i am an offering

Today’s post was going to be on the importance of being healthy as a worship leader (both physically and spiritually) but I need to put that on hold.  Look forward to those things tomorrow.

Today, however, I wanted to ask a question: How does your example (especially in ministry) affect how others worship God?

Desiring Invisibility is Much More Possible than Actually Being Invisible.

When we get up to lead worship, my hope is that our prayer and desire is to disappear so that God will be made more clear in people’s minds.  We study about who He is so we can give an accurate picture of the God we’re worshiping to the people we’re worshiping with.  We study encouragements from Scripture so we can encourage those who are worshiping with us and make them feel at home and welcome in God’s presence within the church.  But if we do all of those things and make unwise decisions or run over those we’re working with (even unintentionally) - we will not disappear.  Try as they might to get past the distraction that they see in us, the people that we’ve hurt or misled or ignored won’t be able to see anything but our mistakes.  Even if they put the best construction on things that they possibly can - in the back of their minds they’ll remember what happened.  As much as we want to disappear and make God the only thing visible through us, we’re always in the spotlight - faults and all.

A dear friend of mine in ministry and I just had an email exchange where my friend openly admitted that there was a struggle because of the way some parts of the music ministry was being handled.  My friend was very courteous and gracious (and very right, I might add) in addressing an issue that needed to be addressed.  I hope that I responded with humility and as much grace and courtesy as my friend showed me, but it got me thinking:  What we do affects how others worship God.

As much as we’d like to be invisible, it’s just impossible.  And as mature as many people within the church are to be able to forget about faults for a while and just worship God - more than likely even a small issue will nag at us when we see someone in leadership who we’re struggling with.  Even more so if it’s someone you see every Sunday or multiple Sundays (in the case of worship leaders and pastors.)

We Can’t Attain Perfection - But We Can Discipline Ourselves with Humility

We could spend our lives trying to make sure we never hurt anyone.  That would be impossible.  Even something that we feel wasn’t a big deal in the least could be a huge stumbling block to someone.  We are human, and we will fall.  But, God calls us to humility in everything we do - including our relationships.  He also calls us to think of others much more than ourselves.  Philippians 2:3-4 says this:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

It goes on to talk about having the attitude of Jesus - God Himself coming down to earth in the must humble form possible: the Creator of the Universe becoming a human.  Not just a human, but a human that came to serve us!

We can pray for humility and pray that we can look out for others’ interests much more than our own.  In everything we do, let’s do it as Peter suggests:

Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.” 1 Peter 4:11 (emphasis added)

Let’s live our lives as worship leaders (especially in ministry) “so that in all things God may be glorified.”

Well, today has been full of interesting comments and laughter because of the fact that there is a mouse apparently living under the Ministry Director’s mini-fridge in his office! It’s amazing how something so small can create such a different atmosphere.

It’s good to think about as we think about ministry. Small things can affect an entire church, even though we might think about it.

Negative effects:

• Small sin - Which in truth doesn’t exist. No sin is small. When there is unconfessed, unrepentent sin in leadership ugly things happen.
• Small vision - We cannot even begin to comprehend the vastness of God. Why do we limit the vastness of what He could be doing through the local church?
• Small attitudes - Even a tiny bit of negativity towards each other can influence people much more than we realize.
• Small planning - Ministry is hard work and needs to be prayerfully planned. While we definitely want to be open to the Holy Spirit’s promptings, we can’t blame our lack of planning on “waiting on the Holy Spirit.”

Positive effects:

• Small pride - “He who neglects discipline despises himself. But he who listens to reproof acquires understanding. The fear of the LORD is the instruction for wisdom, and before honor comes humility.” Proverbs 15:32-33 Humility is so important in ministry.
• Small view of ourselves compared to God - Without Him, we can do absolutely nothing.
• Small details - Quality is very important to have in a church. Pay attention to the detail of small things that could influence others to respect the church more and eventually come to a love of God (bulletin design, worship team training, publication design, Scripture readers that read with passion, many more)