Thoughts on Leading

I think I have made it no secret the love and affection I have for my tribe at the Tuscaloosa Vineyard. These people are quality. In the little less than a year I have journeyed alongside them it has been a place of healing, growth and challenge. One of those challenges has been stepping back into leadership.

From a worship night at my house. I love my tribe!

Even reading that statement is kind of odd. Since I have been in Alabama I have (unfortunately) landed in three churches before Vineyard. (I say unfortunately, because I like stability. I don't like being a hopper or a shopper. For the most part, those three congregations were filled with great people...especially my friends out in Buhl! I just had trouble finding my place.) And in those churches I have led youth, worship and small groups. So, it wasn't like I have been "out of the saddle" necessarily; it's just things feel different at The V. I think it seems more akin to what I feel my calling looks like.

So, this week was exciting because my buddy Tim asked me to lead worship. He is the worship pastor at the church and it was fun to see this type of initiation work itself out naturally, you know, from within, instead of bringing someone from the outside. Also, leading worship is something I tend to feel comfortable with since I have been doing that for over a decade now.

I probably wore this expression Thursday night.

But Thursday night, at practice for Sunday service something happened, that, to be honest, happens to leaders of all shapes and sizes, that I didn't expect. As I got in the saddle I just didn't feel comfortable. I couldn't find the right balance. I was just looking around wondering, "Does anyone else feel this shaky? Is this just me?" It was difficult to find myself lacking confidence in something that has always brought me great joy.

So I talked with a few people in the band/ leadership about it and as I drove off said a little prayer.

And here is where we get into a phrase that I often say, and when I look at friends faces I often wonder what they think when they hear it: God spoke to me. The idea of hearing the voice of God extra-biblically is something I think I will take on at another time. (BTW, quick definition of extra-biblical: outside of the Bible.) But for now, it was interesting to hear what the Lord was saying to me.

I will preface that message with this. I have been reading a lot lately. Henri Nouwen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eugene Peterson, Tyler Watson have been some of the more consistent reads. And I think their collective words helped me shape the message God was preparing to speak to me.

The simple version was this: when leading worship, your insecurity does not determine your offering. Do what you are supposed to do, and that is worship. Peterson has this great passage in A Long Obedience in the Same Direction where he writes about lifting your hands. Lifting up your hands is based on motor memory and not on some emotive response. Most people can lift their hands. When Scripture commends us to lift our hands it doesn't require working ourselves up to an emotional place where we can lift our hands. We simply send some neurons through the old neural freeway to our arms and say, "Wave around in the air like you just don't care."

When in doubt I read Merton.

So, when leading worship, of course, there will be in security. Just as there will be confidence, joy, sadness, weariness. We don't work ourselves up to worship. We worship. It reminds me of one of my favorite Merton passages:

What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe.

 So, I just try to remind myself that worship is not dictated by emotive response in a given moment, that worship is beyond, yet includes my emotions. They are part and parcel with the whole living faith thing. 

I do however think there are certain differences in the corporate setting. We can't just be these crazed, responsive people, sliming others with our insecurities. We need to avoid being compulsive, but we can be honest. We can stop and say, "I am feeling insecure," to those close to us, without shouting to the congregation, "I'm out of control, I don't know what I'm doing up here!" There is an appropriate place for it. Just like there is a place to say, "I am probably a bit of a prideful git today." But neither determines our engagement with worship, because simply, worship isn't about us. It's part of something greater.

I think back to undergrad. There was a certain part of me that understood this, and a certain part that strove to be "authentic" saying things like, "I won't affront (because I used big words a lot in undergrad!) God. I'm not going to fake it...so I'm just going to sit here." It was a heart that said worship was about me. It made me the center of the worship act, not God. And it was something that I just had to overcome.

So, tomorrow, I get to lead worship at Vineyard. I get to be a part of this external act of worship where the men, women, boys and girls of our congregation are going to be feeling happy, sad, anxious, prideful and insecure. And together, we get to enter this place where we say, "Even with that...I will worship." And that is what God wanted to remind me of as I am growing back into leadership this week. I'm sure next week there will be newer lessons, and then again the next week. In our living faith we just continue to evolve and that is a pretty cool thing.

Thoughts on "Christian" Music

“Rock 'n roll is everything
Everything to a lonely man
And never will I bow to you”
- Delirious?

Martin Smith has a way with words. I think that is why, even in my days as a Christian that despised most Christian music, I still listened to Delirious?. The dude can write. The band had this amazing, evolving sound. They took risks. And sure, in the eyes of most Delirious? wasn’t true rock and roll (you know, no sex and drugs and all), but truth be told they were pioneering, they were defying the system and they were leaving behind trails that other bands would follow, albeit some, a decade later.

And that’s part of why music is just so important. First, it is a reflection of a diverse landscape. Second, great music, whether it be Aaron Copland, the Fugees or Charo, is pioneering. And both diversity and pioneering were marks of Jesus and the early church and should be of the Church of today.

Let’s roll back to around Fall 1998. I was a sophomore in college. I was studying religion at a Baptist school. Two things were simultaneously evolving in me. First, was this displeasure with the state of what is known as CCM (Contemporary Christian Music). The second was a lack of congruence with my developing understanding of church and my Baptist heritage. I think in my youthful zeal, I unfairly combined these things. As a matter of fact, I know that I unfairly attributed a lot of things to UMHB that were just a matter of growth. So Aunt Mary, consider this my apology.

Now, I have outgrown a lot of my calling people out, so I won’t really name some of the bands that were targeted by my wrath, but there were three common complaints that I had (and probably still would have) when I listened to CCM. The first was cashing in on worship. Everyone was coming out with a worship album. It was so frustrating. Sure, they were Christians, but as soon as people saw Vineyard and Hillsong selling records, others decided to capitalize on a trend. And the biggest problem I saw was, these were simply covers of better renditions. There wasn’t even anything original being done.

As a quick aside, I have nothing wrong with covers. As a matter of fact Antioch Community Church does a great job of covers. BUT, the point of their CDs is to provide a central listening point for people within the movement…not to make a quick buck. And that is why I can appreciate the work of JMG others who are just trying to aid congregants.

The second complaint and the third complaint are two sides of one coin. There were some artists who could write great poetry, but didn’t give a crap about production and aesthetics of music. There was a huge disconnect that prevented people from being able to access the music. There were plenty of people who threw at me the mantra of the 1990s, “But just listen to the words.” Sorry. That is no excuse. As Chris Hodges would say, there is no excellence in doing that. Those artists only did half the work.

The last complaint was the converse. There were these musicians who understand musicianship, created really pretty sounds and had the depth of a snail (I originally wrote titmouse, because blogs need more titmice, but in researching the intelligence of that species found they are indeed intelligent…inasmuch as birds can be intelligent). So, you had this great sounding stuff that considered whether or not unsaved people in hell could eat Lucky Charms. (Okay…moment of immaturity in calling out that song and band.)

That is why I stopped listening to CCM. I did however continue to listen to worship music, and still do, but there was still this desire for rock and roll. I think that is what happens when your dad raises you listening to Janis Joplin. Something just sticks with you. Something desires music that isn’t just safe, bubble gum, over produced, prettier than everything else garbage.

Enter the picture one Jennifer Knapp. Knapp is currently a lightning rod for those who know she is still around. She stands as this statue in the crossroads of Church and homosexuality. To some she is this beacon of strength and a public example of learning to stand on two feet as a gay Christian. To some, she is nothing but a confused, deceived woman who thinks you can have your cake and eat it too. But to me she is simply rock and roll.

Two things stick out to me about Knapp. First, is simply, I have seen her in concert, I guess three times. The first two were back in those Baptist days. The third was at Hotel Café in Los Angeles where she was coming back “for one show.” That place was packed. An hour early, and it was overflowing. It was an interesting show in several regards. First, it was a bar, and for the most part, Angeleno Christians have no problem throwing down some beer. But, the out of towners who came from Nashville, Dallas and anywhere and everywhere seemed to feel a bit awkward. Second, Knapp did new music…and it was REALLY raw. Like throw a steak on a grill for two minutes raw.

Finally, Knapp didn’t close the concert. She snuck out a side door. Yep. And at first I was disappointed. But then I realized, this woman probably just isn’t ready for all that comes with “those questions.” And I think that ended up being a fair assessment. And she dealt with those questions (quite well I may add) with Larry King.

Second, and more importantly, Knapp wrote like no one else at the time (except maybe Rich Mullins) in CCM. She was raw and emotive from the very beginning. She was working out her faith with fear and trembling before her sexual tendencies were ever known. But she was also doing it with great musical relevancy and ability. When I listen to old Jennifer Knapp albums, I hear someone who determined that the low road of putting out a product for a buck wasn’t enough. Part of me thinks she would have been fine had she never been the crowning glory of Christian music (which she was for a time). She was doing her thing. She has continued to do her thing through it all. And in that was she pioneered. And in what she is doing now, whether you agree with her or not, she is a diverse voice that is trying to speak to the Church…and others.

In other words, like Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald or even Mumford, she was making socially aware rock that spoke into the culture, and in many cases the church. Like Delirious? she was rock for the Church…and rock and roll? It’s everything.