Worth

You arrive at church two hours before it starts. Most of the time you turn the lights on when you come in. You plug in your guitar and turn the amp on, checking your tuning and running through some familiar scales and progressions. You run through the set list a few times, inevitably looping part of a song while the vocals work on parts, (don’t shoot the messenger, vocalists…just calling it like I see it). End practice in time for pre-service prayer. Service starts and you play through the first few songs. Song service ends and you head to your seat, running through altar call possibilities about halfway through the service. You go back up for altar call which is usually a mix between trying to play some obscure worship chorus that fits the message or playing through “Called to Be” for the umpteenth time. After a quick, self-indulgent, post-service jam session, you get ready to leave. A few people linger around the altar so you try to be quiet as you get everything together. You feel that post-service release now that the pressure that accompanies playing in front of an audience is gone. People mill around, discussing the same three restaurant options that half the congregation tends to frequent after church. You smile as you walk through the crowd, greeting a visitor or two, and exchanging pleasantries with the people you’ve gone to church with for years. The routine has become so familiar that it’s almost subconscious.

If you’ve played or sang in church for any extended period of time, the previous description is probably somewhat familiar to you. The timing of events may be different or maybe God has blessed your church with an overabundance of restaurants to choose from *praise break* but the basic framework is the same. And, as is usually the case with repetitive actions, the routine becomes familiar and borders on mundane. Pre-service prayer can turn into just another time slot. Playing through a worship set in service can feel like just another gig. As much as we’d like everyone to think that every note we play or sing is filled with passion and enthusiasm, sometimes that’s just not the case. Now, this is not an attempt to justify going through the motions. The Bible very clearly condemns this on multiple occasions (Col 3:23-24, Eccl 9:10, Col 3:17, 1 Cor 10:31, etc…). But as long as we have flesh and blood and are walking around here on earth, we’re going to have times where we catch ourselves going through the motions.

“…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)

If you’ve ever driven a familiar route and mentally switched over to auto-pilot, you know what I’m talking about here. I drive the same way to church and back at the very least three times a week. It’s a twenty-minute drive in light traffic, twenty-five on Wednesday nights, and fifteen if I oversleep on Sunday mornings. One left turn, two right turns, and two more left turns and I’m in the parking lot. And there have absolutely been times when I was really tired, lost in thought, or really giving my all to my in-car concert starring me and I just kind of…made it home. I don’t really remember the drive that well, it’s mostly a blur because it’s second nature. The crazy thing is, driving on the freeway didn’t get less dangerous during that time. My car didn’t magically wrap itself in bubble wrap. The probability of getting into an accident was just as high if not higher, but because it became such a mundane, repetitive action, I just mentally checked out. I know I’m not the only one to experience this. We don’t intend to, it’s just something that happens. It’s essentially the same thing that can happen to musicians. It’s not something we do on purpose, but it is something we can guard against.

Familiarity breeds contempt. We’ve all heard that phrase at some point in our lives in reference to politics, celebrities, family, relationships, jobs, church, etc. When PanAm started running commercial flights across the country it was fascinating. People were amazed that this huge metal tube could fly and the journey was as exciting as the destination. Now we act like we’re in a third-world country if a flight doesn’t have wifi. As a teenager, I thought my little Motorola phone with the pull out antenna (anyone born after 1995, please stop laughing…) was the cutting edge of technology. Now I get angry at my iPhone when it takes longer than three seconds to open an app. If you watch a neurosurgeon operate on the brain every day, after a while you start to forget how incredibly complex each operation is. Going back to my car ride from home to church, the routine of driving every day can cause us to forget that the only thing keeping us from colliding with another two-ton hunk of metal at seventy mph are these little painted lines and about two feet of pavement. When you play at two-four services a week for years, the mystery and wonder kind of dies off.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might…” – Ecclesiastes 9:10 (ESV)

This is not a plea to the saint sitting on the pew to value your musicians. This isn’t a pity party for the platform lifers. I’m not starting a petition for musician appreciation day. If you’re nodding your head right now and muttering “that’s right, nobody appreciates my sacrifice,” stop. Rather this is meant to be the car honking behind us at the green light that shakes us out of our reverie and reminds us that we need to pay attention. It’s the glimpse out the window of the jumbo jet cruising at six hundred mph, thirty-five thousand feet in the air; when the clouds break and we can see the quilt of green below, dotted with mountains and fields and we realize what a spectacular event this really is. We’re not just playing another gig. This next song, regardless of how boring it is, isn’t just another chord progression. We are called to use talents given to us by THE Great Creator to sing and play in worship unto that same Great Creator. Of the billions of people on earth, we’ve been chosen to lead our respective congregations in worship. It’s not a calling to boast about, (the OG of worship leaders serves as a great cautionary tale on that front), but rather it is a calling to handle with reverence and awe.

God’s people have a long history of comparing themselves against others. The children of Israel wanted an idol to worship in the wilderness because of their time among the Egyptians. They compared themselves against the inhabitants of the promised land, seeing themselves as grasshoppers after catching a glimpse of the giants occupying the land. They pressured Samuel for a king so they could be like the countries around them. It’s so easy to compare ourselves against others; outside the church as well as inside and point out where we don’t measure up. When we look at musicians outside the church we’re tempted to either feel inferior or think we have to emulate what they’re doing. This is becoming somewhat of an unintentional catch phrase throughout my posts but despite the repetition, it’s still relevant; man’s plan is the antithesis of God’s plan. So, while we may be tempted to lift ourselves up or look for the accolades that other musicians and singers receive, if we’re truly God-focused, His approval is the only confirmation we should require. Easier said than done when you’re packing up after a three-hour practice. Possibly more than any other ministry with the exception of the five-fold ministry*, music ministry resembles an iceberg; about nine hours of practice, repetition, study, prayer-time, and set-up for every one hour of actual platform time. It’s so easy to look for validation when you’ve poured your time, treasure, and talent into preparing for a service. When you’re playing through a song and it seems like there’s no response as the congregation just stares back at you, it’s difficult not to get frustrated and wonder if what you’re doing even matters. It does. It absolutely matters.

*Side note: By no means do I mean to belittle any other ministry or place music on a pedestal. In my experience, by the time you factor in the time of learning an instrument coupled with the individual practice time, group practice time, and the set up and tear down of equipment for each service, music ministry is more time-consuming than most other ministries. This does NOT make it more important than other ministries, the time investment is just the nature of the work. I know every case is different, in no way do I mean this to discredit any other ministry.

So yes, it’s easy to burn out. It’s easy to feel underappreciated, undervalued, and overextended. It’s easy to drive along from service to service just going through the motions. Regardless of how many blank faces stare back at you when you sing the new song you’ve been practicing for weeks, that song mattered to somebody and more importantly, it mattered to the One who gave you the ability to sing. So before you sit down to practice today, before you get your set list ready for the mid-week service, remember that God doesn’t give out talents without reason and He can’t wait to hear you play and sing as unto Him. Maybe there’s going to be a Saul in our next service that needs a David to play and drive away the evil spirits that have been haunting their every step. Maybe the church needs a Gideon to lead them with a shout of praise into victory. Or maybe your pastor needs somebody to shake off the spirit of heaviness and put on the garment of praise so he can deliver the Word without fighting through all the junk first. Bottom line is, your contribution is invaluable to the kingdom. It’s easy to compare our day to day against everybody else’s social media highlight reel. But when you’re in the middle of your daily grind, just know that God chose you for this moment and this place. You are His child and bought by His blood.

When we’re getting ready for our next service, let’s take a minute to think about how blessed we are to have the opportunity to lead God’s people in worship. And when we go to prayer, in our daily devotion or before service, let’s ask God to help us see past the routine and into the divine. Finally, I’ve talked about music throughout this post, but the concept applies to other ministries as well. Whether we clean toilets or preach to thousands, teach Sunday school or greet people at the door, we should do it as unto God and recognize that God has brought us to this place and time for a divine purpose. Take a minute to look out the window and appreciate just how extraordinary your opportunity is.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” – Colossians 3:23-24 (ESV)