What I'd Say...

In Hope for the Future, Part II, I asked all of you to submit what exactly you'd say to a young worship leader/musician/minister-of-any-sort who happen to serve in your same field.

We got some good comments, and I wanted to add one of my own, but after typing for about four minutes solid, I figured that would be way too long for a comment. Then I thought, "Hey, this is my blog. I'll just make a REAL post out of it!"

The one thing I'd say to a young worship leader is actually something I DID say to a young worship leader. My friend, Sean Caho, is the worship leader for the student ministry over at FBC Sanger, Texas. Sean and I try to email each other on a pretty regular basis.

A week or so ago, Sean emailed me to talk about "following the Spirit" during worship. One reason I love talking to Sean is that he's always talking about stuff I'm dealing with, too!

To me, leading worship often falls in between vain attempts at psuedo-rock-stardom and true God-inhabited times of praise. The hardest thing for me as a worship leader has been the struggle to figure how much of what I do is Spirit-led or just rock and roll manipulation.

Let me share an example:

When I was twenty-years old, I was a rhythm guitarist for a very good praise band at a very popular church. ('Cause I'm good like that.) One one particular Wednesday night, the world leader stepped down to pray with some kids and asked me to lead in his place.

I stepped up and we rocked through Andy Park's "In the Secret." It went great. As we neared the end of the song, I really felt like God was calling me to simply sing a new song to Him. Something individual and honest and simple.

The band ended the tune and began singing as I picked my guitar:

"So much more, so much more, more than ever before."

Yeah, it's not the strongest line theologically speaking. Just humor me, okay? Suddenly, the room came alive. The whole crowd started singing this line. It was powerful and truly God-honoring. At the end of the service, I got hugs, thank-you's, pats on the back, etc. It felt good and it felt right.

Three weeks later, I was asked to do "In the Secret" again. We played through the song and as we got ready to finish, the voice inside my head said something like this:

"Hey, Todd! Remember last month when you did that improv thing? That killed! Do it again! Do it again!"

So I did it. Think it worked?

No, it didn't. Not at all. It fell flat.

Why? Because it wasn't sincere. I had taken that God-moment and packed it away in my bag of worship-tricks. And it backfired big.

And that's what Sean and I talked about. We talked about the struggle to appreciate the God-moments when they come without making a mockery of them by using them to manipulate crowds. It happens all the time, guys.

I'm not talking about arrangement issues necessarily (stops, breakdowns, intros,) but I am talking about when we take spontaneous things that God initiates and turn them into set-in-stone parts of the songs themselves.

That's the one thing I'd say to young worship leaders: Be bold, take the risks, but when God shows up, don't think you can add it to your toolkit.

Anybody agree with me? Anybody think I'm the biggest idiot to strap on a guitar and sing songs about Jesus?