ASNN

church stuff: a brain dump

After nearly two VERY interesting years, Vanessa and I are stepping down as worship leaders for our church. I'd love to say that we are leaving the post in better shape than when we inherited it, but I seem to remember something in the Bible about lying.

I find myself with more questions than when I started. Back in the fall of 2005, Vanessa was asked to take responsibility for the worship team for six weeks while the interim leader took a break. We had both been a part of the worship team for a while, whether singing (both of us) or playing guitar (just her). So when we had a chance to take a shot at the service, it was a pretty exciting and natural thing for us to do.

It seems like much more than two years ago when we sat in a room with the elders and I said, "I feel like this is what God MADE me to do." A worship team member (drummer) left because we chose to buy a new drum set, rather than using the starter drum kit he brought in. Another worship team member (drummer; what the heck?) left because... well, we STILL don't know why; after telling us that he was leaving, he and his family stopped answering/returning phone calls. A Sunday morning service of 60 English speakers grew into a service of 80 bilingual members, which split into a Spanish service of 30 and an English service of 50. For the past four months or so, the numbers have been pretty steadily declining, as has the bank account and overall fervor in the congregation. A few families and individuals will staunchly refuse to come to our bilingual services; there's always an excuse, but it's because they don't like "those people". Nearly every member of the service has a specific complaint against one or more of the leaders — they were slighted, they were hurt, they were ignored, whatever.

Through all of this, and especially since January (when we began leading worship in the Spanish service), our kids have been fish out of water. They are in a pure Spanish worship service without knowing any Spanish, unable to understand the songs, sermon and prayers. Vanessa and I have been fish out of water as well; spoken Spanish doesn't come easily for either of us. Nor do we fit into the Hispanic culture terribly well, as we both tend to be fairly introverted, as well as very direct in speech and action. We've been leading songs to which we have trouble worshiping; I can count, on one hand, the number of times I've been lost in worship over the last six months. (By comparison, worshiping only in English on Sunday mornings, prior to September 2006 [when we moved to a bilingual service], was so incredibly easy. It was easy to get back into that English worship, as well, while we were at Spirit West Coast.)

This is not to say the past months have been lost. I've been stretched, both musically and spiritually, in ways unimaginable to me two years ago. I've had such a wonderful time playing music, and have discovered that I really, really love it. (Besides which, I'm actually pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. :-) If nothing else, I have learned a lot about leading worship.

It was at the aforementioned Spirit West Coast that I first had the thought: "I'm not sure I'm really meant to BE a worship leader." I've learned that there's a difference between playing worship songs, worshiping and actually LEADING a congregation in worship. Reading through an issue of "Worship Musician" magazine, reading that excellence and progressive music sometimes takes a back seat to ministering to the congregation, I realized that maybe I'm in the wrong "business". We struggled for so long to make the music at the church culturally relevant — "struggled" because the people reared and bucked at the change, rather than embracing it as Vanessa and I so easily did. Now, I'm reading that the purpose of worship leaders is not to be culturally relevant so much as it is to be relevant to the congregation they're leading.

I'll be honest about two things: I think that statement stinks, and I think I may not be a good fit for that type of responsibility. That statement stinks because I think worship leaders are uniquely positioned to advance the church's relevance in their community, even while leading the church in worship that might include "oldies but goodies". As for the second part, assuming the statement is correct, I think my attitude is not necessarily one of a worship leader. Not that there's anything wrong with that: not everyone is called to be a worship leader. But reading that was sort of a 2x4 between the eyes as I thought, "Am I really in the right place?" Not just at our current church, but leading worship at all.

I don't know, though. The last little while has been so trying and the church has been so unresponsive (DEAD, really); I'd hate to evaluate things when I'm feeling so tired and sick of trying to lead permanently disgrunted people. I've also never really had an active worship leader under whom I could learn the ropes. Instead, I've made every mistake humanly possible all along the way — miscommunications, frustrations, poor choices, you name it. (Although let's be honest: I'm stubborn enough that I probably would have made all of those mistakes anyway.)

For now, all I know is that we're no longer the worship leaders as of July 22 (though I prefer to think of it as a hiatus). We're going out with a bang, though; July 21 is an outdoor, outreach concert in which we will be playing songs by Kutless, Jars of Clay, Jeremy Camp, Jessie Daniels and more. It's been a ball just rehearsing for that, and has really encouraged me to continue playing, even if we're not leading worship. After that... who knows where we'll be or what we'll be doing. I really hope, though, that this isn't the end of the music story; maybe it's just the end to a chapter and the next chapter will start later.

Posted by pcg at July 3, 2007 8:13 PM