Help! I Have No Worship Leader!

If you are a pastor without someone to help for the music portion of worship, I have found the following procedure to be helpful. I used mp3s and cds to fill the lack of anyone who could sing or play instruments (because the Lord did not give me any of those gifts!). These instructions are geared at finding good recordings that the congregation can sing along with, but can also be used to guide the planning process from the pastor's standpoint, especially if the pastor feels lost in the sea of what's out there in Christian worship music.

Get some good hymnals. I really like the 2008 Baptist/Worship Hymnal. Look in the back under topics, and find hymns under headings related to a topic directly relating to or pointing towards the main idea of the sermon. See if there are any you like or speak to these topics or to a church need. In my case, there are many (perhaps most) hymns I find that I have never heard. If I like what they say and they are rich in doctrine and teaching, then I go listen to them at Lifeway Worship Project website or on Rhapsody.com, and then create master list of the ones that speak well to the topic and are biblically sound and doctrinally rich and sound decent. Then I finalize the list.

This process should eventually evolve into a staff meeting between the elders of the church, music ministry, and staff. It should be the service planning that occurs week-in week-out, and will begin and end with the worship leader and pastor finalizing the songs. The major job of the worship leader in our church, besides leading on Sundays, is to seek out the best new and old songs that are most relevant to the scripture being preached on, learn and teach them to the congregation and choir (if the choir exists), write responsive readings and assess the spiritual response of the congregation in our assembly. So as you try to accommodate for a lack of staff help in your church, try to gear the process in anticipation of the roles and requirements of the position you are looking forward to filling when the Lord provides.

I know some music ministers/worship leaders (or whatever title you have adopted to fit your theology!) are not always thrilled to have pastor involvement, but this is the way it has been for centuries. The elders/pastors will be responsible to God for everything that happens on the platform Sunday morning, and unless the worship leader is an elder, take care to be responsible for what is taught through song. I scrutinize everything, from prayer and announcements to song selection and I have even changed words in certain songs to reflect biblical doctrine. Therefore, I give the final go ahead on the songs (since I am accountable to God for them). What I do not want to do is push my own preferences over those of others. I want to make everyone mad, not just a select few! The people who may help you in this process must have thick skin, because you might need to say "no" to a song they really like. People are funny about music—they get really attached to songs emotionally. There could be many reasons I have stayed away from certain songs, ranging from the simple fact that they are overplayed in our church, they are too emotive, or doctrine is lacking…or just bad.

So my major task, and the task of those I ask to help, will be to pick good, doctrinally and sermon-main-idea relevant songs that sound pleasing. You must be careful to pick versions of songs that are not eclectic but have a tempo that congregations can sing along with. Just grabbing the latest Christian radio hits will not serve the congregation or the atmosphere of worship well. I want songs that would not fit snugly into either a country station or a rock station—they must stand alone. That is a preference I push just to keep focus on the words and not the sound.

I purchase the mp3s of the songs I want to play Sunday morning. In MediaShout, and I download the lyrics from CCLI SongSelect and attach the mp3 as an audio file to the lyric cue, and it will play automatically. The pastor needs to practice introducing songs, preparing people through prayer before and between songs, and try to make the transitions as smooth as possible. The difficulty is that most songs have musical solos of varying lengths. This can get bothersome or uncomfortable in a worship setting. Advise the people to use these times in the song (if you cannot find a version that excludes them) to pray about what they are singing and think through the lyrics.

If you decide to go this route, know it isn’t easy and is a lot of work. It will also raise the ire of many people. But God can use it to make people think about what they are actually doing on Sunday morning. It worked well in our situation (which has been in transition), as people were ready when God brought us a music minister.

To God Alone Be the Glory, especially in worship through song.

HT:Juan Sanchez

[dust] **cough, cough***

Wow, anything going on in this place? Maybe I should post something.

"Christ died for your sins"

[Excerpt follows]

The statements “Christ died for his people only” and “Christ died for all people” are both true in some senses, and too often the argument over this issue has been confused because of various senses that can be given to the word “for” in these two statements.

The statement “Christ died for his people only” can be understood to mean that “Christ died to actually pay the penalty for all the sins of his people only.”  In that sense it is true.  But when non-Reformed people hear the sentence “Christ died for his people only,” they often hear in it, “Christ died so that he could make the gospel available only to a chosen few,” and they are troubled over what they see as a real threat to the free offer of the gospel to every person.  Reformed people who hold to a particular redemption should understand the potential for misunderstanding that arises with the sentence, “Christ died for his people only,” and, out of concern for the truth and out of pastoral concern to affirm the free offer of the gospel and to avoid misunderstanding in the body of Christ, they should be more precise in saying exactly what they mean.  The simple sentence, “Christ died for his people only,” while true in the sense explained above, is seldom understood in that way when people unfamiliar with Reformed doctrine hear it, and it therefore is better not to use such an ambiguous statement at all.

On the other hand, the sentence, “Christ died for all people,” is true if it means, “Christ died to make salvation available to all people” or if it means, “Christ died to bring the free offer of the gospel to all people.”  In fact, this is the kind of language Scripture itself uses in passages like John 6:51; 1 Timothy 2:6; and 1 John 2:2.(fn)  It really seems to be only nit-picking that creates controversies and useless disputes when Reformed people insist on being such purists in their speech that they object any time someone says that “Christ died for all people.”  There are certainly acceptable ways of understanding that sentence that are consistent with the speech of the scriptural authors themselves.

Similarly, I do not think we should rush to criticize an evangelist who tells a body of unbelievers, “Christ died for your sins,” if it is made clear in the context that it is necessary to trust in Christ before one can receive the benefits of the gospel offer.  In that sense the sentence is simply understood to mean “Christ died to offer you forgiveness for your sins” or “Christ died to make available forgiveness for your sins.”  The important point here is that sinners realize that salvation is available for everyone and that payment of sins is available for everyone.

[end]

excerpt from: Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity, 1994), pp.601-602.

With an overall lack of study these days as more and more up and coming theologians finding their pedogogy in blog posts and praxis in the comment streams, I offer this simple reminder to study.  Pastors are the resident theologians of the churches.  It is vital that they equip themselves with a sound biblical foundation and full sampling of knowledge and ideas from across the evangelical theological spectrum when considering the idea of public teaching, especially over the internet.  I pray that this post, which represents a major voice in seminary classrooms today, spurs pastors on to become better theologians, better representatives of Christ and His church, and ultimately better witnesses of the gospel handed down to us.

Come and hear Harold O'Chester, Jerry Chaddick, Jake Thornhill, Michael Lewis, Herb Reavis and Bob Pitman at Andice Baptist Church this week.  This is a part of our week long building dedication emphasis.  Questions?  See www.andicebaptist.com.

Numbers Wordled