Serve, Specialize, Then What?

2 Timothy 2:15 - Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (NKJV)

The Activation Insight

One thing I’ve realized over the years: the fastest way to get new believers activated and growing in their faith is surprisingly not to put them on some long-term Bible study track or equipping plan, but to get them plugged into a small group AND serving at church in some capacity.

Ushering, taking a slot to look after babies while their parents attend service, packing visitor gift packs, or even arranging chairs before and after the service; all these are easy, low-commitment ways to get people started in church involvement. Especially in a smaller church.

You know me by now: I’m an introvert. If you put me into anything involving study by myself, I’ll stay there forever.

But there’s something profound about what happens when someone shows up weekly to arrange chairs or hold babies. They’re not just “helping out”, they’re becoming someone who belongs to this community. They start seeing themselves as “a person who serves at this church.” That identity shift does discipleship work that a 12-week course can’t touch.

The small group piece compounds this because it provides the relational glue and learning context. They’re not serving in isolation; they’re connected to people who can answer questions, model faith, and reinforce what they’re learning.

When Specialized Ministry Enters the Picture

Where I start to pay attention, however, is when newer believers start getting involved in the more specialized stuff.

The most obvious is my wheelhouse: music ministry. The new babes in Christ might come already with music instrument skills from real music lessons, or singing ability. Meanwhile, your worship team volunteers may be self-taught or started lessons at those cell-musician factories we have in Singapore. We're talking about a possibly large gap, a large difference, in ability.

The temptation is real: someone shows up with guitar skills or a great voice, and suddenly there’s this pull to fill the roster need rather than consider their spiritual readiness. Especially in smaller churches where volunteer pools are limited. And then affirming them (“you’re so important, you’re making such a difference!”) can inadvertently lock them into that role identity before they’ve had time to develop the spiritual foundation underneath.

It reminds me of 1 Timothy 3:6: "... not a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit.” Paul’s talking about elders there, but the principle applies: premature positioning can actually harm someone’s spiritual development.

There’s a crucial difference between stacking chairs and leading worship, isn’t there? With chairs, ushering, and baby care, the spiritual stakes are relatively low. They can learn on the job. Mistakes don’t ripple outward much. But music ministry? They're now in a spiritually formative role, shaping how people encounter God, modeling what worship looks like, potentially even teaching theology through song selection.

Now worship ministry is not the only potentially tricky role. If new believers attend prayer meetings, feel an affinity to that, and suddenly they start signing up for spiritual warfare classes outside your church, or looking into inner healing or deliverance ministries, you ought to start paying attention. And checking in with them a bit more often.

If you’ve been in church long enough, you’d have enough horror stories about things gone wrong from there. (And if you haven’t, buy your pastor a coffee and ask him for his experiences.) Besides a lot of obvious ways things have gone wrong, there is the danger of the noob thinking being trained in a specialized ministry makes them feel superior to those who aren't.

The Seminary Parallel: Knowledge Without Reality

Let’s not single out the obvious charismatic practices here, shall we? Spiritual pride transcends denominations and theology.

Let’s look at theological training. At its core, theological training is essentially a time-compression tool. Instead of spending 40 years slowly accumulating biblical familiarity through repeated reading, you get a curated, accelerated path through church history, systematic theology, biblical languages, hermeneutics. That’s genuinely valuable, why should each generation of pastors and ministers have to reinvent the wheel repeatedly to be effective?

But here’s the trap: the graduates can mistake having been given a map of the territory for having actually walked the territory. They have the knowledge framework, but maybe not the lived reality of the Word that comes from decades of actually walking with God through it. And if they don’t continue that personal, ongoing engagement with Scripture post-graduation, they end up operating on borrowed capital; they're teaching from notes rather than from wells.

Speaking plainly: we are counting on the graduates of such training to continue their own study of the Word, in order to have the reality of the Word feeding their effectiveness.

Whether it’s the worship leader who’s been to Bethel conferences, the intercessor trained in spiritual mapping, or the seminary graduate with their MDiv, the knowledge asymmetry creates a temptation toward spiritual elitism. “I know things you don’t know. I’ve been trained. I have access to insights/experiences/frameworks you lack.”

The parallel with the new believer taking specialized ministry training is striking: both can end up with expertise without maturity. The new believer learns deliverance protocols or prophetic activation exercises; the seminary grad learns covenant theology or Greek verb tenses. Both can become proficient in their specialty while remaining spiritually shallow in foundation.

The Path I’d Recommend

I’ll be the first to say:

1. Yes, serve
2. Pursue your areas of interest
3. Get effective by specializing

After all, that’s what I did.

But after that:

1. Stay humble
2. Grow beyond your specialty

If not, I can tell you where you’ll end up. You’ll end up a powerful speaker and preacher with a lousy family life. You’ll be the best church musician and end up in adultery. Or you could be the best teacher in children’s church but unable to handle your own kids.

It’s the selective maturity problem. Such people have grown deep in one dimension while remaining stunted in others. And because the specialized ministry produces visible fruit and affirmation, it becomes easy to ignore (or rationalize away) the areas of unhealth.

The worship leader whose anointing on stage is real, whose gift moves people into God’s presence... but who’s also nursing a secret porn addiction or emotional affair with another team member. The children’s ministry champion whose kids feel like they’re competing with “church kids” for mom’s attention and affection. The powerful preacher whose spouse is lonely and whose kids are bitter.

Specialization creates capability, but it doesn’t automatically create character. And the scary part is that the very success in your specialized area can mask (or even enable) the brokenness everywhere else.

Why Deliverance/Inner Healing/Spiritual Warfare Deserve Special Attention

Why did I single out inner healing, deliverance ministry and spiritual warfare at the beginning of this? Because, unlike the other ministries I detailed so far, those have an added problem no one talks about. They give the practitioners filters through which they can view and excuse their own weaknesses and failings.

The worship leader who falls into adultery has no framework to spiritualize it away. Sin is sin, full stop. The preacher with the broken family can’t really blame demonic attack for his neglect. He didn’t prioritize well.

But someone steeped in deliverance/inner healing/spiritual warfare? They have a whole explanatory system that can reframe their issues:

- “I’m struggling with anger because of generational curses”

- “I can’t maintain healthy relationships because of unhealed inner wounds from childhood”

- “The enemy is attacking me because I’m so effective in this ministry”

- “This sin pattern is actually a demonic stronghold, not a character issue”

The practitioner becomes simultaneously the expert and the perpetual patient. “I know more about spiritual warfare than you, but also I’m under more attack than you, so my struggles are different/more complex/more justified than yours.”

It’s not that these frameworks are always wrong; sometimes there are genuinely deep wounds, sometimes there is real spiritual opposition. But the danger is using these lenses to externalize responsibility for what might actually be good old-fashioned flesh patterns that need repentance and discipline.

The new believer who’s genuinely hungry and sensitive might be exactly the person who gets drawn into unhealthy streams because they don’t yet have enough biblical familiarity to discern well. They can get stuck in a perpetual cycle of “working through issues”- always discovering new layers, new roots, new traumas to address - rather than at some point being able to say “I’ve been healed, now I need to walk in obedience and maturity.”

The one attracted to spiritual warfare can interpret every relational conflict, every moral failure, every struggle as demonic attack rather than recognizing patterns of their own sin nature that need to be crucified.

And because they’re developing expertise in the ministry, they have spiritual authority and vocabulary that makes it harder for others to challenge them. “You just don’t understand spiritual warfare like I do. You haven’t been trained in this.”

And as for inner healing?

Here’s something nobody tells the new Christians who get pulled into those ministries: a huge part of the method is simply getting you into a light trance and then guiding you to imagine Jesus saying certain things to you.

It might feel spiritual, but the mechanics are practically identical to NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) reframing, a psychological technique where a facilitator helps you reinterpret memories by changing the emotional lens.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

If a ministry works exactly the same even when you remove Jesus from the process, then the power isn’t from Jesus; it’s from the method.

And if the power is from the method, then stop calling it “inner healing.” It is just a psychological technique with a Christian wallpaper pasted on.

The Epistemological Problem

And, if that was not enough, these specialities primarily deal with info and concepts that are NOT stated or elaborated upon in the Bible.

As a comparison, I can talk with theologically trained people. I may not be proficient in their jargon and buzzwords, but they can recognize that I’ve read my entire Bible through as often (or more often) as they have. If we disagree on stuff, they understand my thought processes, so there’s a chance I’d learn from them or they from me.

With theological training, even when there are disagreements, you’re at least operating from the same source material. You can point to texts, compare interpretations, trace arguments through Scripture. There’s a shared foundation and a common court of appeal. “Show me in the Bible” is a move both parties recognize as legitimate.

But the spiritual warfare/deliverance folk who already are used to thinking on stuff not explicitly covered by the Bible? That’s a different story. Do I have to outtalk them on principalities and threshold guardians just to convince them that the book of Proverbs is still applicable to them?

When authority shifts to personal revelations and visions, experiential knowledge (“I’ve seen this in ministry”), teachings passed down through specialized training lineages, spiritual discernment that can’t be verified by others, and elaborate demonologies and spiritual hierarchies extrapolated from a handful of verses, suddenly you’re not having a conversation about what Scripture says. You’re having a conversation about territorial spirits over cities, specific demon names and their functions, protocols for breaking soul ties, the spiritual significance of objects in someone’s home... whole elaborate systems built on minimal biblical foundation.

Don’t cosign loans, work diligently, guard your heart, seek wise counsel? This is straightforward biblical wisdom from Proverbs. But if someone’s worldview is dominated by “which demons are operating here,” those practical imperatives can seem quaint, unspiritual, not addressing the “real” (spiritual) issue.

A Word to Small Group Leaders and Ministry Coordinators

You’re the ones in the trenches with new believers weekly. You’re making decisions about who joins worship teams or gets invited to prayer meetings. You’re the ones who notice when someone starts attending outside training. You’re close enough to “check in” regularly.

Here’s what I’d encourage:

- Have clear guidelines about specialized ministry onboarding, especially the spiritually “hotter” ones

- Know which outside ministries and trainings your people are attending and vet them

- Don’t be so desperate for volunteers that you fast-track people into influence roles

- When someone’s expertise becomes their identity AND their excuse, you’ve lost them unless you intervene

Buy your pastor a coffee and make sure you’re aligned on this. Ask for their horror stories. Learn from them.

A Word to the Happily Specialized Noob

I get it. You’ve found something that resonates. You feel effective. People are being helped. This feels more real than stacking chairs.

But let me ask you some uncomfortable questions, not accusations, just questions:

• Can you explain what you’re learning using just Scripture, or do you need the framework from your training to make sense of it?
  
  
• Are your relationships healthier? Your character more Christ-like? Or just your ministry more active?
  
  
• If someone challenged your approach from the Bible, could you defend it? Or would you have to appeal to “you haven’t been trained in this”?
  
  
• When was the last time you read Proverbs and just… applied it? Without filtering it through spiritual warfare?

Specialize all you want, but don’t let your specialty become your whole diet. Read the whole counsel of God. Stay accountable to people who aren’t in your specialized bubble. And for the love of God, don’t use your training as a way to avoid basic obedience and character formation.

Here’s the gut-check: Five years from now, will your life show the fruit of the Spirit, or just the activity of the gifting?

Conclusion: Diligent Workers

Back in 2010, I wrote about 2 Timothy 2:15 and the importance of being diligent workers who don’t need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. That verse is still relevant here.

https://jvworship.blogspot.com/2010/08/teachers-of-pet-topics.html

Serving is good. Specializing is good. Getting effective in your area is good.

But we’re called to be diligent workers approved by God, not just skilled practitioners in our niche. That requires staying humble, growing beyond our specialty, and maintaining a foundation in the whole counsel of God rather than just our favorite frameworks.

Whether you’re stacking chairs or leading worship, whether you’re trained in deliverance or systematic theology, the question remains: are you rightly dividing the word of truth? Or have you settled for being an expert in your corner while remaining immature everywhere else?

The approval we’re after isn’t from our specialized community. It’s from God. And He sees the whole picture, not just the stage, not just the ministry, but the family life, the character, the hidden places where no one else looks.

Be diligent. Stay humble. Grow beyond.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Why Foundations Matter: Part 4 - Shortcuts Cost You Freedom

The Acoustic Advantage

I was at a small conference not long ago. Two instruments sat there waiting: a shiny digital keyboard with every patch you could imagine, and a plain Yamaha upright. I went for the upright. Why? Because when you’re leading worship in an unfamiliar place, with no idea what might collapse mid-set, you don’t want to gamble on gadgets. With the acoustic, it was all or nothing. No transpose button. No space age pad to cover weak voicings. Just ten fingers, muscle memory, and guts. That’s how I like it.

The Shortcut Whisper

I don’t mistrust the transpose button because it fails. I mistrust it because it works, all too well. It whispers: why wrestle with a tough key when one press can move the whole world? Same with capos. I carry one in the guitar bag for emergencies; if someone insists on singing in E♭, fine, strap it on and get through. But capo-as-lifestyle? Second fret so you can play G-shapes in A? That’s when you’re no longer learning the instrument. That’s planting your rear end in the baby stroller and refusing to learn how to walk.

From Crutch to Cage

And here’s the problem: shortcuts feel like freedom at first, but they turn into chains. Soon you cannot imagine life without your trusty crutch. Effectiveness pays the price. Capo up a few frets and you’ve sawed off your low end; you’re basically strumming a six-string ukulele. Keep leaning on the transpose button, and you’ll never know what to do when it’s not there. Try leading worship like that. Good luck when the leader calls for a spontaneous key change, or when the only instrument around is the upright piano in the Salvation Army Chapel.

The Hard Road That Built Freedom

When I look back, I see how God used my lack of shortcuts to train me. On piano, I practiced songs like As the Deer in all twelve keys. On guitar, I had no instrument of my own, only whatever warped-neck loaners people were willing to bring along. Try forcing barre chords out of those. Frustration? Plenty. But the payoff was huge: today I can pull off mid-neck voicings in A, or throw shimmering chords in E that sound like the wind from heaven. People see “expert.” Truth is, it’s just years without safety nets.

Why It Matters for Worship

And here’s the ministry angle: worship isn’t a studio. It’s not about playing safe with your toys. It’s not about what makes you comfortable (God, how I despise that word!). It’s about service. Sometimes you’ll be in a big church with every gadget. Sometimes you’ll be in a village with only an old upright. Sometimes you’ll be leading prayer with just an acoustic guitar and your voice. At that point, shortcuts won’t save you. Only foundations will.

Your Turn

If this hit a little too close to home, good. That means it’s time to change. That’s why I built my Worship Piano and Guitar Mentorships: to help musicians trade shortcuts for skill, safety nets for real freedom. [Click here to explore them →]

Why Foundations Matter - Part 3: The Drummers' Edition

Marching Band Beginnings

When it comes to drums, I had it good.

I began my journey in the secondary school marching band. My seniors would rather have me quit than stay with half-baked foundations, so I spent a lot of time drilling rudiments into muscle memory. I even carried a pair of sticks in my school bag, sneaking in extra reps whenever I could.

Didn’t help my dating life, but at least my paradiddles turned out okay...

A couple of years later it was my turn to teach the new recruits. Not only did I have to teach how to play all the percussion instruments, I also had to teach them how to read standard notation so they could follow scores and coordinate with the rest of the band. That’s thirty or more people. Within a year, they were up to par. I did all this between age 15 to 16. So don’t tell me teaching music notation takes too long.

The Old Guard vs. Today’s Shortcuts

Back in the 80s, Singapore had very few professional drummers, much less drum teachers. Those few could afford to pick and choose their students. Needless to say, they didn’t play games with foundations either.

They would be horrified to see how some drum teachers operate today.

Instead of starting students on stick drills, they drop noobs straight onto the kit, dazzling (and distracting) them with the bells and whistles of toms and cymbals. Instead of building secure counting, they push rote-memorized beats and fills.

And cynically speaking, I get it. That’s how you retain students in this ADHD age. You keep them entertained (but not equipped), they keep showing up, and they keep paying.

I ought to have done the same thing. Earning more by doing (and caring) less sounds nice. But alas, a conscience is an inconvenient thing…

Why Shortcuts Fail

Here’s the problem: for students who start this way, the standard advice doesn’t help. Pointers don’t fix it. Telling them to “practice more” just means they get really proficient at being wrong. At best, they sound bad and drag down the worship. At worst, they set themselves up for long-term damage. Carpal tunnel syndrome is no joke.

What Happens Without Counting

I’ve seen the fallout of skipping foundations more times than I can count. Years back, I wrote on my blog about one such incident:

I was once in the middle of playing a song (to audition someone on another instrument) when halfway through someone sat down behind the drums and tried to play along. He totally messed up because he could only play in one time-signature (don’t worry if you don’t know yet what that is) and the song I was doing was in a different one.

If he had ever learned how to count, how to discern the pulse of the music, he would have either been able to create on the spot something that can fit, or he would have known what little he knew didn’t fit and not messed up the song for other people. When it was his turn to audition, the other musicians started off at one tempo, and when he started playing the drums he couldn’t latch on to their tempo to support them. He immediately dragged the music down to the tempo he knew. Now imagine him doing that for pretty much every song the band tries to do on a Sunday morning…

This wasn’t “rusty skills.” This was no skills. He was never taught to count in the first place. Asking me to give such a “drummer” pointers like asking an interior designer about curtains when she really wants to say: tear down the house and rebuild…

Red Flags for Students

Proper drum teachers know that teaching foundations is a sacred duty. Not every teacher who talks rudiments actually teaches them. That’s why you need to be an intelligent student. 

Watch for red flags:

If you’re dropped straight onto the kit with no stick drills, walk away.

If you’re told to just memorize beats and fills without counting, walk away.

If you see those signs, move on. Find a better teacher.

Two Things You Can Do

First: If you’ve found a teacher who makes you grind through the boring basics, recognize what you’ve got. He (or she) is a treasure. Stick (XD) with them. Recommend them to others. In this ADHD age, where flash sells faster than foundations, don’t take their business survival for granted.

Second: If you want to see what real drum foundations look like - plain and simple, no gimmicks - check out my Drumming for Church: Foundations course. In just four sessions you’ll see exactly how a drummer should begin: a practice pad, a pair of sticks, and a couple of coordination drills I created to accelerate learning. You’ll know if drumming is truly for you.

Choose wisely. Your band will thank you on Sunday, and your wrists will still be thanking you years later…

Why Foundations Matter - Part 2: The Chordbook That Made Me Cringe

The Chord Book that Made Me Cringe 

 In the days before the internet (yes, I’m that old), worship guitarists had two main sources for chords. There were the official Hosanna! Integrity lead sheets (accurate but a little too intimidating for most) and then there were the coveted chord books: just lyrics with the chords on top. Simple. Accessible. Lifesaving… in theory. 

The problem? Many of those chord books were wrong. Badly wrong. 

While in university, I was serving at Faith Community Baptist Church, a well-established church with different ministries. One sincere and well-meaning leader from Touch Forces (our ministry to armed forces personnel) decided to compile a chord book for their own cell groups. He was a good man. I still remember him with his Ovation guitar (the coolest of the cool back then)… but his ear for chords wasn’t exactly stellar. 

The results were, well, obiang (Hokkien for clunky and off). 

The smooth C–G/B–Am progression? Reduced to C–Bm–Am. 

Those beautiful sus4s? Vanished. 

“I Worship You, Almighty God,” third line: that rich Gsus4 resolving to G became a blunt C–G. 

Still, I could tolerate it, because to me sincerity counts for something. What really got me was when I started visiting other campus groups like Campus Crusade for Christ, and saw their guitarists strumming from photocopies of the same book. “The chords can’t be wrong,” they’d say. “This is from Faith Community Baptist Church!” 

I didn’t have the heart to tell them. 

The Chord Sites that Made Me Facepalm 

Fast-forward to today. We’ve moved on from photocopied chord books… only to end up in the land of random chord websites, where users upload their versions of songs and hope for the best. 

Recently, I had a nasty flashback to the bad old days. One guitarist, sincere, eager, willing to serve, sent me screenshots of the chords he pulled from one of those sites for an upcoming worship session. My job quickly became emergency editor. I spent way too much time correcting the PDFs, fixing clunky progressions and totally wrong chords. 

But then the real problem surfaced: he couldn’t actually play the corrected chords. Esus4? Not happening. C#m–B–F#? Looked like a foreign language. Amaj7? Forget it. He just defaulted to a plain A. That was the best he could do, and I don’t fault him for it. He’d never been taught better. 

But here’s the hard truth: if you leave your musicianship at the mercy of random chord sites and the algorithm gods of YouTube, you’ll never rise beyond “tolerable enough.” 

If you want to be better than that: if you want to grow past the shortcuts and have real confidence in your guitar serving, if you want your foundations examined (and maybe rebuilt) so you can soar higher and grow faster, you need guidance from someone who’s been there, not just a faceless upload. That’s why I created my Worship Guitar Mentorship. It’s not about hype or hacks, but about giving you the solid ground you need to play with confidence in worship.

Back then, it was chord books that spread like wildfire, filled with mistakes that became “official” just because of who printed them. Today, it’s random chord sites and YouTube tutorials doing the same thing, leaving eager musicians stranded with bad habits and half-baked skills.

If we want worship that’s strong, sustainable, and life-giving, we have to stop leaving our musicians at the mercy of bad sources and start investing in proper foundations.

That’s why I do what I do. Come check me out. 

Why Foundations Matter - Part 1: Expo Hall Noob Mistakes

I went for a couple of worship sessions recently, hosted by one of those local worship groups who apparently think they’re ready to “equip” others. 

Well, I saw noob mistakes, live, on a mega church scale. 

1. Wrong Key, Wrong Time

First one: the worship leader tries, on the spur of the moment, to lead the people to sing Lord, I Give You My Heart. Problem? They’re in C. The song is not. So what happens? Worship leader drift. You know the move - they sing one or two lines, ease the mic to their side, away from mouth as they raise the other hand upward, looking like their favourite worship leaders on the worship album CD covers. The congregation tries their best to keep on singing and the worship leader looks really good on the video-cam. In reality, however, the leader realized too late they were in the wrong key, and if they kept going their singing would crash and burn in front of everyone. 

And look, you think a small congregation croaking their way through the wrong key is painful? Try an entire Expo hall of croaking voices. That’s next-level judgment seat stuff. 🤣 

Worship Leaders: always be aware of what key you are currently at and the workable key ranges of whatever songs you want to switch to on the spur of the moment. If you are noob to worship leading, it will take you a while to get familiar with all this. Get mentorship and training from worship pastors or worship leaders who served long enough (or know worship leading well enough) to grow past this stage sooner rather than later. 

2. When Formulas Fail

Second round, same thing: start in C (I think), then the leader started singing the chorus of Here I Bow. Same leader drift, same Expo hall croak-fest. This time the bass player (most likely the Music Director) tried to salvage the situation. After one croaked chorus, the band hits the IV/V chord of the next key and waits for the worship leader to begin singing. Nice save. Almost worked, except that for Here I Bow, all the parts of the song (verse, chorus, bridge) all start with chord IV. The IV/V the band did would have worked IF the song sections began with the chord I. But they didn’t.

Essentially, that moment was less about knowing the formula to change key (IV/V of the new key) and more about knowing the song itself so they can tell when the standard formula won’t work or needed to be modded to apply. THIS is where you see the diff between a musician with merely formula & templates vs a musician who knows music. 

3. Band Leading ≠ Worship Leading

Then there was the whole business of the worship leader repeatedly turning around to flash the “C” hand sign at the band. Great. The musicians are cued. But what about us? The congregation? We are left guessing, spiritually speaking just that half beat behind. Functionally, that’s not worship leading, that’s band leading. And let’s be blunt: if you can’t cue your congregation, you’re not a worship leader. You’re just a frontman. There’s a difference. 

So forgive me if I don’t swallow the whole equipping others in worship leading, prayer & intercession and effective communications stuff. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Communicate? You can’t even communicate to a hall full of eager worshippers about singing the chorus again. 

4. Non-binary B minor

And don’t get me started on the guitarist. God, that non-binary B minor chord… You know the one: low E and high E strings both left open, musically nails on the chalkboard. Total clash with the vocals. The only reason no one noticed is because the guitar was buried under the rest of the band. Please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t teach that to any other guitarist who asks you for lessons. Does it really hurt that much to say “you’ve been playing guitar for a few months now, you should start learning barre chords”? 

Noob mistakes. Expo hall full of croaking. And yet these are the people “equipping” the body of Christ? Lord, forgive my cynicism. Now you know why I pretty much never go check out other worship groups in Singapore. It’s better that I stay away and have you think me a grumpy old man, than to turn up and remove all doubt. 🤣🤣 

Core takeaway - Look, we all make mistakes when we’re learning. But if you’re positioning yourself to equip others, the basics need to be solid first. 

1) Know your songs and their keys.

2) Cue your congregation, not just your band.

3) Play chords that actually fit (like a REAL B minor chord)

Because at the end of the day, if you can’t hold the floor steady, you’ve got no business building a second storey.

Still here? Then check out the training I offer at What I Do

Where Positions ARE Available

I got this email recently, and thought of sharing it and replying to it publicly. Here’s the actual email itself (with the sender’s name abbreviated for privacy).

----

Dear Sir

I am A. M. Worship Singer from Pakistan. I am a Christian fellow and I sing to praise the Lord our God. God has blessed me with a wonderful voice to sing. I am singing since last ten years. I wish to continue to praise God and pray through my singing talents. But unfortunately, I do not have many resources to get my singing on recordings. I wish to join a group or a ministry filled with the Holy Spirit to accept me as a singer. I am praying and wish you to support my dedication and talent. If there is any idea or any support from you and your ministries please let me know and I will be ready to join you for this. Thank you. God bless you.

A. Worship Singer,

----

Well, firstly there is no need to call me ‘Sir’. I am not a very formal person and go by the name of Junjie. People may not know how to pronounce it (since it is Chinese) but typing it on an email should be OK, right?

>> I am a Christian fellow and I sing to praise the Lord our God.

That’s great!

>> God has blessed me with a wonderful voice to sing. I am singing since last ten years.

Confidence. No false humility. I can respect that.

>>  I wish to continue to praise God and pray through my singing talents. But unfortunately, I do not have many resources to get my singing on recordings.

And why would that be a problem?

If you really want people to hear your singing, get a video-cam, video yourself and upload it on Youtube. You may not earn any money from it, but you will certainly bless others with your abilities if you are as good as you say.

Because of what the world was like when we were growing up, we can end up thinking that a singer’s success is measured by how many albums he or she can sell. So if he or she can’t even get on a recording in the first place, that’s sad, right? But for believers who are singers, success does not only mean selling albums. You need to specifically know what kind of singing God wants you to do. What I personally believe is that there are 3 main types of singers within the Kingdom of God.

1) Worship Leaders – when they sing, they get the congregation to sing too. They successfully lead people into singing wholeheartedly unto the Lord when they take the mike.

2) Evangelists – when they sing, they touch the hearts of pre-believers and open their hearts to receive the love of God.

3) Prophetic singers – when they sing, they minister to the people of God. They testify of Jesus in such a way that people are edified, encouraged and comforted.

1 Corinthians 14:3 (ESV) - On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.

I am not saying that a singer can’t do more than one type of singing, but many singers I know have one that they are most effective at. And they will do well to focus on that one if they want to bear fruit quickly and with less effort.

So which one are you?

>>  I wish to join a group or a ministry filled with the Holy Spirit to accept me as a singer.

I can direct you to such a ministry. It’s called your local church. I am not sure what you mean when you say “filled with the Holy Spirit”, but surely it would apply to your home church. If not, why call that church home, right?

Your pastor will know where your strengths are, since you have been serving there for ten years. And he will want you to be effective, since that will help him serve the people God has entrusted to his care. So he does have a vested interest in your success.

Of course, that assumes that you have been faithfully serving for the past ten years. Moreover, you have to be willing to try different stuff, not just what you are comfortable with. If you are a performance singer and need to lead worship for example, that will mean a lot of work and learning for you. But it is only after you have put in all that kind of effort that your pastor will be able to see what you are best at and can give you accurate advice.

But you will most certainly start off as a volunteer. Which means you won’t get paid. It is this time as a volunteer when you will be tested, to see if you have what it takes to serve.

1 Timothy 3:10 (ESV) - And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless.

And one crucial area you will be tested on, in the sight of God and man, is faithfulness.

Proverbs 20:6 (ESV) - Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?

Talented people are easier to find than faithful people. Many talented people want quick glory and the applause of man, so they are unwilling to demonstrate faithfulness in serving. So if you want to be used by God to bless his people, be faithful!

Now what if your home church is small? That would mean that even if your abilities suit the church and they appreciate you, they may not be unable to pay you. If that is the case, let me just say that if you are truly faithful to that church, you will set aside your own abilities and preferences, and work with your pastor to grow his church. And since it is a small church, what would grow that church may not be you singing. It may be you making it a point to share the gospel and invite people to church. It may mean you serving as an usher or running errands for your pastor. Many preachers started off as janitors – they had to sweep and clean the church!

Your faithfulness WILL be tested.

If your home church is small, they will need you to work hard at many things, singing, ushering, administration, evangelism and discipleship. And all that while you work at a day job to pay for your own living expenses and tithe to your church. If your home church is large, you probably won’t get the limelight at the very beginning. You will have to start small and slowly work your way up as a volunteer, all the while keeping your day job.

What if there is no local church you can join?

If there is no church in your area, district or county, then the needs of God’s people there are great indeed. They will need solid, practical teaching in the Bible more than they will need singing. And if you have a heart for God’s people, you may have to set up a church there yourself.

Sounds daunting? It is. But on the bright side, you need not worry about how to feed the flock with God’s Word. Email me and I can refer you to online sermons that are solid, Scriptural teaching that will bless the people and build them up in the faith.  Your job then will be to pray for your people when they have needs. That should not be a problem for you, since you have said before that you wish to continue to pray through your singing talents.

>> I am praying and wish you to support my dedication and talent. If there is any idea or any support from you and your ministries please let me know and I will be ready to join you for this.

Any ideas from me and my ministry? I’ve written an entire email of ideas for you! The biggest ideas are:  

1) Start where you are, doing what you need to do right now.

2) Be faithful in service.

3) Don’t think of yourself as a singer but as a Christian. If singing is what it takes to be a blessing to God’s people where you are, then sing! But if it is something else, are you willing to do that something else so that God’s people will be blessed?

I leave you with this Scripture, the one that sustains me in my ministry when it gets difficult.

Hebrews 6:10 (ESV) - For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. 

If you truly love God, serve his people. He will remember your labour and reward you in due season.

Be blessed, A. M.!

Conclusion:

I know this has been a long post. What do you think of what I said here? Let me know your thoughts. You can do so by leaving a comment below.

Thanks!

How I Get More Done – Useful Attitude Toward Ministry

I’ve been playing bass for my church services the past few weekends.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a bassist. I know where the notes are on the bass, and that’s about it. My tone is inconsistent, so much that I HAVE to use a plectrum. The tone becomes sharper, more twangy, but at least I have more control over the sound. And sometimes I’d blank out half-way during playing. I’d suddenly forget where are all the notes I need on the fretboard. If I stayed within the first 5 frets or so on the neck I would be fine, but I didn’t. And sometimes that meant I’d go “Where is the C sharp note again???”

More than a month back someone I knew via Facebook needed some help. He was a Chinese Kungfu instructor and had to put up a show last minute. None of his regular students were available to help him out, so he appealed for help on Facebook. Just so you know, the last time I took any lessons in this (Northern Praying Mantis style) was when I was 18 years old, and that was many, many years back. But he needed help, so I offered to be contribute what little I could remember after all these years.

So it meant I had less than a week to brush off many years of dust from my Praying Mantis forms. During that one week I still had to juggle my work, family and ministry, while being firmly reminded of the words of my teacher the last time I met him one Chinese New Year a few years ago. He told me “At your current age, forget about doing Praying Mantis, go do Tai Chi instead!” (No encouragement there...) In the end the whole thing went OK. I did my part in the show, and I don’t think I would have embarrassed my previous teacher that much if he saw me in action! 

One thing both of these episodes had in common: I was doing stuff that I wasn’t the best at. And that meant a lot of work for less result. But the fact is that I was filling a gap and I was able to be of help. And I guess that is one of the core values of my life: I want to be of help!

Two Attitudes

Whether in church or outside of it, I see two attitudes that people can take when deciding whether to help. Some people would not help unless they are totally skilled in that area. As I played bass in church, I did it knowing that there actually WAS someone else available to play bass, and he actually would have played the bass better than me, but he did not step up because his playing was not up to HIS own standards.

Others would expect that because there was a need, other people are obliged to accept their “help” even though they were really unskilled and more a hindrance than a help. And they get all offended and throw a hissy fit when they were told they weren’t really suitable for the role. (Some wannabe drummers immediately come to mind…)

One reason why I get more ministry done is because I avoid those two extremes. I prepare; yes, I certainly believe in preparation and training! But if a need comes up before I believe I am ready, I would approach whoever is in charge and offer my help. And let them decide if I was good enough for the role or not.

Perfectionists, freak out!

This attitude puts me in the worst of two worlds, so to speak. Because I am not as ready as I would like to be, I run the risk of being rejected. The Kungfu guy I helped, for example, could have taken a good look at my form and decided that I would be an embarrassment to him if I performed. If I ruined his reputation his career would have taken a setback. Not really worth it, right?

(Of course he didn’t turn me down in the end. During my teenage years I was pretty serious about Praying Mantis, so under the dust I still had some quality left…)

Meanwhile, the deluded who think people owe them the chance to serve MIGHT be able to get the opportunity because people are too desperate or too nice to turn them down. More likely, however, they will be rejected. Since they didn’t really put in proper work, their rejection didn’t really cost them that much.

But to put in serious work and then face the possibility of rejection, on the other hand, is the worst of both worlds. Some people have all kinds of spiritual sounding rationalizations for not stepping up to offer their help. They make it sound like the only way they would do something is if God were to speak to them in an audible voice, a “Thus saith the LORD: Serve! Approacheth thou thy church worship pastor, and sayeth unto him…”

Yes, I am not that “spiritual”. I do offer my help at times, and I have been rejected at times. Guess what? It hurt my ego a little bit, but it didn’t kill me. And in exchange for taking such risks, for being vulnerable to rejection, I have been able to serve God and his people in a wide variety of situations and circumstances. And those experiences have been enriching and valuable!

So if you want to get more done…

… I would strongly urge you to take on this attitude. Prepare. Train. Seriously. But if the need arises before you think you are totally ready, talk to your leadership and offer your help. And learn to deal with rejection.

But personally, I don’t think you will face that as often as you fear, as long as you seriously prepare yourself. I’ve always believed that the Body of Christ has a severe lack of people actually playing their part. Most of the Body of Christ is waiting for others to serve them or for themselves to be zapped into being inspired to serve. And the fear of rejection will stop many of them dead in their tracks.

So if you prepare, put in the work and dare to step up, you are already miles ahead of many people in church. Think about it for a while. Is there anything you believe God wants you to work on this season, in preparation for serving him effectively in the next? Get started.

And when the time comes, grit your teeth, swallow your pride and step up. Go for it!  

Worship Team Auditions - Why Have Them?

I came across this blog post recently on when should you leave your mega-church.

And the first point on the list just HAD to be about worship ministry! Mr Wheeler said it is time to leave your mega-church when they start holding auditions for the worship ministry. To him, worship ministry is something to be open to pretty much everyone.

“Why even bother to answer that point?” you may ask. To people who have actual worship ministry experience, the whole idea is laughable. But I have the nagging feeling that somewhere, sooner or later, a young, sincere and inexperienced pastor planting a church is going to be inspired by Mr. Wheeler’s reasoning, tell his long-suffering worship pastor (or volunteer leader) that they were going to stop all worship team auditions, and then have that other pastor fix the problems and clear up the mess.

Not that those problems can be cleared, mind you, if they come. Even if they doesn’t come immediately, just remember that any church following that idea is at best 2-3 musician resignations away from problems. Believe me, you don’t want to be in such a position!

Here is his reasoning, in his own words.

"I always used to think the “worship audition” phenomenon was just an urban myth, but I am sad to report I now have confirmation of it. Still, I can’t wrap my mind around how it happens. How, for example, do you tell a prospective worship team member her joyful noise was for another time? Her rejection probably gets prefaced by, “We have prayed about who should join our team and I am sorry but we have not chosen you.” In other words, “Jesus told us you suck.”"

Let me begin with the basics. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you (Sorry, Paul!). The purpose of a worship ministry, worship team, worship leader or worship musician, is to unify the praises of the people. When they succeed, as the priests and Levites did at Solomon’s dedication of the Temple, the glory of the LORD will again fill the Temple (2 Chronicles 5:12-14).

In other words, good things happen!

I’ll be the first to admit that many churches (mega- or otherwise) do NOT have this vision or direction for their worship ministry. They may have some goals such as leading the people to an authentic encounter with God or having music appealing enough to attract pre-believers.  Or maybe just excellence for excellence sake.

Whatever it is, when you don’t have this basic direction for your worship ministry, you can end up with problems from two extremes. You can end up with musicians and singers who do excellent music that wows the audience but do not draw the people into singing their praises to God. Lead singers (not worship leaders) who choose songs based on what showcases their abilities rather than invites the congregation to participate. Things like that.

OR you swing to the other extreme and have a free-for-all. A “drummer” who only has two settings on his playing, slow and very fast (nothing in between), and soft and bleeding-from-the-ears loud (again, nothing in between).  A guitarist who goes out of time or strums erratically, which is guaranteed to mess up the efforts of everyone else who tries to unify the singing of the congregation. Back-up vocals who do their own stuff, who drown out the unfortunate worship leader, and refuse to take direction from the worship leader because they think that quenching the Spirit means not being allowed to be anything they want, anyway they want, anytime they want.

Having worship team auditions may not prevent the first extreme, but done correctly by a worship leader who knows what he is doing can certainly prevent the second. And the second problem is far more likely to occur in a regular (not mega-) church. Since regular churches are far more common than mega-churches, shouldn’t auditions or some other kind of screening process be even more necessary?

Mr Wheeler again:

"Can you imagine Jesus telling someone who loves Him and loves to worship Him that he or she is not good enough? Are we now in the dispensation of “the MegaCool Church”? Can you recall some biblical text that has eluded me that says: “All ye talented sing unto me, those who suck be quiet. Thus sayeth the Lord.”"

1 Chronicles 15:22 (NIV) - Kenaniah the head Levite was in charge of the singing; that was his responsibility because he was skillful at it.

The purpose of the worship team is to unify the praises of the people, and unity does NOT happen without any form of leadership. The worship team (musicians, singers) plays that leadership role. The biblical text above is the relevant passage that eluded Mr Wheeler. That verse shows us that leading the singing was Kenaniah’s job because he had the skills for it. Wanna lead? Better have the right skills!

We are not saying that the tone-deaf are not allowed to worship God in church. But there is a world of difference between singing away in the crowd (at best irritating only those immediately around you) and being put in the front, leading everyone else. Of course this truth is really obvious to people who are actually running worship ministries. But for the sake of that newbie pastor mentioned earlier (and for the sake of his/her long-suffering worship pastor), it still needs to be said!  

Mr Wheeler's final paragraph on this topic:

"I have watched the first baby steps of withdrawn, church-abused friends who begin to venture into the world with courage. I remember the first time I saw them with their heads up and the first time they made eye contact during a conversation. I get a little weepy when I imagine their monumental bravery in accepting an invitation to join a real worship team. I can only imagine the crushing blow of their earlier rejection by those who were their “brothers and sisters in Christ.”"

We all have our horror stories to share. I have a few of my own about musicians or singers who are ego-driven and disruptive. Here’s one of them.

I had a drummer quit her church because I told her how she went against my clear directions as the worship leader. And it wasn’t only on small points, such as giving me more snare (though that would have been much appreciated). It was also on how we were going to shift from the faster songs to the slower ones. She did not turn up for the rehearsal earlier in the week, so I took the special effort on Sunday sound check to guide her through that transition (I knew it was crucial).

On during the actual set itself she did not give me more snare. She ignored my verbal cues for the song transitions. She kept her eyes turned away when I tried to signal her after she messed up my cues and I had to re-do the transition. Didn’t help, she ignored me and let the whole thing peter out HER way. And when I asked her about all those things after the service, she ignored my questions and refused to answer me.

Can such a person help unify the praises of the people when they can’t even cooperate with the worship leader?

Problems that make a musician a disruption rather than a help can be picked up easily within 5-10 minutes in a simple audition. Why was such a person allowed to serve in the first place? And if you want to give such a wounded soul the opportunity to serve, why was there no pastoral oversight, feeding, nurturing or ministry of any sort given to her?

Yes, I know that “worship” ministries based on performance rather than participation cause loads of problems. But those who indiscriminately let all and sundry participate based on their preferences and likings rather than their abilities and gifting are also wrong. Really wrong.

1 Timothy 3:10 (NIV) - They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.

“Huh? I thought we are talking about worship ministry? Why are you suddenly talking about deacons?”

Deacons, in New Testament Greek, are servers. Our modern equivalent is administrators and ushers. Why not include musicians and singers under this? They should be tested too, right? I would suspect that the extent of testing in the early church was far wider than a 5-10 minute audition. If I were the one testing, I’d look at their lifestyle, their speech and their family life.

But if people won’t even take 5-10 minutes to audition a singer or musician…   

Look, I know that some people have seen the problems created by a performance-based worship ministry, and think that swinging to the other extreme is the way to go. I can continue to give reason upon reason, going deep into the reasons why there is yet another way to do worship ministry, one that best edifies all concerned. But this post is getting way too long already!

So if you or your pastor is trying to access practical wisdom in how to make worship ministry work, don’t make try to re-invent the wheel and do it alone. Join worship forums, interact with worship leaders from around the world, and discover what works, from small, homely churches to mega-church in the next state. I would highly recommend the two forums:

Worship the Rock

Developing Worship http://www.developingworship.com/forum/

You’ll get ideas, opinions and suggestions from people who have been there and done that. Some will probably disagree with me, and that is fine. If they have a track record of making things work, I’d say they are worth paying some attention to, wouldn’t you? 

Be blessed!

The Missing Piece

(This is Part 03 of my story. If you missed it, you can read Part 01 and Part 02 now)

Back to the story…

So there I was in my Christian life, enjoying results and fruit in my worship ministry, knowing that as long as I can play the guitar I can successfully lead worship almost all the time. I had some interesting experiences because of that ability. There was once I visited a friend’s church’s prayer meeting and was asked to lead worship with just one song. OK, I took up the guitar, asked if they knew the only song I could think of (the group was almost entirely made up of strangers), and then not only led them in worship, but also flowed from there into prayer and intercession as well.

Hey, it was a prayer meeting, right?

But what was missing? Imparting that ability to others, so other people can successfully do what I do.

2 Timothy 2:2 (NIV) - And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

You see, I had invested hours and hours of time into my personal devotions, music practice and all that in order to do what I did. And that was fine when people are younger and have less demands on their time. Try telling a harried mother of 2-4 kids that in order to fulfill God’s calling upon her life she has to spend an hour a day on the Bible & prayer, and yet another on a musical instrument.

That’s NOT going to work!

So if I wanted to have people able to do what I did, I had to distill everything I did down to its barest form, the most essential elements. I had to show them principles that could guide their decisions and choices, and those principles had to work even without people having to put in the same kind of time and effort I had already put in.

Then One Fateful Day…

As I shared before in my book Invisible Worship Musician, I was engaged by a music school to teach a course on playing the piano for worship. It was during the lesson on playing intros for worship songs that I suddenly realized the purpose of worship music: to unify the praises of the people.

2 Chronicles 5:12-14 (NIV) - All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang: “He is good; his love endures forever.” Then the temple of the LORD was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.

So I shared this passage with the very first class taking that very lesson. And from there I showed them how to create song intros that start to do exactly that. It worked very well for the class, they were happy that they got something simple that they could use after 3-4 lessons.

As for me, I continued to meditate on the implications of that very same passage for many years after that. It explained to me why what I did worked, and allowed me to give good reasons for why I would lead worship and play for worship the way I did.

If you do NOT have this understanding…

You end up with one of two extremes.

1)      You have people blindly copying EVERYTHING from someone who inspires them. At one point of time, as a certain Christian singer inspired many lady worship leaders in Singapore to dress, sing and pose in a certain way (one arm held out at a particular angle). Even though she was supposed to be a worship leader, she was more a lead singer, as she would sometimes pitch songs in keys 180 degrees away from what was suitable for a congregation. And she wasn’t good at leading the congregation…

I sometimes wonder if those Singaporean lady worship leaders ever caught on to the fact that what they were copying didn’t really help their church congregations in worship very much. If they did, did they ever figure out what went wrong? Or did they just blame their church congregations for being lukewarm?

2)      You have NO discipleship whatsoever. There may be one good worship leader in the church, someone who can make things work, but the other worship leaders want to do their own things in their own way. And those things and ways don’t work. After some time, some of the congregation may walk out or skip worship when they see who is scheduled to lead worship that day.

I’m not saying that is the right thing to do, but it is better than these people totally changing church because they are frustrated during your worship time, right? Of course, these days quite a number of believers don’t recognize well-led praise and worship because they have been misled into confusing a song-and-dance routine with true worship. If they leave your church because you are not giving them the show they want but what they really need (a genuine encounter with the living God) that’s understandable.

What is unacceptable is when you know you can give them the real deal but choose not to…

Conclusion:

I’ve now shared with you the core story, why I do and teach what I do. I hope that sharing my journey will help you understand me a little more, and maybe help you on your own journey also. Be blessed!

The Turning Point

As I shared before, I served in the worship ministry before I had ever encountered God in worship. Or maybe I did, but thought that it was just the effect of really cool music. So coming from that perspective, I ended up assuming worship=music.

And that meant that getting better worship required getting better music. Whatever “better” means…

When I believed that, and didn’t have any conclusive encounter with God through worship, it led to two problems:

1. My own personal worship life was very weak. Why invest time in it if I believed I had to be in a large congregation with a hyper-cool band for it to work? Worship in your own personal prayer time does not always feel good immediately. If you don’t believe in it you will give up easily.
2. I became frustrated with small group worship sessions. I didn’t encounter God in worship there, so I didn’t believe it was possible. Looking back, I realize that it was because most of the worship leaders in the small groups I attended didn’t have enough understanding to stay on a good song long enough for the singing to be unified. A technical issue. And also, they would shy away from the presence of God and choke down everything before things got really intense. Probably a sin-consciousness issue.

But one day…

The leader of my worship team sat us down and said “We’re a worship band, so we’re going to worship God!” And he proceeded to lead us in a worship session that honestly felt like being brought to heaven and back. This session shattered all my wrong ideas just like that. It was a small group (5-6 people) and had simple music (one acoustic guitar). And I KNEW, deep in my heart, that I had just met God in worship.

And I was hooked. Totally hooked!

Not only that, I also wanted to share that same experience, encountering God in worship, with every believer I could. I became totally obsessed with worship and worship ministry; I kept bugging the band leader for his ideas, concepts and opinions.

Now he wasn’t that much of a teacher; he just kind of stumbled across what works, but he couldn’t really explain to me how or why it worked.  So I continued with the smartest thing I ever did: I copied him wholesale. He led worship on solo guitar and it worked, so I started learning how to play the guitar. He would use certain songs and lead them in a certain way, so I would work on the same songs and do them the same way.

And it worked for me too!

Of course there were refinements I needed to make along the way. Things like what key to pitch songs in, how to use music to properly support what I was doing, and nitty-gritty things like that. But I had already achieved what many other worship leaders I knew could only pray and dream about – consistent success in leading worship. I would be able to bring the worship as deep and as intense as it could go that session, and the worshippers would encounter God, be blessed by him and want to seek him in worship more and more.

So, is that it? Was that all? Did I live happily ever after, end of story? Not quite. There still remained one more important step to reach and milestone to achieve. But it’s getting really late for me now, so I’ll share with you the story next time. In the meantime, be blessed!

How I Started in Worship Ministry

I still remember how I got started in the worship ministry…

I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was young (less than 12). Because I wasn’t attending church after that, my faith took a backseat to role-playing games and music. But there was always this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that God deserved a lot more seriousness than what I was showing him during those years. So when I finally had a chance to attend church services I jumped at the opportunity.

The pleasant surprise for me was discovering that church had music!

One thing about me, I’m quite capable of going on with something if I was convinced it was good for me. I didn’t need it to be entertaining, exciting or enjoyable, it just had to be meaningful. I was ready to not enjoy any aspect of the church experience but just keep turning up anyway.

So having enjoyable music at church was an unexpected benefit!

Because I didn’t know the songs, I couldn’t join in the singing. But I did appreciate the music. Unfortunately, that became my habit – paying more attention to the music than what people (and I) ought to be singing to the Lord. It’s not that I was a total reprobate during that season; I would seek God in prayer and in the Scriptures. And I would encounter him there.

But encountering God during the worship? No, it didn’t really happen.

And that meant that, if I was put in charge of a team of musicians at that time (I wasn’t, thank God!!), any decisions would be made based on what would sound good musically, rather than whether it would be spiritually pleasing to God or helpful to the congregation.

The Point of What I Am Saying…

… is that if your church has decent music, it’s quite likely that there are people like me in the congregation. And this means:

1. Your pastor may have to regularly preach and teach on encountering God in worship, yearly or half-yearly if your congregation has regular growth; AND 
2. People like me may apply to join your church worship team. And you have to start thinking and praying about how God wants you to handle such people.
   

Of course not every church musician is like how I was at that point of time when I first started serving in the worship ministry. Some knew God first, before they discovered their interest and talent for music. You may encounter different challenges with these people, compared to my sort.
Then again, I wasn’t exactly the most mature and easy-to-handle person in those days either!

So that was how I started serving in the worship ministry. I have another two major milestones to share, but those will have to wait for future emails and posts. So in the meantime, be blessed!

Behind The Pastor's Back

As you probably know, I serve at a few churches during the week. Just yesterday, as I was running errands, I met someone who regularly attends one of those services I serve at. It was an interesting conversation, because he basically wanted me to change my style of playing.

Him: "the way you play when Pastor leads the people in prayer after preaching, very stagnant. No flow. You must flow…"

Under other circumstances I would have asked him what he meant by flow. After all, it could refer to a musical flow (which I know I have) or a spiritual flow (which I believe I have). However, I felt there was no need to find out more, because I wasn’t going to change my style of playing.

Me: "I'm playing the way Pastor wants me to play. He told me to play this way, so that is how I am going to play."

Him: "I've known Pastor for a long time already. And I've been playing for 40 years. I went to Berklee (a famous college for contemporary and jazz music). You cannot play like that, you must flow…"

By now I suspected that he meant to play more spontaneously, to use Pastor's exhortation time as an opportunity to display whatever musical chops I have. Whatever he meant didn't really matter, because I already had instructions from the Pastor. And I'm not going to change stuff like that without checking with the Pastor first.

But why would I need to check with the Pastor anyway? He's got a lot on his plate, and he already has the habit of telling me whatever he wanted me to know. Bugging him about trivia like that is implying his instructions weren't clear enough, or that he didn't know what he was doing. No thanks!

So I took the easy way out.

Me: "Since you say you have known Pastor for some time, how about YOU talk to him about it? I'll just do what he tells me…"

Him: "Cannot, he's not a musician so he won't know. You must change it yourself."

Err, wait a minute. He's not a musician, but he has been in ministry even longer than I have. Am I to believe that during all that time, having ministered in many different churches around the world, he hasn't come across different styles of music and he doesn't know what type works best for him?

He could see I was not convinced.

Him: "Do you know (mega-church A) and (mega-church B)? I trained their musicians. You think I can only play one instrument? I can play more than one instrument! When I tell the chief musician (of the church I am serving at) to flow, he does it. Even the other guy, who played for the service when you were not there, flows better than you…"

I haven't listened to the worship team from mega-church B, but I did know that mega-church A had a team of immature musicians, who were professional only in the sense that they were being paid, not in terms of their musicality. Those musicians tended to overplay and get in each other's way, and overall the sound would be too cluttered to let the congregation sing their hearts out. So the congregation would spend most of the worship time standing there and watching the show up on the stage.

You can guess that I was less than impressed by his name dropping. I wanted to tell him "So it's YOUR fault that band is so lousy? No wonder…" but I knew God wouldn't approve of me being THAT direct. So I switched back to my one and only argument.

Me: "OK, so if Pastor thinks the other guy is better, then he can tell me to play like him. So far, Pastor hasn't told me to play like him, so…"

Him: "They can flow. Why can't you? No wonder your playing is so stagnant."

Me:"I've played other ways before, and Pastor has told me he wants it this way, so I am going to play it this way."

Him: "He's not a musician, he won't know. You must change, you must flow, then he will come and tell you that you are correct."

OK, this was going too far. One problem that has plagued many charismatic churches – some people think they hear from God better than the pastor does, and they don't want to discuss things with the pastor first. They deliberately choose to ignore or disobey the pastor's instructions on a specific matter. Those people then expect God to vindicate their disobedience by blessing them with obviously supernatural fruit, so the pastor has to swallow his pride and admit they were right all along.   

Hear this from me – no good will ever come out of doing this. Either get the agreement of your church pastor, submit to his instructions or leave to find another church. By this time I already realized that this person was NOT worth listening to. He may have music knowledge, but his understanding of the things of God was very lacking.

So I brought up the only topic that seemed to bug him, the pastor.

Me: "How about this? How about YOU play, then we let Pastor decide?"

He didn't like that, so he changed the topic.

Him: "Why, when you play, you don't play there and there (indicating the higher and lower parts of the keyboard), you only play here (indicating the middle)? I might as well chop off the top and bottom parts!"

God is my witness, he was THAT inane, thinking that playing solo piano accompaniment for worship was to be done the same way as playing for some show at Berklee. If other Berklee grads are like him, Berklee ought to get me to teach Musicianship 101. The fellow went back to his mantra of the day.

Him: "You must flow!"

Me: "You can flow?"

Him: "Of course!"

Me: "OK, then you play and show Pastor. We let him decide, OK?"

I guess he really had no answer, so he started getting personal.

Him: "I can flow, but can you follow it or not? Your playing is like sleeping! You ought to humble yourself. Other people can follow what I tell them, why not you?"

Me: "OK, then you play and we let Pastor decide, OK?"

By this time I guess he had enough. So he walked off. I wasn't too smart yesterday morning, it took me so long to figure out how to drive him away – keeping mentioning the Pastor! It was like showing a cross to a vampire, it might take a while but it will work in the end. Now I know what to say to him the next time we meet at the service…

The Point Is…

As you can tell from my previous posts, I can be very dogmatic. When I have the authority to tell musicians what to do, I fully expect them to follow my instructions. I don't want them changing things behind my back or without checking with me first.

And because I believe in treating people the same way I want to be treated (Matt 7:12), this is also how I follow instructions from my leaders as well. Don't expect me to try out suggestions and ideas from other people without checking with my church leaders first.

If you find yourself in the same place I was, with someone trying his or her best to get you to disobey clear instructions from your church leader or pastor, you may also find it helpful to do what I did – suggest that THEY themselves go discuss with the pastor or leader themselves. If they are sincere and have nothing to hide, they would be more than happy to.

But if the suggestion only seems to frustrate them into insulting you or arguing with you, you know they have an agenda and something to hide. Don't let yourself be manipulated by such people, OK?

Be blessed!