Blowing Their Minds...

A few weeks ago, our church hosted a U.M. Army camp from Richmond, Texas. This a "work camp" where students visit a town and do lots of home repair/improvement throughout the week. Naturally, there is a set worship time - typically a morning "wake up" sing-a-long and then an actual service at night.

On the first day of camp, I was in our editing room when the church's youth minister/worship leader came in the sound booth. He introduced himself and we talked for a few minutes about our jobs and how the camp was organized. I went back to work.

A few minutes later, he called back to the sound booth. He had opened our MediaShout software and was starting to put songs into the order for the upcoming evening service.

"Hey, man, I got a question," he said.
"Yeah, what's up?"

He was talking as he scrolled through song database.

"Is there, like, a separate hard drive or something where you guys keep your song lyrics?"
"Uh, no. Why?"
"Oh, I'm just not seeing a lot of songs that I would expect. Like, you know, a lot of the more common worship songs."

So, I explained our service and the types of songs we do. I gave him some names of tunes and artists we use a lot, then told him to add whatever he needed into our database so they could have the stuff they wanted during the service that night.

I actually have no problem with this guy. I didn't know him very well, but he seemed like a pretty cool guy who's giving his life to build relationships with students and live out his faith among them. How can I have a problem with a guy like that?

My problem is with his presupposition, which - in my mind - worked out something like this:

A. Church has contemporary worship (projection, drums, stage lighting, etc.)
B. Church must be singing "common" worship songs.

I'm not trying to slam the worship music industry again (although it still needs a good spanking,) but I do find it frustrating that so many worship leaders exhibit little or no appreciation/respect for picking songs for their congregation. When did this happen, worship leaders? When did we start adding songs to the lists because it charted well or because the church down the road did it?

We need a desperate perspective modification around here, gang. We've got to start training up worship leaders that are planning their services with a Bible in hand and a pastor's heart. We've got to stop picking just the stuff we like and start thinking about what our people need.

Notice this - I didn't say "what our people want." You see, you could take this little article of mine and abuse it's ideas. That is, you could look at this thing that I'm saying, which is essentially, PLAN FOR YOUR PEOPLE and turn it into a pandering, meandering concert of songs that people "like" for their fun wordplay or jamming electric guitar riff or even beautifully written piano parts w/ stunning vocal arrangements.

So, how do we safely PLAN FOR OUR PEOPLE? I've a few theories...

1. Think about your people. I hate that this is the Number 1 reason, but we're so bad about this, aren't we? We need to start taking time to evaluate where our people are - what are we struggling with? What does that young married couple with the mentally handicapped child need to say? What about that single girl in the college class? The men's Sunday School - where are they? I'm not saying you make a big long list of everybody's perceived "need" and then try to fill that void. But I'm saying we've (read:I'VE) got to invest into the lives of this church family, because when we (read:I) do, larger issues become evident. Maybe the church is struggling in knowing how to pray for the sick; maybe they're having trouble understanding having faith in the light of natural disaster; maybe they just don't have a fat clue what worship is... Spend some time getting to know them and think about them - like a pastor should.

2. Get weird. The only way we're going to start do a better job of planning for our people is by open ourselves up to way more resources. Listen, I love records from Integrity's Hosanna! Music, but there are times when those songs don't cut it. Passion is great for the epic lift-God-high tune, but there's not a lot of spiritual/lyrical depth in those songs. Vineyard is fantastic for those intimate times of prayer and adoration, but they can often come across as love-songs-for-Jesus. Hymns are timeless and steadfast and chocked full of wonderful, Biblical ideas, but aren't always the right dynamic for a church. We've got to be on the constant look-out for resources (creeds, prayers, dramas, scriptures, songs, etc.) that are outside the box. We've got to arm ourselves with stacks of worship resources so we can serve our people in our ways that caring and honest and not just pick the top four songs of the last CCLI top 25. (I'm not saying that we intentionally do that, but you'd be shocked how many sets end up looking like just that.)

3. Get off the stage. We've got to a better job of pastoring - getting off the stage, stop thinking about only the stage, kill this desire to live on stage. It's a hard thing to do because the simple fact is that deep inside of us there is something that loves being on stage.You can deny it all you want, but you know it's there. If we can ever disconnect from the spotlight-mentality, I think we'll go a long way toward building moments that are God-honoring and perfectly placed by His Spirit to remind His people that He is more that a Sunday morning celebration...He is a Father and a Warrior and He is big enough.

If a CCLI top 10 song serves your needs, do it. I'm not against CCLI. I like it. But if we're throwing songs in an order without thinking too much about it (which we all do,) we're not treating our calling and our God-given gifts with much respect in my opinion.