How God Cares for Us in Worship

Barb Roberts, author of Helping Those Who Hurt: A Handbook for Caring and Crisis (NavPress, 2009), happens to be one of the most thoughtful and intentional practitioner-thinkers I know in the pastoral ministry of caring and mercy.  I have the privilege of working alongside her at Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church and, as a young pastor, I can't express how valuable it is to glean insights from her wisdom and experience in caring for all kinds of people the way Jesus modeled.  

Her blog is a very helpful tool for those seeking wisdom in caring and mercy ministries in the local church context. Her recent post, "Caring and Worship," ties together these two fields of ministry within the local church.  We often don't think of caring and worship as topics which intertwine, but they are actually inseparably woven together.  Barb points out in her post that the Psalms reveal God's heart for His ministry of caring and mercy in the context of worship.  I've often spoken of the benefits of worship--healing, satisfaction, restoration, reconciliation--as being by-products of worship, the "residue" of properly oriented hearts, minds, and bodies.  We don't seek these things as ends of worship, despite the fact that we often talk about worship as though our highest priority in it is to "be fed," as opposed to encounter the Living God and pour out our gifted response to Him.  

The song, "Be All the Glory Thine," from our album, Without Our Aid, has a final verse in which hymn-writer Joseph Hart addresses this issue all the way back in 1762:

Revive the parched with heavenly showers,
The cold with warmth divine;
And as the benefit is ours,
Be all the glory Thine.

(listen to the song)

We often forget that as we pour out our worship to God in the context of His people, His Spirit is moving about us, performing "open heart surgery," and sometimes we miss out on this in big and small ways as we dam up our receptivity by being distracted.  But, make no mistake.  Barb is right.  In our worship, God is actively involved in the ministry of caring and healing in our worship.  This, along with countless other things, is a blessed grace that we don't deserve but God freely gives.  Go read Barb's post! 

Related Posts:

• What Visiting the Sick Has to Do With Worship Planning
• The Difference Between a Lead Musician and a Worship Pastor
• Worship as Pastoral Care: Timeless Insights Off a Dusty Bookshelf

If You're Trying to Think More Pastorally About Worship...

If you’re trying to think more pastorally about worship, then you should read this interview.  It is both a model of what pastoral thinking looks like and a display of some application of thinking pastorally in the local church context.  Bobby Gilles, over at My Song in the Night has a great set of Q & A with Bruce Benedict of Cardiphonia.  My favorite two parts of this interview:

Bobby Gilles: What do you say to a pastor or worship leader who says “Hymns won’t work in my context. People here want new music”?

Bruce Benedict: I’ve been reading through Jamie Smith’s book Desiring the Kingdom getting ready for the Calvin Worship Symposium coming up.  In the book he talks a good deal about how our world does a better job of recognizing and forming our desires than we often realize.  And how the church needs to begin to treat people as more than heads on sticks.  Our worship/music ministries really reveal this.  People want new music in church constantly because that is largely what we are used to being fed by the world.  Even my work-week is typically filled with the latest album and records coming out…

Bobby Gilles: What do you think is the relative importance or balance in the relationship between singable tunes and interesting tunes? 

Bruce Benedict: Great question! This is something I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately. Especially as I’ve realized that what will sound great on a recording isn’t always what will work well for corporate singing…and I think we have to be honest about how each approach requires a different mindset when we sit down to song write.

Because so much of what we are writing is also what we are thinking about, in terms of recording, we can get ourselves into trouble. I think this often provides much of the rub, too, between what we like to sing and what we want to write to record.  This is a tension we need to talk and think about a lot more…especially in terms of being intentional about how we write.

So much of our life is spent listening to music and we are often hard wired to think about what kind of music sounds interesting to us.  Thinking about what is singable is a lot harder.  I often chart out songs I’m working on in a notation software as part of helping me to think through ‘singability’.  I also preview a lot of new songs in monthly potlucks with my musicians where we talk through new songs.

Read the whole interview.

What Visiting the Sick Has to Do with Worship Planning

Not long ago, this blog was inundated with hits because of a little post, "The Difference Between a Lead Musician and a Worship Pastor."  Today's post teases out the first item on the list given there: "A Worship Pastor is equipped in and engages in aspects of classical pastoral duties, either formally or informally—visitation, preaching/teaching, catechizing."

I just got back from visiting a dear man (I'll call him Ron) who is a part of our church in Denver. 

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The Difference Between a Lead Musician and a Worship Pastor

A sister church of ours recently gave me the privilege of coming out and speaking to their Wednesday night group about the differences between a "lead musician" and a "worship pastor."

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Worship Leading Requires Leathery Skin and a Buttery Heart

I received my zillionth bit of criticism this past weekend.  The jabs come in all forms—to my face, behind my back, anonymous notes, vitriolic emails, sarcastic statements, condescending “suggestions,” anonymous notes dropped in the offering plate, snide remarks. 

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The Problem with Pastors Seeking Celebrity

Ed Stetzer made some great observations on a guest post on challies.com.  He talks about the "rock star pastor," with "rock star" being used as a general term, perhaps synonymous with celebrity, not necessarily flashy, axe-wielding musician.  In sum (whole post here):

4 problems with the rock star pastor:
1. Personal Imbalance
2. Hindering Community
3. Approval Addiction
4. Selling Out the Church's Future

4 ways to counteract the rock star pastor in us:
1. Focus on Equipping
2. Take a Sabbath
3. Adjust with the Economic Times
4. Preach the Glory of God

These are wise words.  I'll be honest here, too, and perhaps I am representing the struggle that other folks like me have.  The reason I blog and the reason I write and promote my music is because I have a burden, particularly in the area of the church's worship, to see reformation and renewal.  I want the camps of traditional worship and contemporary/modern worship to continue to grow in their ability to speak into one another.  I want to see more modern-worshiping churches embrace hymnody, historical-rootedness, theology, and biblical thoughtfulness in ways that hopefully don't compromise what they prize about heir liturgy structure or stylistic expression.  Over a year ago, I realized that to accomplish this, I needed to jump on the scene and dive into the "market."  If I desired to effectively communicate in this environment, I would need to do some "self-promotion," so that others would read and think about what I had to say (or sing).

This is dangerous, because it feeds into Stetzer's rock star pastor idea.  It is so hard to remain pure in motives, not letting self-glamorization, self-inflation, and entitlement creep in.  The environment just drags you there.  The strategies employed almost force you there.  

I wouldn't say I've made peace with it.  Perhaps the better metaphor is truce.  In truce, you're acknowledging that you are not so at odds that you must fight.  But, unlike peace, you are still unsettled about your enemy's integrity...will he keep the truce?  I've determined for myself that I want to always feel this tension, because it will be a powerful way (amidst the self-aggrandizing vortex of the communicative medium) to keep my heart in check.  Unlike other cultural exegetes, I don't believe the medium and methodology is totally bankrupt.  However, you can slide into letting it bankrupt you. 

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time."  (1 Peter 5:6)

Two Styles Don't Have to Mean Two Churches within a Church

Don Sweeting has recently left our church to become President of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.  On his way out, he has given some valuable reflections on how God shaped worship at our church during his tenure.  You can read his whole post, but here are some highlights:

In my current pastorate we have multiple services and mulitiple styles.  Our mission calls us to more than one direction stylistically...For our main services, currently we have what we call a classical service and a convergent service...

How does this work?  I’ll warn you that there are many pitfalls to doing this well.  Early on some said that two different services would divide the church.  But the truth is that even when you have two services that are stylistically the same, they still come out somewhat differently and can “divide” the church.

Here’s how it works.  A pastor directed philosophy of worship as well as the common ministry of Word and sacrament hold these services together.  There is an overriding vision with overriding values rooted in the Word and the gospel that drives everything.  A desire to be both rooted and relevant give us the ability to connect with people yet stay grounded.  Our music leaders are also cross trained team players.   They truly appreciate each other and help each other.  There is no elitism, but a servant heartedness that keeps them on the same page.

Is this always easy?  No.  Is it hard to find such people?  Yes.  But can it be done and used by God in a powerful way?  Absolutely.  In fact, such teamwork is a demonstration of the gospel itself.   Because we all know how easy it is for stylistic preference to divide the church.  But think of it.  If our music and worship leaders with all their diverse gifting can get along and serve each other, to the end of fulfilling Christ’s mission for the church, then it powerfully commends the reconciling power of Jesus who calls us not to just look out for our own interests, but also the interests of others.  When that happens, the gospel goes forward with new credibility and power.

If you're interested in how we at Cherry Creek unpack the what's and why's of having two services, check out my article: "Two Services: Why?"

Worship as a Cross to Bear: John Wesley’s Anti-Consumeristic Approach

The following is part of a series of blog posts dedicated to exploring John Wesley’s Rules for Singing.

1. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing.

For every Sunday that I have led worship; for every special event where I have led congregational singing, there is always at least one person (but usually a measurable percentage, such as 5-10%) who refuses to sing, and stares at me or the band or the screen.  Their look almost always communicates one of four things—boredom, distraction, disgust, or anger.

The following reasons are the “usuals” that I’ve heard:

• They refuse to sing because it is a certain style
• They refuse to sing because they don’t know the song
• They refuse to sing because the song is too hard to sing
• They refuse to sing because they dislike congregational singing
• They refuse to sing because they believe they have a bad voice
• They refuse to sing because they don’t consider themselves a follower of Jesus and don’t want to give lip service to praising Him (in my opinion, ironically, this is the most honorable reason).

There are more, but these are the biggies.  Wesley has some important words to speak to the matter.  First, we must admit that his words seem very forward and maybe even offensive: “Who are YOU to tell ME how and when to sing with the congregation?  That’s MY choice!”  The individualism and idolatry of self had not yet wrapped its gnarly fingers around the neck of America when Wesley was writing this.  (But obviously something was going on which was significant enough for Wesley to put it into his rules…and put it first, at that.)  Why would Wesley demand that we “sing all”?  Because there are many reasons why it’s tempting not to.  Notice the word “tempting”?  Yes, the enemy takes pleasure out of robbing God of the worship He is due, and all our many “reasons” play right into his hands.  Wesley was aware of this.

Second, Wesley points out another worship-robbing idol: our own comfort.  The fact that, for some, to sing may be a “cross to bear” insinuates that it is still a worthwhile endeavor despite its difficulty.  In fact, it is a way that we become more like Christ.  For the person who says, “I just don’t like singing…I don’t get a lot out of it.”  Wesley’s answer is, “It’s not about you. Deny yourself and take up your cross.”  What a different approach to worship!  Worship (specifically singing) is not a product to be consumed by some and left on the shelf by others.  It is something we all must do, even if it means it is at times (or permanently) difficult for us.