He Equips The Called

If you would have told me 15 years ago that I would be a Pastor of Worship, I most likely would have told you that you were nuts.  As a matter a fact, that is pretty much what I said to my lead pastor at the time when he asked me to take over the worship ministry at my current church.  He asked a guy who did not play an instrument, could not read music, with barely any leading experience under his belt to “give it shot”. And I halfheartedly said sure, but not right away.

So one thing I have learned is that most of the time God has plans for me that I could scarcely imagine.  When I reluctantly said yes to Pastor Lew and took on leading MACC’s worship ministry as a volunteer (NO MONEY AT ALL), I had no idea what I was doing.  I was relying on God and the good graces of the “team” to get me through. Those first years were rough. I had inherited a team that I did not choose, who were on the team simply because they wanted to be.  Now don’t get me wrong there was some talent from the beginning, but most were pretty much like me, volunteering to fill in a gap that they felt they could fill. Does this sound familiar? Are there people on your team that have well, always just been there?  People you respect with the utmost respect for their walk with Christ, their marriage, their generosity, spirit and support. I had several of those when I inherited the MACC Praise Team. How did I deal with it? What did I do? What is the magic formula? Well the honest answer is, that I did nothing.  I was so new to the whole thing, I was barely hanging on, I really had no time to think about such things. I was trying to work a full-time job, be a good husband, father, role model and leader.

As I look back on it, I still do not know how it all worked out. Let me take that back, I know exactly how it all worked out.  God equipped me with the knowledge and resources at the time I needed each individual piece. He did not give me the whole answer at the beginning, He did not part my Red Sea and let an award winning band of classically trained instrumentalists march to the front of the church proclaiming the MACC worship kingdom is now established.  No He patiently, lovingly, gently with a whisper showed me, told me and gave me all that I needed at the exact moment when it was needed.

In those first couple of years as the church began to get established and more people started to attend, God equipped the team with Christ centered talented people. Like the ultra-talented metal head guitar player who played an all the time out of tune BC Rich Acoustic with as much ease as a butterfly lands on a flower.  Or the versatile jazz drummer who could pretty much play anything and whose Christian life and marriage were a model for anyone to see.

The funny thing is, that over the past 15 years, I have only had to ask a handful of people to step away from the team, and most of those were because they needed to deal with something happening in their daily walk with Christ. To those of you dealing with this issue, the only advise I can give you, is deal with it in love. Christ gave the example in how he lived, by dealing with everything he did in love.  He had this really cool ability to take away all the emotion that would have bogged us down and replace it with an empathetic, I understand, we will get through this together love.

Now I am not saying that if you have someone causing dissension (even if it is unintentional) you should just let it go. On the contrary, deal with it, but do it in love and out of a place of mercy and reconciliation. Christ always confronted sin head on, but He also offered salvation and reconciliation to those who believe on His name. There was a time when I had to ask a volunteer to step down because his attitude was becoming toxic and affecting the entire team.  This was not a fast process, I struggled with this for over a year before confronting the person and having them step away. Now I know, what your thinking, it probably ended up ok and we are still friends and sit around and laugh about it. So….no not really. I don’t think either of us hold ill will toward the other, but let me just say that that family no longer attends our church. Was this the reason? Did I cause this? I think that is hard to say. I do know that since then he is doing well and is involved in his current church. I also know that the tension that used to exist in that part of the ministry is no longer there.  

Being in leadership, no matter if it is a volunteer or paid position in a church is difficult.  You are the one that has to make the decisions, you are the fall guy (or girl). I can remember one of the Pastors of my old church would say, “if you are thinking of going into ministry, think hard and if there is anything else you can do, do it.”  Ministry is hard, being a leader is hard, but God will equip you for the hard times even if you think what you bring is insufficient for the task.