Worship thoughts Pt.3: Why "Corporate" Matters

OK, sorry for the delay in getting to this. Busy busy.

I finally finished tracking the children’s record a couple of days ago. Keith is starting the mix, and hopefully we’ll be printing and releasing the sucker very soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Anyway, continuing on in my multi-part series on worship and worship leading (the other stuff I’ve written so far is here and here), today we’re going to talk about gathering together in a “corporate” (communal, group, lots-of-people-in-one-place, etc) context, and why the “corporate gathering” is important and unique in the realm of singing and God-worship.

This will probably be the least music-related of all my worship thoughts. Many of you know that I have very specific views on the Church. This will speak more to that than it will to music, specifically.

Let me be clear from the outset and say this. When I use the word “corporate,” I don’t have any particular size of form or method in mind. I am simply referring to the fact that it’s always been good and right for believers to get together and worship God, as a group, sharing the same time and space. I have opinions about “institutional church” (whatever that means) and “traditional church” (again, whatever that means), etc. But I’m not going to go into that here.

How do I know that corporate gatherings are good and right? Well, we sure have lots of scripture passages devoted to how to meet and live and be together. Aside from the rather famous passages like 1 Cor 12-14 and Romans 12, one could argue that aside from a handful of New Testament books, the entire New Testament was written to read to a large group. And by “large,” I just mean more than 2-3 folks.

And as for singing together, the word “sing” appears, as an instruction and/or command, more than any other word in the Bible. And –especially in the Psalms – you have loads and loads of text and subtext devoted to song leaders, music leaders, and worship leaders. If there are leaders, then the assumption would be that there are followers. And that adds up to a group.

So, I doubt anyone here has serious arguments against any of this basic doctrine of group-gathering-for-the-glory-of-God, but in case you do, post something in the comments or email me and we can hash that out. Despite how opinionated I sound, I really am willing to engage some disagreeing dialogue. Bring it on and maybe we'll all come out smarter.

For now, I’ll move on to the specific topic at hand. I’m a worship leader, rather than a Bible scholar or an ecclesiology expert, but today I’m going to attempt to speak outside of my normal wheelhouse a little.

Basically, here’s what I’d like to propose. Simply this: that the “just me and God” view of worship is, at best, incomplete and, at worst, a little dangerous. And because that view is inadequate, the best thing for Jesus followers to do is to continue to meet together – often and with intentionality – for worship of the Lord (which includes singing) as one body.

Make sense? I'll explain a little further, just in case.

At various times in the early years of my spiritual journey, I heard two principles over and over again.

The first was usually posed as a rather loaded question, and it went something like this:

“If you were alone on a deserted island, and all you had was your relationship with Jesus, would that be enough?”

Sometimes it was the same question, only all you had was your Bible on the deserted island.

When asked this question, you were supposed to be able to say yes. And so of course any time you felt like you weren’t at a place where you could say yes to this question, you were supposed to feel sufficiently guilty/convicted, and said guilt/conviction was supposed to compel you do some stuff that would get you to a place where you could say yes.

Let me give you some free advice before I dive into this. If anyone ever poses a question to you that is supposed to be a litmus test for your spiritual legitimacy, make sure that question has nothing to do with a deserted island. In fact, make sure it has to do with something that is actually practical and real and applicable to life. Why? Well, I have never known anyone who has ever spent significant time on a deserted island, and I would venture to guess that most of you haven’t either. And I don’t anticipate that I, or anyone else that I know, will ever spend time alone on a deserted island. If I did think this possibility was in my future, honestly, I would probably be worrying a lot more about how to make an ocean-worthy raft out of bamboo or how to start a fire with my bare hands or how to survive consuming only palm fronds and saltwater.

I’m not at all ashamed to say that the possibility of being on a deserted island compels me to learn how to be Bear Grylls more than it does to memorize Bible verses or meditate on Jesus with more intensity. Perhaps this makes me a bad Christian. If the point of being on a deserted island is to die and go very quickly from the island to heaven, then I suppose I get the logic. Otherwise…

The point I’m trying to make is that the proposition of spending life in some sort of societal vacuum is sort of ridiculous and inconceivable. It’s certainly unlikely and impractical. So why were people always asking me if I loved Jesus enough to pull it off?

I don’t really know the answer. I think it probably had something to do with the fear that all of us were simply claiming Jesus as our Savior out of some kind of peer pressure or family tradition. I understand that fear. But – and here’s a little more free advice – if I were you, I’d always be a little wary of developing a spiritual ethic around fear of what people might do. Legalism is nearly always the only fruit that that seed will bear. And in this case, I think that fear drove some folks to over-individualize the idea of conversion and sanctification.

All I’m trying to say is that the "deserted island" question – and the answer it was meant to provoke – serves to pull us toward a conclusion that has little value in the life that most of the world lives or will live or should live. Are we going to have times of solitude, some voluntary and some not, in our lives? Absolutely. Can those times be good and growth-intensive periods for us? Definitely. Will we need to have certain spiritual strengths in order to persevere thru those times? Yes. But “just me and God” is certainly not a picture of the primary way that we are to relate to and grow with God thru the course of our lives.

And I would argue that it’s not the primary way we are to express ourselves in worship either. Some of you will disagree with me on that point, and that’s okay.

Before I move on, let me quickly address the second principle that I repeatedly encountered as a young believer.

It went like this:
“If you were the only one who would ever get saved, Jesus would have still died on the cross, just for you, to get you into heaven.”

I promise I’m not trying to be controversial here, but this is, strictly speaking, not a biblical idea. Sorry. Is it absolutely wrong or heretical? I don’t think so. But it’s just not biblically supportable. Yes, Jesus died and rose again to save sinners. But just as important (if not more so) is the fact that Jesus died and rose again to establish His Church and to empower His Kingdom.

The simple fact is that the Bible never says anything like “if it was only you, He still would’ve endured the cross.” That idea can be inferred from scripture, but it’s not a clearly expressed idea in the text.

I don’t know for a fact that He wouldn’t have died to save just one person. And I’m not even saying that it’s a bad philosophical proposition. I’m just saying that we don’t know it to be true. And worse, there’s really not a lot of reason to tell people that. Again, I understand why people went around saying it. I suppose they wanted us all to know that we were specifically known and loved – as individuals – by the Lord God. I agree with that, and the Bible agrees as well. After all, we were knit together in out mothers’ wombs and fearfully made and such.

But the downside to that way of thinking is that it further drives us – like the earlier principle – into a view of our faith as some sort of purely (or at least primarily) individualized endeavor. And that’s just not the case.

You see, we were meant to see ourselves as a collective, “Chosen People.” As a royal priesthood, a holy nation, etc. I am not The Body of Christ in the world. We are. I am not the Bride of the coming Jesus. We are.

We were meant to need each other. We are actually made to need each other. Many of you have heard this before, but in the early part of Genesis, everything that God did was followed with “and it was good” or “and it was very good.” The first “not good” moment was when the Lord looked at Adam and said “it’s not good for a man to be alone.”

And that’s been true ever since. What was Jesus’ prayer in the garden before His crucifixion (John 17)? “… that they [we] be perfectly one,” as He and the Father were one. And what did Jesus, in that same prayer, say would be the most legitimizing factor of Jesus as Messiah and King? Our love for each other.

So, why does “corporate” matter? It matters because when we meet together, we are drawing upon an aspect of our relationship with the Lord that cannot be accessed without the Body. It matters because it gives us a chance to love each other and serve each other and give each other money and put others before ourselves. It matters because, when we sing together, we are saying that we all agree about who God is and who we are. It matters because it forces us to sing along even when the style of music isn’t our favorite. It matters because it challenges us to use our hands and bodies and voices in ways that aren’t the most comfortable to us.

This leads me to my final point. When we all get together to worship, it’s okay if some people stand and some people sit and some people raise hands and some people dance and some people don’t do anything. That’s okay. But it’s not the way it should always be, all the time. Sometimes we should just all do the same thing, as a way of saying “this isn’t about me, this is about us.”

And our level of expression before the Lord shouldn’t always be rooted in what is “comfortable” or “natural” to each of us. Sometimes we should do the exact opposite of what is “natural” simply because the Kingdom of God is a place where first things are last and humble things are exalted. Sometimes we should resist our urges to be “who we are,” simply because you are not your own.

We should always always always be open to the Lord calling us out of our comfort zones, privately and publicly. If you say “well, I will never lift my hands in worship because that’s just not my way,” you’re in trouble. I don’t know any other way to say it. Be careful with that kind of talk. It has no place in the Kingdom. Other than outright sins, Jesus followers aren’t allowed to have “I will never” in their vocabulary.

And that is what is so dangerous about the “just me and God” mentality. It insulates us from the differences between us and other Christ followers. We need to be around other people to remind us that the Body of Christ is made up of many parts, and all the parts need each other. We need to be around other people to see them dancing while we are standing still; to see them sitting in sober silence with their eyes closed when we are singing at the top or our lungs.

When we worship together, we do something emotional and vulnerable together. When does that happen in life? We need that. It shapes us and molds us and reminds us that other people are just as important as we are. And that they are just as messed up as we are. And if we’re open and willing, it reveals to us more of God’s power and Kingdom thru His people.

So, it’s absolutely okay for you and me to sit alone in our closets and worship in isolation with the Lord. In many ways, that taps into a hugely valuable (maybe even essential) aspect of our relationship with God and His Spirit. But if that’s the only way – or even the primary way – that we relate to God, we are missing out on the fullness of what He has for us in worship.

And if you’re a worship leader, this overarching view of the Kingdom -- and the gathering church -- is key to doing your “job” well. Singing together matters. Lifting our hands together matters. Giving our money together matters. Praying together matters. Agreeing together matters. Being emotional together matters.

Corporate matters.

Thoughts?

Worship thoughts Pt 2: The Worship Leader

The job/role of the worship leader.

Let me start by saying that, if you want to get into the finer points of this one, context is key. There’s obviously going to be a vast array of places and groups and times within which one might find oneself leading worship. (Wow, that was a sentence that could’ve been better.) But I can’t possibly try to cover all that here. Instead, let’s just paint with a broad brush and then you guys can hopefully do the fine tuning for your own individual contexts.

So, here we go. By the way, I’m going to use some terms that I don’t care for, simply because not using them would force me to find and define new words to replace them. And that’s just more work for everyone. When I have to use a word that I don’t like, I’ll put it in quotes so that you know I’m pulling that word from The Great Ancient Glossary of Baggage-Laden Christian Lingo.

The role (or job) of a worship leader is a 3-step process:
1) Determine the spiritual identity/health of a given “congregation.” You could call this identity/health the where they are (spiritually) of the group.
2) Acknowledge that identity and resolve to love the people right where they are.
3)Take the group as far as you can, in the time allotted to you, to a new where they are, which is to say, deeper into love for and fellowship with the Lord.

OK, so that may be hard to decipher. So let me say it in a shorter way.

The role of a worship leader is to acknowledge where his/her people are and then to lead them from that point into a deeper maturity.

Make sense now?If not, here it is, really short: Acknowledge, Lead, Mature.

In other words, if you are working in a sort of “full time” capacity with a group of people (like, say, you’re "on staff" at a church or leading consistently with your home group or something), then you are constantly acknowledging the identity and health of the group (yourself included, because you’re a part of that group; more later on that) and constantly trying to help the group mature and grow and express at a deeper level.

But if you’re only with a group for a short period (like, say, a one-night “gig” or a retreat or a summer camp or something), you have a different sort of strategy. The overall assignment is the same. You just have less time to do it, and maybe you change your expectations for how far you can go with them.

Got it? Making sense? Thoughts? If so, post them.

Before I’m done, here’s one important note. No matter how long you are with a group (for one night, for two years, or indefinitely), you are part of that group. Every determination that you have about them; every goal you have for them; every frustration you aim toward them; all of those things include you. Always keep that in mind. Nothing ruins spiritual leaders faster than an absence of community.

Which leads me to my last point. I don’t really include this in my broad-strokes description of the worship leader’s job, because it’s just too nuanced to try to work it in, but I’ll say it here, because this is key to the way I lead (and to the way I attempt to fulfill the “3-step” approach that I’ve outlined above).

Be honest. Be real. Be vulnerable.

The two most common things that are said to me are:
“Thanks for singing songs in keys that I can sing.”
“Thanks for being a real person.”

I’ll address the first one later in the series. I suspect that some of you aren’t going to like that one.

But the second one ought to be significant to us. Why would people say that to me so often? If “being real” is fairly common among worship leaders, there would be no reason to pull me aside, time after time after time, and thank me for doing it. And I’ll be honest, sometimes they’re not thanking me, they’re just saying it as a fact, for better or for worse.

I remember a few years ago I led worship at this big week-long college thing where there were like 3000 college students. I was with them for a full 6 days, so they got more than enough of me. I’m not sure what was different about that week than other things I’ve done, but for some reason, I heard some variation of the “you guys are real people” thing probably 25 times. I’m serious. And the funny thing was, it didn’t always sound like a compliment. Sometimes it sounded like a puzzled, what-planet-are-you-from accusation. It wasn’t like they were picking on me or mad or anything. It was just an honest “I haven’t seen this before,” or maybe “aren’t you supposed to be cooler than this?” kind of thing.

I won’t attempt to explain or over-evaluate all that. What I do know is this. Among the thousands of qualified worship leaders in this country, I’m not even close to being the best singer or the best songwriter or the best instrumentalist or whatever. I don’t think those things have been the primary contributors to my 15-plus years in this field. I honestly think people call me because I try to bring something genuine, something “just like you, only maybe more messed up” to the table. And not everybody likes what I do. I’m not offended or holier-than-thou about that. It is what it is, and there is plenty of worship-leading work to go around.

But I do think that people are longing to be led by leaders who are accessible and real. They want to be led by people who are participants in the worship; co-travelers on the journey. They don’t want rock stars. Or if they do, they shouldn’t. Rock stars look at a crowd and see fans. Worship leaders look at a crowd and see family.

OK, that’s enough of my rambling. Thoughts?

Worship thoughts Pt 1: Definition of Worship

Let’s start out with a wide angle lens and then focus in.

For the sake of time, I won’t define worship as anything other than the worship of God. Obviously people can and do worship other things, people, etc. But instead of going into the philosophical and cultural nuances of all that, I’ll just give you my definitions of worship as they relate to the Jesus-following life. I think it’s pretty easy and appropriate to use those definitions to talk about any sort of worship (i.e. to take the God-words out of my definitions and insert other words), but that’s really out of the scope of what I was doing at the seminar. I was speaking to Jesus-following leader-types who hopefully have some mechanism for rooting out idolatry in their lives. So again, let’s just assume that we’re talking about worship of the Trinitarian God here. Cool?

Moving on.

Broadly speaking, worship is simply this: in view of what God has done and is doing, we offer ourselves – momentarily and continuously – to the Lord as living sacrifices. If that sounds familiar, it’s supposed to. I took it from Romans 12. I like using that passage as a blueprint for worship, simply because that’s what it claims to be. I like the idea of saying “sure, singing is worship, but this says that real worship is the lifelong act of offering our bodies up for God’s discretionary use.”

The word-picture is rich: one of a person voluntarily taking on the role that – in the Jewish or Roman (etc) heritage – would’ve been occupied by a valuable, but dead, animal. (Lots of stuff in Leviticus if you want to read up on this.) As a general concept for worship as life, I think this is a pretty great way to go at it.

So, again, if we look at worship from a broad, lifestyle perspective, we’re simply defining it as intentionally devoting oneself to the Lord, over and over, deeper and deeper, throughout life.

Any issues with that? Comments are welcome.

Now let’s get more narrow. After all, most people, when asking for a definition of worship, are probably trying to hone in on something that they can apply in the more specific context of “what are we supposed to do when Christians get together and say ‘let’s worship’?”

That definition has a little more texture, a little more complexity. There will definitely be disagreement about this among varying religious upbringings and spiritual leanings and such, but here’s what I think.

Narrowly defined – and for the purpose of use in basic Christian dialogue and practice – worship is the collective, corporate and unified expression of the people of God, in acknowledgement of Who He is, in appreciation for all He does, and in participation of His Kingdom work. That’s wordy, I know, but this ain’t something that we want to just rush thru. This is the worship of God we’re talking about.

But I know that definition is long, so let me do it another way. Worship is what happens when people who know God get together and agree about – and with – Him (think Acts 2-4, 1 Corinthians 12-14, etc).

Better? Well, either way, now we have a good starting point.

That’s about all I have for this first entry, but let me say this.

Some of you might think “but what about private worship? What about the me-and-God times of intimate praise?”

I’m not saying those times aren’t worship. According to my broader definition, they absolutely are. Time alone (mediation, prayer, fasting, study, etc) is hugely important to the Christian life, but I’m not sure that I’d ever want to call that my primary “worship” time. I’m not trying to be legalistic here. Again, remember that using the broader definition, all that stuff is worship. But one of the things that I’m learning is that we really are missing out on all that worship is if we undervalue the “believers gathered together” aspect of it.

I mean, think about how many times Paul talks about what should be happening in the group as a whole versus how much he talks about personal quiet time. It ain't even close.

And honestly, I just think those personal worship times have been heavily overemphasized in recent years, to the detriment of our corporate, unified worship times. Again, I"m not saying people are praying and meditating too much. I'm saying that sometimes we treat our corporate worship times as personal worship times, and that's not really the point.

Way too many times, we stand in a room full of several hundred people and sing songs about “me.” Way too often, we hear “it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing, you need to worship God in your own way.” There’s some truth and value in that sort of thing, but there’s some potential harm there as well.

I’ll cover all this a lot more in the “Why does “corporate” matter? sections, but for now, just know that I am trying to get to the heart of what it means to deeply enjoy the worship of God, in all its facets. So I want to make sure define worship in a way that brings balance among those facets.

To that end, let's spend some time talking about the power of unified Jesus followers agreeing in song (and otherwise) that God is great.

More to come.

We’re in Tyler, TX tonight and tomorrow for Naomi’s adoption finalization hearing, so I will probably post part 2 of this on Wednesday or Thursday, and then another entry every 2-3 days.

So…

Thoughts? Disagreements? Questions?

If requests for free music were $100 bills...

...I'd be a multi-thousandaire today. Hey, thanks to everyone for showing interest in my somewhat out-of-nowhere instrumental music. I just sent out the third batch. I probably won't send out any more for a while. If you still want to hear them, you're out of luck, because I'm done, at least for now. If I get more requests, I'll get them out in a week or so.

In the meantime, I'm going to take the worship topics 1-2 at a time. I was hoping that more of you would actually read what I wrote and actually respond to it appropriately by saying "I'd like to hear about this specific thing," but instead most of you just said, "yeah, I'd love to hear all your thoughts on worship." I mean, I'm flattered, but I've already blogged more this week than I have in the last 2 months, so the prospect of writing a mini-book on worship is a tad overwhelming.

Oh well, I live to serve. And eat queso. But mainly to serve.

So I'm working on the first batch of worship thoughts right now. I'm not going to write a ton (at least not on purpose), but hopefully we can get some discussion going in the comments. Also, the seminar was recorded, so I'll try to get a link to that asap.

Second, this giveaway thing was fun. I'm thinking that I'm going to do another one this week. Don't start sending me your emails yet. I'm coming up with something a little more involved. The songs will still be free in terms of money, but I'm going to make you work a little harder.

I'll let you know within a day or two.

And just in case you've stuck around here long enough to know that I sometimes say "I'll let you know within a day or two" only to not say anything at all for like a month, this isn't one of those times. I'm on a roll this week, and I'm really getting excited about showing you guys what I've been working on with this kids' stuff.

So check back tomorrow or Tuesday for some worship thoughts and some info on more free music.

I only know about a few things

But this is one of them. Leading worship. I mean, I've been getting paid to do it for like 15 years, so that definitely makes me, I don't know, something.

I did a worship leader seminar today at Grace Bible Church here in B/CS.

(Speaking of "leading worship for 15 years," today, at the seminar, I was told by three very-much-grown-up minister types that I was their first introduction into good/modern worship. They were like, "yeah, I was just a kid and you were teaching me how to..." I appreciated the encouragement, of course, but gee whiz did I feel old. Oh well, you take your atta boys where you can get them, right?)

Here were some of the topics that we covered in the seminar, mostly in response to questions from the audience:

What is worship? (Broad definition and narrow definitions)

What is the job/role of the worship leader?

Why “corporate” matters.

How “corporate” affects what the leader does.

Interacting/co-laboring with teachers/preachers.

The integration of other creative arts into a worship gathering.

The pros and cons of tech/multimedia in a worship gathering.

It went really well. I don't usually enjoy teaching in large groups (read: I'm bad at it), but this was really just a long Q&A with a few planned teaching points. I had a good time.

Anyway, since I've never really talked at length about leading worship on here, I thought I'd see if there is any interest in that sort of thing. It would take days to write on all these topics, but if anyone is interested in hearing about any of this, let me know what stuff on that list is more interesting to you and I'll just kind of regurgitate my notes on here and maybe get some discussion going. If not, I won't get my feelings hurt. I've had more hits on this site in the last few days than I've had in a long, long time, so I'm feeling loved and all that. I'm sure all the traffic had nothing to do with the fact that I was giving away free stuff.