It's both amusing and sad at the same time.
I come from a Word-of-Faith background, and I get to fellowship with people who believe in biblical wealth and divine health. So they do not put up with financial lack or sickness; they will immediately pray for money or healing, as the case may be.
But I personally know many in the worship ministry who would tolerate and entertain the spirit of fear. Why???
Sometimes the fear is obvious.
One worship leader I work with regularly ALWAYS puts her songs in keys that are too low for the congregation. And she does that even though she can reach ALL the higher notes she needs, even if she puts the songs in my key.
I'll remind her to use the best key for the congregation, and I always get a snap, unthinking reaction. "No, cannot, too high for me!" She would say that every time, as if I was one of those dabblers and wannabes who don't really know music, or as if I am just a musician and not a fellow worship leader trying to help. I get tired of having to remind her that I already KNOW her vocal range, and that I'm not out to embarrass her or mess up her singing!
Sometimes it's not so obvious.
I remember once being a guest worship leader (at another church), and facing a musician who told me he does not read chord charts. I remembered thinking to myself "what's he going to do on the keyboards then? Doodle all over the place and call it playing by the spirit?"
You can guess how irritated I was by that, until I realized he would rather keep his playing random (doodling) so that he could deny responsibility for his note choices and "inspiration". Basically, he was afraid of people judging his choice of notes and thinking they were lousy.
(They were, by the way. His note choices were quite random, but consistently lousy. They'd clash with the chords, rhythms and the rest of the band. The music sounded better whenever he stopped playing...)
And that was why he refused to learn how to read chord charts or write down the notes he needed to play to fit the rest of the band. Ironic, to 'protect' his note choices from being judged he ended up with totally lousy ones.
Fear has a way of messing up everything, I noticed...
The point of what I'm saying is this: many people, including myself, have areas in our daily lives where we need to face up to our fears. Whether those areas are music-related (sight-reading, singing or strumming) or not (writing in proper English, public speaking or making conversation with strangers) does not matter. We should not entertain or tolerate fear in our lives. We should face up to them instead.
How should we do that? Get the support and prayers of our friends, get coaching from someone who knows what he or she is doing, and just get on with it. God has given us a measure of faith (Rom 12:3) and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13), so let's throw off fear and live the life of faith he wants us to live!
Be blessed!
I come from a Word-of-Faith background, and I get to fellowship with people who believe in biblical wealth and divine health. So they do not put up with financial lack or sickness; they will immediately pray for money or healing, as the case may be.
But I personally know many in the worship ministry who would tolerate and entertain the spirit of fear. Why???
2 Tim 1:7 (NKJV) - For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Sometimes the fear is obvious.
One worship leader I work with regularly ALWAYS puts her songs in keys that are too low for the congregation. And she does that even though she can reach ALL the higher notes she needs, even if she puts the songs in my key.
I'll remind her to use the best key for the congregation, and I always get a snap, unthinking reaction. "No, cannot, too high for me!" She would say that every time, as if I was one of those dabblers and wannabes who don't really know music, or as if I am just a musician and not a fellow worship leader trying to help. I get tired of having to remind her that I already KNOW her vocal range, and that I'm not out to embarrass her or mess up her singing!
Sometimes it's not so obvious.
I remember once being a guest worship leader (at another church), and facing a musician who told me he does not read chord charts. I remembered thinking to myself "what's he going to do on the keyboards then? Doodle all over the place and call it playing by the spirit?"
You can guess how irritated I was by that, until I realized he would rather keep his playing random (doodling) so that he could deny responsibility for his note choices and "inspiration". Basically, he was afraid of people judging his choice of notes and thinking they were lousy.
(They were, by the way. His note choices were quite random, but consistently lousy. They'd clash with the chords, rhythms and the rest of the band. The music sounded better whenever he stopped playing...)
And that was why he refused to learn how to read chord charts or write down the notes he needed to play to fit the rest of the band. Ironic, to 'protect' his note choices from being judged he ended up with totally lousy ones.
Fear has a way of messing up everything, I noticed...
The point of what I'm saying is this: many people, including myself, have areas in our daily lives where we need to face up to our fears. Whether those areas are music-related (sight-reading, singing or strumming) or not (writing in proper English, public speaking or making conversation with strangers) does not matter. We should not entertain or tolerate fear in our lives. We should face up to them instead.
How should we do that? Get the support and prayers of our friends, get coaching from someone who knows what he or she is doing, and just get on with it. God has given us a measure of faith (Rom 12:3) and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13), so let's throw off fear and live the life of faith he wants us to live!
Be blessed!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment