i am an offering

Recently I heard the story of a lady who worked as a volunteer in a church.  She had the keys to the kitchen.  She was the “kitchen master” you might say.  She would offer to prepare food for many church events and the kitchen was hers.

It came time for God to take her home.  As the people were gathered for the funeral, they went downstairs to enjoy refreshments and people wondered where all of the refreshements were.  After several minutes of wondering, someone finally said, “Well, this lady had the keys to the kitchen and she always provided the food.”  The people gathered realized they would need to prepare their own food.  There was only one problem.

The kitchen was locked.

My Own Journey

I used to think I understood music and worship ministry.  What I’m coming to realize more and more is that I understand music and worship technicalities. I can usually tell if a song’s going to work for our congregation, I can lead a rehearsal, I can teach someone how to vamp - blah, blah, blah.  But what I’m realizing that I absolutely need to understand is music and worship ministry.  As in – time, and a lot of it.  Time to invest in people and develop and disciple new leaders.  Time to invest in eternally significant things, not just picking a song that will be a hit for a while and we might forget in a year.

Do You Build Worship Teams, or Worship Ministry Teams?

We’re all familiar with worship teams – in fact, we probably implement them every week.  They look like this:

• Worship Leader (someone who might sing and play and instrument such as guitar or piano)
• Guitar player
• Keyboard player
• Bass player
• Drummer / percussionist
• Singers

The worship leader leads these teams, leads the congregation in worship, leads rehearsals, teaches these teams how to play together, etc.  But what happens if the worship leader dies “with the keys to the kitchen” so to speak?  The team is now left on there on trying to figure out how to lead the team, the congregation, rehearsals and more.  What we need are worship ministry teams that look like this:

• Someone in a leadership role who is mentoring people in music and worship ministry
• Multiple worship leaders who lead the congregation, teams and rehearsals.
• Creative teams to help plan worship services and pick music.
• People who are passionate about connecting people into music and worship ministry.
• People who enjoy administration and can schedule teams, input important records, etc.

Now what happens?  No one person carries the keys.  The team is thriving and continues to thrive if someone moves on.

My Mistakes - My Goal

I am guilty as charged of falling into the trap of being the “keymaster.”  Are you?  What can we do to make worship ministry teams and not just worship teams?  Would you join me in taking the time to invest in the servants in your church to build a thriving ministry, not just a group of people who rehearses and leads music during services?

So what happens when we think we don’t have the right people in place to raise up?  It’s time to ask some questions:

• Are you praying?  If you aren’t praying for a person to train and raise up, chances are that God’s not going to give you one.  It’s possible that He would, but much more likely that He will if you ask Him.
• Are you looking?  Or are you just saying “There’s no one available” when you haven’t even looked?
• Are you asking?  It’s very likely that your pastor or another ministry leader would know of someone with the gifts and abilities you’re looking for.  Ask them!
• Are you equipping?  Surely you already have several volunteers involved in your music and worship ministry.  Have you been training all along, with the intention of raising up someone out of that group?

In summary, the best way to avoid burnout in your ministry is to let go of our selfishness and our fear, learn how to train and equip, and pray, look, and ask if there is anyone available to raise up.  Once that person (or persons) is found, the burnout we would face from trying to do everything ourselves will go away, and a new leader will emerge.

This week we’ll finish looking at some reasons why we might be afraid to raise up new worship leaders, which eventually causes us to burn ourselves out.

One of the reason that we don’t want to raise up new worship leaders is that we don’t know how.  This is a very valid reason with some potentially easy solutions:

• First of all, learn how.  This might seem obvious, but many times we rely on our own talent to get us through things.  Because we rely on our own talent, we don’t know how to teach and train others.  It is our responsiblity to continuously learn and train ourselves.  I believe the most important training we could ever go through is that of learning how to equip others.
• Recognize that you might not have the gift of teaching.  The Bible is clear that certain gifts are given to certain people.  Perhaps you can play and instrument, sing, and lead worship really well but you have no idea how to teach others how to do it.  Find people who do.  Find music teachers within your church or even within your community.  Find people that can teach you how to be a better leader, and let those people teach your volunteers as well.
• Make time to teach.  So often in the world of church music we are constantly rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing.  Schedule some time for teaching.  Come up with a monthly workshop time to teach your volunteers.  If that is too often, do it quarterly, or even twice a year.  Make time to teach.

Tomorrow we’ll look at what happens when we think we don’t have the right people in which to pass on leadership.

So, we want to raise up new worship leaders and avoid burning ourselves out, but we’re deathly afraid of what might happen when we “let go of the reins.”

The first problem is that we really shouldn’t have been holding the reins in the first place. When we place our own control of a ministry over God’s leading of it, we are really creating an idol out of our own ministry. A certain amount of control is good (making sure that the ministry is Biblical; having control of who is involved in the ministry, so that lifestyle is consistent with the ministry, etc.), but when we refuse to step down from leading worship for a Sunday and let someone else do it because we want things “perfect,” we are bowing to the control idol.

Instead of thinking, what if this goes wrong, or what if that goes wrong, have you thought of these what ifs?

• What if the young teen who plays guitar is allowed a chance to lead worship in youth group or a small group, and eventually becomes a dedicated, God-honoring, worship leader, devoting his life to training, teaching and leading others?
• What if the classical guitarist who has been seen as playing an old-fashioned style is allowed to use his talent to play one of the most beautiful musical intros heard in quite some time? (I know the author of the post definitely didn’t see the guitar player in that way, but I’ve always wondered what to do with classical guitar in contemporary worship, have you?)
• What if the young lady with not much formal vocal training is mentored, trained and given the opportunity to be a vocalist on the worship team? Will she be able to one day glorify God by be involved in recording vocals for worship CD’s?

You get the point, hopefully. So often we’re wrapped up in the negative what ifs that we don’t even think about the possibility that the what ifs could be absolutely positive. In fact, they could change a life for God’s glory.

So, how do we deal with the fact that we are by nature selfish and don’t want to relinquish the recognition that comes from being a worship leader?

First, let’s recognize that certain recognition is okay, but not in the way you might think.  Instead of wanting to be recognized for what you can do, or how you can lead, be recognized for who you are:

• You are one who has been purchased by the price of Jesus’ blood on the cross.
• You are one in whom the Holy Spirit dwells.
• You are part of a holy nation, chosen by God for His own posession, a royal priest and king. (See 1 Peter 2)
• You are no longer dead in your sins, but alive in Christ.
• You are one who is becoming more and more like Jesus every day.

When we begin to recognize who we are (especially after realizing who we once were), we realize that we we do doesn’t matter nearly as much.  The things we do are only in gratitude to who we are.  Once we realize this concept, our selfishness for recognition goes away because we realized that everything we do is to promote the One who made us who we are.  In this way, we are willing to share ministry.

So, how do we deal with fear?  More on that later today.