It was pretty much the same thing in every episode. But for a 6-year-old, it was the definition of awesomeness.

The best part in every episode was where the A Team would get captured by the bad guys. Inevitably they would be locked in a room with a bunch of tools, welding equipment, sheet metal and and old beater of a car (oh, and apparently guns, as well, since the A Team was always able to come out shooting). The A Team would then look at all of the stuff in the room and in a matter of a 30 second music and video montage, they would craft together a sweet armored vehicle, which would then be used as a means of escape. They were incredibly resourceful and also apparently quite gifted mechanics. Surely you've seen shows like this before. Maybe you've seen McGyver. The things that man could craft with some duct tape and papers clips was unbelievable.

The ability to make the most out of a given situation using only the things immediately available to you is one of the most important things for a creative individual to embrace. Shows like The A Team and McGyver remind me of the value of resourcefulness (if even in a cheesy way). Resourcefulness requires us to not only be purposeful in what we are creating, but stretches us in our creativity to work within our means.

There are certainly two sides to this discussion. Many would argue that their dreams and vision are too big for what they have available to them. And this certainly is a legitimate concern. But honestly, if you are dreaming and visioning, the reality is that you will always find that your dreams are bigger than your resources. It's the nature of dreaming. The responsibility of the artist is to figure out how to make that vision a reality, given our available resources. And most of us will never have everything that we want in order to see those visions completely fulfilled to their original form. Working within limitations causes us to think outside the box.

As a musician, there is much that I would like to do in my production. There are state of the tools that I would love to have at my disposal in order to produce my music. Would it sound better? In some ways yes. The overall production quality of the music would be much higher. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. So the question is, what do you do in the meantime? How do you create something great with very little? As artists we must force ourselves to be resourceful. To make the most of what we have. It forces us to use our creativity in ways that we might not normally use it. We must consider options and creative directions that we might not have considered otherwise. I believe that it makes us better artists.

Can a musician still produce a great song without all the bells and whistles that big budget records have? Yes. An artist right now that is very fresh in all of our minds is Bon Iver. Most are more familiar with his latest record, for which he just walked away with a Grammy award. But it's his first record that is really remarkable to me. For 'Emma, Forever Ago', was recorded in a cabin in the woods, basically on an SM57. Very, very basic. And yet it was voted to be one of the most influential records of the last decade. Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), is a great demonstration of resourcefulness. One of the cool byproducts of the home recording revolution is that it is forcing artists to be very experimental and resourceful with how they make their music. Some of the biggest artistic leaps and advancements are coming from the world of independent music and home/project recording.

There are also applications for churches, especially in worship and media ministries. Churches are one of the largest users and consumers of the latest technology. They dream big ideas and then convince everyone, including themselves that ministries will fail otherwise. And because most churches have large budgets for music and media ministries, many churches get the new toys and are never forced to consider if there are other ways to be artistic. And forget about ever considering whether or not the use of all the technology is actually artistic or tasteful at all.

I fully realize that technology is constantly evolving. It is not, in the words of Dennis Duffy, "cyclical", and churches will constantly find themselves in the position of having to reevaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of what they have. It is in many ways a necessary evil. But there is a difference in necessity and just going out and getting the newest and greatest things just because we can. Technology ≠ Art, at least in most cases. It is a tool, and nothing more. And in my humble personal opinion, I have seen very few examples of these new technologies used well.

There is also a spiritual side to resourcefulness. It is a close relative to sustainability. Working with and making the most of what we have been given. Operating within our means. Being a good steward. The idea of stewardship requires that we be resourceful. It requires that we think outside of the box in order to make the most of what we have and make it go further than it should. This is a very God honoring thing.

There is an inherent beauty in art that is born out the very struggle to see it realized. Are you a McGyver of an artist? Consider what this looks like for you as a creative individual.

Stuck In An Elevator or How To Survive a Creative Block Part I

One time I got stuck in an elevator for 13 hours. No joke. My friends often give me a hard time for being an exaggerator, but this is 100 percent true. And to make it worse, it was a small elevator, maybe 4‘x5’. I’m going to give you the abbreviated version of the story. In the interest of protecting the innocent, I have changed the names of my band members. Now you should know that we were three pretty big guys. Two of us were over six feet tall. One of us, Dandy Fenton was over 300 pounds. The other guy, Krandon Bees, was shorter, but weighed about as much as I did (approximately 220 pounds). So there wasn’t a lot of room to move around.

We were in Victoria, Texas for a couple of weeks to record at the church where one of my bandmates was an interning. It was a pretty big church, and it had a huge youth room that also had all of the gear my band needed to start recording. We were pretty jazzed about the opportunity to have free access to the equipment and to get started on recording some new tracks.

On a Wednesday night after all of the students and church staff had gone home, my band and I began unloading our instruments and gear into the youth room. The room was on the second floor and we were fortunate enough that the building had a small freight elevator. So we brought in all of our equipment and began to set things up. It was around midnight and we were hungry (we were hungry a lot) and decided to make a run to Whataburger before we started tracking.

Now there are moments in life when you make a decision that in hindsight you know was quite stupid. My stupid decision came in deciding not to take my cell phone with me. My drummer made the same stupid decision. Our thought process simply being, “We’re just going to Whataburger. We don’t need them”. Famous last words.

We got to Whataburger just fine and had our fill of fast food and giant Texas sized soft drinks. Then we made sure to grab a refill, and headed back to the church.

It was our laziness that sealed our fate. Make no mistake about it. Had we even exerted the smallest bit of effort, we could have avoided all of our troubles. But, feeling lazy when we returned to the church, having been filled up like plump little piglets, we made the decision to use the freight elevator as opposed to simply walking up a flight of stairs.

We made it about two or three feet off of the ground when the elevator stopped. There was the flickering of lights that one might associate with an elevator stopping, and then a few half nervous jokes. My drummer made the comment that it would probably start again in a moment after it reset. (I don’t know that elevators really reset. It’s just something you say.) But the elevator didn’t start moving. We were stuck. And as we assessed our situation, we discovered that not only were we stuck, but there were several factors that assured we were going to be stuck for a while. These included: 

• No air conditioning. This doesn’t seem like a big deal if you live in Colorado. In South Texas however, in mid summer, it’s quite a terrifying prospect. 

• The panel on the ceiling of the elevator (you know the one – it’s what everyone in the movies uses to escape situations like this) was bolted shut, and made of steel. There would be no theatrical escapes. 

• We could not open the elevator door. Again, you see this in movies a lot. It works really well with doors that open from the middle. Not with freight doors that open from one side. 

• The emergency call box didn’t work. Yup. That’s just bad luck. 

• We didn’t have our cell phones. This is where hindsight is 20/20. 

• The church offices were not located in the same building as the sanctuary and youth room. They were located across town in an office building. The building we were in would not be used again until Sunday morning. It was Wednesday night. 

There are many details about that night that I won’t mention because this blog would double or triple in length. Those may or may not include spooning each other on the floor in our boxer shorts (because it was hot and the floor of the elevator was cold) while we tried to sleep. If you are curious about the rest of the night, ask me about it sometime.

Long story short, we were finally rescued the next afternoon around 13 hours later, when another youth intern randomly brought a group of kids to the church to work on something in the youth room.

As I look back on it, the whole predicament raises some interesting questions. Namely - have you ever been stuck? I mean stuck in any way, not just in an elevator? Maybe your car was stuck in the mud or snow. Maybe you accidentally got locked in a room. Maybe you felt trapped in a relationship. I think it’s safe to say that most of us have experienced that before. It’s an incredibly frustrating place to be.

As a creative, have you ever experienced a creative block? If you have, you know that it is equally frustrating, having the desire to create but being unable to actually get anything out. It’s similar to being stuck on an elevator. Feeling trapped and claustrophobic. Sometimes it feels like creatively you are stuck in a box and don’t know how to get out of it.

In my next blog, I will let you in on a few lessons I learned through my elevator experience, and how to apply those to a creative block.

What Do You Think? - Christians and Creativity

Ok, all of you creative types. Musicians, artists, writers. A friend emailed me a link to this article from Relevant Magazine yesterday. It was an interesting read and brings up some questions that are good for discussion. I've taken the liberty of putting a few quotes from the article below to discuss if you feel so led.

The article can be found in its entirety here.
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"The true artist displays to the world a manifestation of the inner meditations of their heart and mind....In community that is caring and healthy, an artist brings not only beauty and inspiration but also powerful observational skills and spiritual awareness. We can become a source of joy, blessing and the voice of God in other peoples’ lives.”                        

- Linnea Gabriella Spransy is an award-winning painter and leader of the artist community at the Boiler Room.

What do you think about that? Should the arts play a role in pointing other people to God? In what way? How should creative individuals view their role as believers? Is there a ministry there?

"Large-scale production can create a beautiful environment for people to worship in...I make services that I would want to go to.”

- Whitney George is the creative director of Church on the Move in Tulsa, Okla.

I admit, there is much I left out of this guys response, including the fact that he admits that a large scale production environment isn't for everyone. But what do you think about that? Are churches putting too much emphasis on the "production" of worship? Does production, big or small, play a role for you personally in how you worship? Do you think the church does a good job at bringing art into worship? Is is well executed?

 "Our challenge is just, don't worry about the business component—worry first about the Kingdom."

- Chad Johnson is the founder of Come&Live!, a nonprofit mission organization that joins hands with artists and “musicianaries” to provide guidance, direction and accountability. 

How do artists who are followers of Christ measure success? Is is possible to be accepted into the art community, be commercially successful and be a believer?

"Ultimately, I wanted to create a piece of art that would be taken at face value, that would be judged because it's a piece of art, not because a Christian created it or didn't create it. I believe God has made us to create things—that's what I want to do."

- Nathan Clarke is the founder of Fourth Line Films and the director of the award-winning documentary Wrestling for Jesus.

Is it fair for art to be judged based off of whether or not it was created by a Christian? Is one more influential than another? Can spiritual, Godly things be found in art that was created by people who don't know Jesus?

"The question I have to ask is, 'Did the medium serve the content?'...It happens when we don't think of the story before we figure out how we're going to tell it...We don't start with a turntable and projection and say, 'OK, now we have these things, what are we going to tell?'... I think what ends up happening is that the medium trumps the message because we want to be relevant..." 

- Blaine Hogan is a former actor and the current creative director at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago.

Do Christians do a good job of being tasteful with technology and art? Have churches elevated the medium over the message? Is it possible to find a healthy balance, and if so, how?

All quotes were taken from the Relevant Magazine article, "Is There A Place For Creative Christians?"

I'll Never Be A Rockstar

Let's face it. I’m never gonna be a rockstar. Yes, I make music, and I do make some sort of living from it. Yes, I too had a dream once of being a rock star. I did all the things necessary to achieve this. I played in rocks bands. I wore clothes that made me look like I was a rockstar. I hung out with other people that played rock. I moved to Nashville, because I lived in the delusion that if I was closer to the industry, I had a better chance of “making it”. I had my own band, and I toured around and played gigs all over the place.

I even traveled internationally. Yes, you heard right. I am an international sensation. Show choir in Japan. In the town of Hartlepool, UK, in the 5-10 year old demographic, I’m as big as Kermit the Frog. Children sing my songs in the parks. And then there were those people that I met in Russia in the middle of nowhere who had me play, “Our God Is An Awesome God” (though I really only know the chorus and just hummed the verse), over and over and over again. I’m sure they love me too. International status, baby. In the end, however, I never became a rock star.

This wasn’t totally by circumstance. Much of it has been my choice. I played in a band right out of high school that got a record contract. I chose to leave the band the moment that labels started sniffing around. I’ve had other occasions that I’ve brushed up against that industry. But I’ve never bothered to pursue it that much. Why you ask? There are lots of reasons really. And there were some clues along the way that I wasn’t meant for stardom. Some red flags that perhaps I wasn’t destined for the limelight. I’ve taken the liberty of listing just a few below: 

1. Girl jeans. That's right. I cannot and will not wear girl jeans. I can’t in good conscience wear jeans tighter than what my wife wears. Lots of actual men who are musicians really fancy wearing a woman’s jeans, or at least something so tight that only a woman should be wearing them. I, on the other hand, like to be able to sit down in the clothes that I wear. Plus, I don’t have a great butt. It’s best hidden under normal fitting clothes. 
2. I’m big boned (my wife will be less mad at me if I say big boned as opposed to fat). Aside from Zac Brown, or John Popper (though he actually lost a ton of weight) there aren’t a whole lot of rock stars that weigh over 120 pounds. I weigh about double that. This means that any sort of mechanical or hydraulic device designed to launch me far into the air during a rock and roll show, or any device designed to raise me from underneath the stage is gonna have to work twice as hard to do so. 
3. I have a giant beard. Again, there are exceptions to this rule, but the majority of rockers are smooth as a babies butt. I’ve had a beard since I was about 20 years old. I shaved it once a couple of years ago as part of a game, and I ended up looking like chester the molester without it. Women would grab their children and hold them close by their side when I was near. Not good. Also, beards are not good for pyrotechnics. Too easy to catch my face on fire when huge explosions and fireworks are going off all around me. 
4. I lack a cool haircut. I cut my own hair. And not in that cool, “I just gave myself a hipster haircut and added red highlights”, kinda way. It’s more of a, “I’m too cheap to pay someone money to do this, but not quite talented enough to be cutting my own hair”, sorta way. So it's best kept very short, or hidden under a hat. 
5. I’ll never be known for my lifestyle more than for my talent. That’s right. I’m not enough of a ladies man to to make the cover of a celebrity tabloid for dating Jennifer Aniston and three other actresses at the same time. And my name sounds bad combined into a celebrity name. “Chrisifer”, just sounds like someone is making fun of me because I can’t climb the ropes in gym class. Nor am I so much of an idiot to repeatedly end up in jail (except for that one time) for bad driving, substance abuse, or just being a dumb human being. This also means I’ll never be in the care of Dr. Drew, which is actually kind of a bummer. 

And aside from the obvious, I realized at some point that the reason I wanted to be a rock star was purely for selfish reasons. Sure I tried to convince myself that it was what God wanted me to do. That I was doing God a favor. But the reality was, that I just wanted people to like me and tell me how great I was. What a good guitar player I was, or vocalist, or song writer, or whatever.

It’s difficult for musicians to not be self absorbed. Being able to play music and do it well really strokes the ego. Its not that there is anything wrong with being a star. Its a question of motivation really, and whether or not God created you to be that. And I truly believe that God’s plan for some of us is to be that kind of person. A star. And that He would be glorified in that. But not me. And to this day, I continually have to put that part of myself to death.

Our giftedness and talents are a gift from God to be used to bring glory to Him, and not to ourselves. So as a musician or worship leader, or anyone who is gifted creatively in any way, be honest with yourself. Is pride something that you struggle with? Are your motives something other than the desire to honor and glorify God? Is pride and selfishness something that you need to die to? 

The Pursuit of Excellence

And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Colossians 3:17

I heard an interesting story about a very well known worship leader once. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s a good story, nonetheless, and applicable to this blog. Because I don’t know if it’s true, I’m choosing not to include said worship leaders name. The story goes that way back in the day before he was a worship mega star, this individual was living in an apartment complex in the town where he was on staff at a church. He was practicing away at several worship songs in his living room with the windows open. After about an hour or so, a dude that lived upstairs came down and knocked on the worship leaders door. When he opened the door, the guy said in an annoyed manner something to the effect of, 

“Dude, play something different. You’ve been playing the same thing for an hour.”

The problem was that the worship leader had been practicing several songs during that time, not just one song. This served as a wake up call for him, and proved to be an instrumental moment in helping to define him as a worship leader and helping to define his unique style. He was shocked to realize that every thing he was playing sounded exactly the same. His songs lacked creativity and originality, and he was forced to consider if he was pursuing his music with excellence. 

This brings up an interesting question: Are you as a worship leader pursuing excellence? 

I think there is something to be said about doing things well. To go above and beyond in the pursuit of excellence. Not being content to live with mediocrity. I believe God is glorified when we pursue excellence in our ministry, in how we lead worship, and in our musicianship. For worship leaders, this means moving beyond four chords and a basic strum pattern. It means practicing. It means furthering your skill set as a musician, taking it to the next level. 

Excellence is a bi-product of walking in faith. This is not about setting a bar of musicianship that all worship leaders must attain. Excellence does not equal knowing X amounts of chords and being proficient at all major, minor, pentatonic and mixolydian scales. I fully realize that music comes easier to some more than others. Regardless of this, our responsibility is to take the gift we have been given and to pour ourselves into it, pushing ourselves to improve. This is about abiding in the person of Christ. Walking in faith. When you are allowing the person of Christ to work in and through you, then you will find that you are not content to remain in the same place and be stagnant.

Creatively speaking, challenge yourself to think beyond the status quo. Don’t allow yourself to be content to play a certain song the way that everyone else plays it. How can you bring a fresh perspective and creative take to a particular song? As you think through these things, you will find that your creativity will force your musicianship to improve. Your skill level will always be working to keep up with where your imagination takes it. 

If we are truly representatives of the person of Christ, then our actions are a reflection of who He is and what He has done. So if my ministry is anything less than excellent, then that reflects on people’s opinion of who Jesus is. Christ did not live half way. He did not live half heartedly. His love was full and excellent and powerful. Is your ministry and your music that full and that excellent and powerful? 

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.