Serving the Master...

Proverbs 27:18 - He who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who looks after his master will be honored. (NIV)

As I was preparing for the Petra keyboardist workshop, the above verse just came to me. It really expresses very well my major emphasis as I train and equip worship musicians, giving the worship leader what he/she needs.

What would you think of a man who tries to tend a fig tree without knowing about trees in general and fig trees in particular? Not very wise, right? But that is what is common in worship training these days. Very little (if any) emphasis is given to what worship leaders actually need. How well can you serve worship leaders if you don't know what they need?

And please don't give me the cliché of "My master is Christ, not my worship leader." There are people use that as an excuse to not work with their worship leaders, expecting their worship leaders to conform to their whims and fancies. They then throw in the claim to be led by the Spirit to do things that give their worship leaders problems (such as play their musical instruments in a disorderly manner, drawing attention to themselves rather than to God) and you have the right mix for dissension, division and conflict.

That such things can be accepted or tolerated is the result of the idea that the Holy Spirit's working in praise and worship is an unpredictable, anything-goes, anti-technicality kind of thing, as I mentioned in my last post. I'll address this misunderstanding in greater depth some other time. It requires greater attention, because these problems come out repeatedly in worship ministry and cause great confusion and damage.

So when I talk about looking after your master and how it applies to you, as the worship minister, let's get specific. If you are serving only as a worship musician, you are serving the worship leader directly and the congregation a close second. Therefore any training as a worship musician has to specifically teach you what a worship leader needs and how to use your music to provide that for him/her. And this also means that you need to know what a congregation needs so that you can provide that.

Any worship training that doesn't include those two closely linked elements doesn't deserve to be called worship training. I'm serious. You can get music training using worship songs, and even have deeply spiritual devotionals as part of the course, but if you are not taught how about the people you serve in order that you may serve them better you've been led up the garden path...

Now, because of all the current confusion about what worship music is about, what your worship leader wants may be very different from what he/she needs. And at that point of time, please don't get all offensive on them and tell them "My job is to give you what you need, not what you want. And because you're so misled you don't know the difference! JJ said so..." Please, this is an offensive message already and I already am an offensive person, with frequent bouts of Foot-in-Mouth Disease. Don't help me make things any worse!

What you could do in such a situation is to refer your worship leader to my blog. And if he/she resonates with what I write there we could arrange a meet and just talk. If there's an opening for me to serve more directly I've prepared workshops that introduce various facets of what I teach in a simple to understand manner. And we can see how things go from there.

Now what if you are a worship leader? Then besides knowing how to serve the congregation you'll also have to understand how your pastor thinks and study what your pastor needs. And what I said about worship musicians not getting me into any further trouble with worship leaders also applies to you too. Don't go telling your pastor "You don't tell me what you want! I'll give you what you need! That's what JJ taught me!" Please, I have enough enemies of my own. I don't need help in getting some more...

In today's terms I'd be seen as being very unspiritual, very materialistic, because I emphasize the specific technicalities that minister to the congregation. There will be people who feel threatened by my emphasis on understanding the congregation and worship leader (because they don't teach that but want to pass off what they do as worship training). They may say that you need to understand worship from God's point of view (which is true) and imply that if you know that you don't need to understand it from the congregation's angle (which is not true).

In reply to them I'll say that when Jesus was asked to choose ONE commandment as the most important, he couldn't. Think about it, the living Word of God himself couldn't narrow the commandments to one. He said the most important is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength and your mind AND to love your neighbor as yourself. He had to give two. If you read the account in Mark 12:29-31 he said that loving your neighbor is just like loving the LORD your God.

So if we see worship leading as part of serving God and loving him, how can we leave out from the equation what Jesus himself could not leave out, the loving (and serving) of our neighbor?

Prayer time: Thank God! I just led worship for Acts Centre last Sunday and God gave his people great release in worship. I had supportive musicians who actually played what enhanced the worship rather than distracted from it, and the congregation was more ready for a deeper level of worship than I had given them credit for. (Which explains why God told me to use a more intense worship set than I originally dared to use.) I'm still basking in the afterglow of that even now!

My restructuring of my teaching (to fit into my current lifestyle and schedule) is pretty much done and God is opening doors for me to expand my territory. So I am really very thankful. Thank you for your prayers, everyone! They mean a lot to me, and I thank God for you!