A Prayer for the Broken

God, it's tough.

You know the statistics because You know everything that goes on in this broken-already-redeemed-but-waiting-for-Christ's-return world of (Y)ours.

I know from reading your Word that Your heart breaks for the victims - the widows, the orphans, those sold into slavery after You sent Your Son to free us from the chains of sin. And every day, we long for those chains, we long for Egypt because we don't know what is best for us. We don't know that although the desert is long, dry, and we are in want of water, you have a land flowing with milk and honey and everything our hearts truly desire waiting for us; and we forget that every single day, You provide us with exactly what we need.

And God, we long for everything else before we long for You.

We search for rest in things, in possessions, in sex, in drugs, in alcohol - only to be left exhausted.

We search for rest in controlling those we see as beneath us,
      in abusing others to make them fear us,
        in holding to our pride in thinking that we know exactly how we would have responded if                    something as tragic as THAT had happened to us.
Only to be left wanting more.

We search for rest in being quick to speak,
     in being slow to listen,
      in being quick to let our anger and vengeance pour out as wrath upon others when we, the finite,          puny beings we are, do not, can not, (should not?) know the depth of the depravity of others.
And then we decide that to make our wrath sound better, we will justify it, call it, "righteous anger,"

                forgetting that a part of righteous anger involves not sinning. 

"In your anger, do not sin."

"In your anger, do not belittle others."

"In your anger, do not let your pride best you."

"In your anger, do not forget to listen."

"In your anger, do not forget that the people whom you are angry with are as capable of sin as you are and that they deserve the same amount of grace as you do - that is to say, none."

For if any of us deserved grace, it would not be grace at all.

God, You have placed us in situations for our compassion to grow, so that we can become more like You. But in growing our compassion, our vision becomes biased. We take on so quickly the stories of others who have stories like ours to make them our story. We become hell-bent on seeking the justice that we never received, in doling out vengeance that we never got to share, and we so often forget that there are more people involved in abuse stories than the abusers themselves.

We assume that the same half-apology that we got as victims, the other victims received. 

"because it was true for me, it must be true for them."

We assume that the same path to forgiveness and healing we took, the victims must also take.

"because it worked for me, it will definitely work for them."

 We forget that a major part of empathy involves smashing down the walls of me/them, of us vs. them. 

We have tried amputating limbs off of Your body because of a broken bone instead of seeking the healing of the Great Physician. 

We have said carelessly, "Well, they aren't truly Christians," when we do not know their standing with You. 

We have judged irresponsibly, hurled insults because "they started it," and disassociated ourselves. We have refused empathy, kindness, and compassion. We have chosen justice over mercy forgetting that by doing so, we have become Pharisees - the white washed tombs. The same label that we use when talking about THEM - without knowing their standing with You.

We rejoice, realizing that they will have to account for their actions one day.

How sick of us to rejoice without realizing that we will also have to account for all of the hatred we have spewed.

1 in 4 women, God. 1 in 4 women will experience sexual abuse in their lives. And in America, only 2 percent... 2 PERCENT of those women will see their abuser brought to justice and in jail. 

In America, God, 15 percent of rape and sexual abuse victims are children. CHILDREN. 

Lord, I pray with the Psalmist - bring down your judgement on those who would abuse a child. Holy Spirit, stir within their hearts to bring them to their knees in true repentance. Let the glory of Your Son bring in them a holy desire to fear you and to pay the price for their actions. But let them turn to You.

Forgive us for forgetting that in Your kingdom, we will see those who have seriously wronged others - who have seriously wronged us - and yet have been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb, even if we didn't think that they made the "correct" amends. 

Help us to forgive those we see as "unforgivable."

Forgive us for determining the "correct" mode of forgiveness in other people's lives.

Forgive us for assuming.

Forgive us for choosing mercy over justice - thus telling the victims that what they went through doesn't matter because You've forgiven the abuser.

Forgive us for blatantly refusing to walk humbly with You, knowing that You are God and we are definitely not.

Help us to speak out for those who have been told to "be quiet," to "keep it our little secret," to, "don't speak because no one will believe you anyways."

Help us to hold justice and mercy in equal measures. 

Help us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

dear God, help us.

Confessions of a Worship Leader: On Last Minute Changes

If you know me well, you know that for most things in life, planning things out is one of my least favorite activities. I'm generally a "spontaneous-go-with-the-flow," type B personality, with a particular knack for procrastination because, well, let's face it - sometimes I can prioritize and prioritize and then something of more importance comes up. And then all of that planning and prioritizing gets shoved to the side and I'm left wondering why I planned in the first place.

This especially comes up when I need to pack to move. I am, as my father and mother can both attest, the absolute WORST at packing. It's a bit of a struggle for me, too, as I have a bit of wanderlust in my blood and generally don't stay in the same place for very long and so packing is sort of necessary. Even in packing for a vacation, I generally do it the night before I leave.

But when it comes to planning and leading worship, I LOVE planning. I love fitting details together. I love figuring out how to incorporate intergenerational worship with old songs with new songs with global songs with making sure that our worship is a true dialogue between God, the Body, and each other. I love figuring these things out WAY in advance. It gives me a special kind of adrenaline rush.

And then comes the Spirit. 

Communicating with the Spirit also gives me a special kind of adrenaline rush, but when it comes to last-minute changes and the Spirit nudging me and nudging me and nudging me to change things, I sometimes get frustrated - I planned. I prayed. I worked hard to make sure everything fit together and all of a sudden, the Spirit comes up and says, "Well, that's a nice little puzzle you got there, but it's the wrong puzzle."

"It's the what?"
"It's the wrong puzzle. For all intents and purposes, it's a good looking puzzle. The pieces fit. Except for the fact that I want to push you a completely different direction."
"But it's Saturday. I'm supposed to not be doing anything."
"Just. Trust. That's all I ask you to do. Trust and obey."

And that's where I currently find myself - still in my pajamas, in my office, fitting together a different puzzle.

Because if I've learned anything in all my years of schooling and in the eight months of experience here at a Church, it's that if I push MY will in front of God's will, God will still speak (because He even works in my inadequacies), but I'll end up frustrated on Sunday morning instead of truly worshipping. 

And if I've learned anything in life, it's that God's plan is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS better than my own. 

There's this myth that goes around that all worship leaders do is put together a list of their favorite songs and play them every Sunday - and while that may be true for some, it's not true for all. Some of us work hard planning, praying, and jigsaw puzzling to make sure that the music in the service accents the Scripture and the sermon. And yet, there comes times like these where it seems as if I'm changing everything on a Saturday anyways, what's the point of working 40 hours a week? 

I don't control when or how the Spirit moves. My only responsibility is to respond in kind to it. And after feeling uncomfortable with the service and then only having one other person show up for practice on Thursday, I started seeing the signs. And then while planning prayer stations for the service, I realized that there were themes that I completely missed while reading the Scripture the first time and going through the sermon outline. And I could ignore the nudgings no longer.

No matter how much I complain about coming in to work on a Saturday, I am forever grateful that the Spirit does move and lets me know when I need to change. 

Because it continually reminds me that I am not in control. And that God will do what God will do - especially when we pray for His will to be done. We just have to be ready and willing to continue to do what God wills. To move, even when we feel like spending an entire day watching TV and relaxing. To put aside our comfort for His glory. To listen. To trust and obey.

Confessions of a Worship Leader: On the Curse/Blessing of Creativity

I was in the middle of writing my second exegetical paper for my Principles of Biblical Interpretation class at Kuyper College, when I realized something drastic: there was absolutely no way that this paper working through 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 (which I now realize as a mistake to start with a sentence that begins with the word, "So...") would be 5-7 pages long. We were told to pick a passage that was 5-7 verses in length and exegete - define words, define them in context, in their own language, etc - and write a paper explaining it. I had finished exegeting my second verse when I saw the page number at the bottom of my paper hit "7." We were strictly told not to go over seven pages. The way I was working, I would have easily hit 20.

So I walked into my professor's office, trying not to cry, explaining that I really wanted to understand the passage but there was no way that I could do it in 7 pages with all my resources. He took a look at my passage that I had chosen, laughed a little and said, "Well no wonder. People have written whole books on that passage. It's too long. Shorten it. Do 3-4 verses. I won't dock you down that much as long as you can exegete it properly and well. And in only 7 pages." 

I brought my unfinished paper to the writing center and looked at the student staff person, one word on the tip of my tongue that I had always had a hard time saying, especially when it came to written things - "Help." 

Thankfully it was on one of the nights that a senior pre-sem student was staffing the writing center. He was able to help me see where I had expanded too much, where to cut back, and how to shorten things. But throughout my years at Kuyper, I found myself in the writing center more often than not just to have someone help me edit down. To simplify. 

If there is one thing I consistently need help with, it is simplicity. They say brevity is the soul of wit, and boy, can I be witty. But brevity doesn't come naturally to me, especially in written format. I look at friends who can write points in simple and understandable ways and it takes them two paragraphs when it takes me four pages. And I long for the ability to say what I want to say, how I want to say it, AND have it be short. And I can't seem to do that. 

But one of the other things that I'm noticing throughout this Advent season that I've never noticed before is the beauty in the simplicity. People get really really sick of Christmas songs - but I have a feeling it's because we've all heard Mariah Carey and Kelly Clarkson and fifty different artists put super long runs in the middle of "Oh Holy Night" when the beauty of that song is in its simplicity. When we take a step back and remember that Christmas is a time of simplicity, things become beautiful again. Oh sure, we can stare at the amazing light shows that our neighbors put up, but then how quickly do we get sick of them? And yet I have  tiny tinsel tree in my office, covered in small blue ornaments, and I'm pretty sure I'm never takng it down.

Don't get me wrong - the Gospel is complex and confusing at times. But it was given to a simple people. Look at how many simple people are in the story? Moses with his unwilling spirit, shy nature, and speech impediment? Noah - just a guy who followed God. David, a simple shepherd boy, the youngest in the family, destined to always be a shepherd until called a king. Mary - a teenaged, unwed girl, who had found favor with God. The shepherds, living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks by night when an Angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were told that unto THEM was born this day in the city of David a Savior, dressed in cloths and lying in a manger. 

Christ, who laid aside his crown, his glory, to become a babe, born in a cattle stall in an unassuming town.

The Gospel is for a simple people.

And as I sit here and realize that I have a to-do list that's a mile long, I wonder if there is anything that I can cut. All of the parties, all of the practices, all of the dramas, all of the music - do any of those things detract from the story of Christ or do they enhance it? Because while people may enjoy all of the creativity and time and effort I've put into something, would I rather do a few things exceptionally well or ALL OF THE THINGS and do them all at a mediocre level? 

And my overly-creative and idealistic mind wants to do ALL OF THE THINGS. 

But if I do all of the things, I'll spend January holed up in my home, too exhausted. And isn't the Gospel about Life? 

So instead of saying, "No" to all of my ideas, I'll say, "Not yet." And I'll start looking now for solutions to the problems that have been plaguing me, stressing me out, and making me forget what Christmas is really about. Because if anything, I want the true meaning of Christmas to be highlighted - not my gifts or abilities or ideas or crazy shenanigans. Christmas is not about me. It's about Christ - coming as a child, come from heaven, to seek and save the lost. And that should be the focus of the Church during this season too - to humble ourselves and seek those who are wandering and love them - even (especially) if they hate us.

When Trials Come

When trials come, no longer fear

For in the pain our God draws near

To fire a faith worth more than gold

And there His faithfulness is told

And there His faithfulness is told.

I was blessed *cough*or something*cough* with a highly empathetic soul. It took me years on my own and then a few months of deep soul searching with a trusted counselor to figure out that I could have my own feelings. That I didn't need to take on the feelings of the people around me. That if I had a good day, I didn't need to feel guilty if one of my dear friends had a bad day. That if I had a bad day, it was okay to just sit and breathe with it until I gained perspective and clarity. 

It's also the reason why I've come to the realization that I have to take time in the morning to remind myself of God's promises first thing, and THEN I can go on social media. If I wake up and see, right away, that the world around me is shattered and broken, I carry that weight - even if it isn't asked of me - of being shattered and broken. Sometimes I can snap out of it by listening to worship songs or reading scripture or laughing, but there are other days when I can't: when, for all intents and purposes, I become focused on the brokenness of the world and carry a weight on my heart and mind.

Within the night I know Your peace

The breath of God brings strength to me

And new each morning mercy flows

As treasures of the darkness grow

As treasures of the darkness grow

I have come to love the empathetic part of me, as much as it seems like a hinderance at times. It gives me a glimpse into the heart of Christ who is mediating to the Father on our behalf. 

I recently was at a funeral in which the death of Christ struck a profound cord in the depths of my soul - the cries of the Perfect One on the night on which He was taken for the Father to take the cup of death from Him. That He sweat drops of blood because He was so stressed, in such agony already. The weight of the world WAS on His heart; the pain of sin and the brokenness of the world was on His shoulders.

And it was, in that instant, a lightening bolt - Christ understands. He understands the depth and breadth and width of the human experience. He understands pain and sorrow, stress, anguish, bereavement, joy, laughter, celebration. He gets it. He truly and completely empathizes. 

I turn to wisdom not my own

For every battle You have known

My confidence will rest in You

Your love endures, Your ways are good

Your love endures, Your ways are good

My empathetic heart sometimes needs to remember that I am not able to carry the weight of the world by myself. That there is One who has carried the weight of the world and that He continues to understand the pain of brokenness and He continues to have a heart for the broken. 

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor..."

As a student of worship, I remember very clearly the lessons told me of leading a service with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other - that the brokenness of the world is understood in the Bible and answered in Christ. That we live in the already-but-not-yet: Christ has already come, already died on the cross, already started the redemptive process of answering the evils of the world with salvation and Justice, but yet we are still waiting for His return, to make all things New. For the New Heavens and the New Earth, where there will be no more crying or mourning or pain. Where our "chief end," as the Westminster Catechism puts it, will be to truly and completely "glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

When I am weary with the cost

I see the triumph of the cross

And in it's shadow I will run

Till You complete the work begun

Till You complete the work begun.

But until then, sometimes I am weary. My heart breaks over and over when I see the stories of women and men who have been abused by people who claim love, the stories of children kidnapped, addictions, homelessness, social injustices, children turned into sex slaves or human beings sold into modern-day slavery. And sometimes that newspaper in one hand gets incredibly heavy. Sometimes I'm unable to hold it because in it lies stories of sin and brokenness. 

Sometimes I can't even see the cross through all of the muck. And that's the truth. 

This empatheic heart of mine gets sucked in because I have experienced pain and agony. I have experienced abuse at the hand of someone who claimed love. I have experienced the struggle of trying to figure out the will of God and then collapsing while saying, "Not my will, but Yours."

Sin is heavy. But it's already been picked up by One infinitely stronger than I. By One who sweat drops of blood while collapsing and saying, "Not my will, but Yours."

One day all things will be made new

I'll see the hope You've called me to

And in Your kingdom paved with gold

I'll praise Your faithfulness of old

I'll praise Your faithfulness of old.

And so, I remember. I remember that God has always been faithful. In the Garden. To Abraham. To Isaac. To Jacob. To Israel. To David. 

And I remember that God has a habit of calling those to Himself that seem like the least-likely candidates - Jacob, the youngest, the liar. Rahab, the prostitute. David, the shepherd. The people who consistently turned away to Him and then repented and then turned away and then repented. The fishermen. The tax-collecter. The persecutor of the Church. 

And I have hope that maybe God will do the same to those who abuse. That the Church will be the hand of God and intervene in those situations, calling not only those who have been abused to find comfort and healing, but also the abusers to find peace and reconciliation and forgiveness. That the Church will point the addict to the One who can help them find true peace. That the Church will continue to search for those who are lost. That Sunday mornings will be about recognizing our own brokenness and welcoming those who are lost to find the One who longs to bring them Home. 

That we will stop treating certain sins as unforgivable and a reason for ostracizing while treating other sins with kid gloves and accepting them as part of the human life. 

And I pray that we will be bringers of peace. That we will share the weight of sin and pain together. That Sunday mornings will stretch into Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays. Because the exhortation to "Go in peace" not only tells us to have the peace of Christ but to spread it to all we encounter.

Italicized lyrics: "When Trials Come" by Keith & Kristyn Getty, from their album "Awaken the Dawn." 

Worship in the Broken Places

The Dream: 

I was touched on the face by a small, old woman who, by the smell and look of it, hadn't showered in weeks. Her feet were bare on the cold ground and rags covered her body. "Dear," she said, "could you help me? I've been hurt, I'm cold, and I am alone."
I could not deny that my first reaction was to jump back, give her a piece of my mind, and ask her why she had gotten herself in that situation, but I simply stared at her, unmoving.
"I see the confusion in your eyes, dear," she said, her voice cracking. "You are wondering why I would choose to live this way. You are wondering what I must have done. You are wondering if any of the money that you have in your pocket will go towards food or clothing, or if it will fund alcohol or drugs."
I stood there dumbfounded, unable to move. Her hand still on my cheek.
"Dear," she whispered, "I once had a family. I once had love. I once had safety. And I was robbed of all of those things. All I ask for is empathy. Judgement is quick and painless for the judge, but it leads to a life of misery for those who recieve it. Empathy is difficult and painful, but leads to change. Which will you give me?"
As her eyes searched mine, I awoke with the thought ringing through my brain:

It's easier to be judgmental than empathetic, but which one betters the human experience?

The Reality: 

It was a Thursday night and the worship team was chatting before practice while I got the sound system ready to go. We were practicing the music for the bi-monthly service of healing & renewal and the team was talking about lament in worship. And then I heard it from one of the team members:

"The Psalms remind us that we're allowed to lament - aloud."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It really doesn't take much to get a song stuck in my head. My mind is wired to recognize tunes and throw words to them. But sometimes it's not a song that gets stuck in this ol' noggin of mine; sometimes it's sayings - and those two have been bouncing around my brain for a few days now. And when I sat down to write this post, it started as something completely different and didn't feel right. So I started over with those two things in mind. Then another question hit me, something that someone had asked me at one point in time when they heard parts of my story: "So you've been through so much - what do you think God wants you to do with it?"

And then I started to identify once again with the stories of women (and men) who are caught in abusive relationships, with people who haven't been in the situation tell them that all they have to do is leave, and the absolute insanity that is living in abuse. I empathize. And it hurts.

And I hear the stories of people who have seriously considered suicide to escape despair, depression, and the lies that their subconscious tells them. I empathize. And it hurts.

But what hurts even more is the worldly response to sin. Without the promise of a Savior who will come once again to right the wrongs of this world, there is no hope; however, the correct response to hopelessness is not making light of serious situations and trying to laugh through it.

The response to abuse in a hopeless situation is not to offer "support" by telling women to not walk alone or to "take the stairs". The response to thousands of people who have gotten out of abusive relationships and telling their harrowing stories of #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft is not to use it as a marketing ploy so that people will buy more pizza.

Don't get me wrong - there is a time to laugh. There is absolutely a time to laugh. But as Ecclesiastes tells us, there is also a time to weep and a time to mourn (Ecc. 3:4).

And our laughter should not come at the expense of those who have been touched by sin in tragic and horrific ways. 

So what does this mean for our corporate times of worship?

It means that when we, as leaders, call the congregation to worship, we hold very closely to the balance that God is a good and loving and wonderful God who is to be praised for the good things He has given to us, AND that He is weeping with those who are weeping, mourning with those who are mourning, and comforting the afflicted. It means that we welcome ALL to worship and praise, even (and sometimes especially) those with tear-stained faces. It means that Christ has called those in need of a healer and those who are trapped in the cords of sin to the table - that He carries the broken, allows them to taste freedom and forgiveness.

Because grace means that we are carried to the table - a place that we don't belong.

It means that your leaders are as much effected by sin as those in the congregation.

But it also means that there is hope. And there is peace. And it means that sometimes I need to force myself to sing the words that are hard to sing because I know that by reaffirming truths about God and His goodness with the people around me, by reminding myself that God has not dropped me yet and will not drop me, even if it seems impossible, I will find hope. I will find peace. It might just be for a moment, but a moment of peace in the midst of chaos is a precious thing.

And please believe me when I say that I fully understand - it is difficult to raise your hands when you're flat on your back.

Please don't misunderstand me - I fully blelive that there are chemical imbalances that lead to depression, anxiety, and other disorders of the brain and they should be treated medically. I also fully believe that therapy is one of the best things ever - that having a therapist helps tremendously with dealing with life.

But when we're talking about brokenness in corporate worship, sometimes the thing that we need to do is to sing praise, to remind ourselves that God is good and loves us - especially when we don't feel it. I also firmly believe that Satan will do whatever he needs to do to take our focus off of the truth that God is in control, whether that be attacking our subconscious with lies that we don't matter, that God doesn't care, that life is hopeless or any other way. And sometimes praise, even with tears streaming down our faces, is necessary to bring a dot of light into a dark and broken place.

I also want to say this: as the body of Christ, we are called to tend to those parts that hurt. The example that always comes to mind for me is my ankles because I'm very very prone to rolling them. When I roll or sprain an ankle, it swells. That swelling is the reaction of my body to the injured part, sending extra fluid and white blood cells to aid in healing. Then why is it, in the Body of Christ, that I see more often than not a response of running away from injured members when the response should be running towards them (not literally, people. Don't stampede hurting people, please)?

Because empathy is hard. Sitting in silence, mourning with those who mourn, crying, all of that is tiring. Recently, one of my friends told me, "I can't say I understand. But I care so so much." And that's all I needed to hear. I didn't need a solution, I didn't need someone telling me their situation, I just needed to hear that someone cared.

Y'all, sin hurts. We live in a broken world. But we don't have to suffer alone; in that same breath, neither should we allow others to suffer alone. From personal experience, pain is a lot easier to deal with when I have people who are shouldering it with me. There is a time to laugh and dance, and in a broken world, laughter and dancing are also absolutely necessary. But let us remember to treat each other with grace and understanding, with open ears and care.

We are allowed to lament - aloud. We are allowed to feel the weight of sin and we are allowed to speak about it. We are also called to empathy, to being willing to hurt with someone, for that is the example of Christ, bearing ALL of the weight of sin for a broken people, walking towards the lepers, the adulterers, the liars, the thieves, and healing and forgiving them, inviting them to eat with Him. Taking their pain. And then, after doing all that, being nailed to a cross, being despised by the very ones that He loved.

Worship isn't just for the happy. Worship is for all.

"Come, ye sinners, poor and needy

Weak and wounded, sick and sore.

Jesus ready stands to save you

full of pity, love and pow'r.

Come ye thirsty come and welcome

God's free bounty glorify

True belief and true repentance

Every grace that brings you nigh.

Come ye weary, heavy laden

lost and ruined by the fall.

If you tarry till you're better

You will never come at all."

Joseph Hart

On Worship & Being Present

I was on my way to church on Sunday Morning and wanted to listen to something other than music. I pressed the "seek" button on my car's radio and a talk radio show came on. I'm generally not one to listen to talk radio much, but this particular segment caught my attention, simply because they were talking about something called, "The Kingdom of Ordinary Time."

As a student of worship, I recognized all of those words: in the Roman Catholic traditions, Ordinary Time is the largest season of the Church year - celebrated in between the baptism of Christ until Ash Wednesday and then the First Sunday after Pentecost until the First Sunday of Advent. In the Reformed Church, it's categorized as the "growth" season - its color is green. There are no holidays to be celebrated, no festivals to be had - it is quite literally, an ordinary time.

Unfortunately for the Church, the word "ordinary" very rarely exists as something good. We find beauty and awe in the extraordinary - the creation of the universe from absolutely nothing, God-turned-man in the form of a child, the death of Christ on the cross & His subsequent resurrection - all of these and many many more remarkable things are viewed as extraordinary, awe-inspiring, things to be celebrated. And then we hit Ordinary Time and it seems as though we plateau.

The author of the book "The Kingdom of Ordinary Time" is the current New York State Poet Laureate, Marie Howe. If you would like to listen to the 90 minute segment, you can do so here.

The thing that caught my attention, though, is the beauty in the details of ordinary time - from her poem, "Nowhere" - "This is how things happen, cup by cup, familiar gesture after familiar gesture. What else can we know of safety or of fruitfulness?"

And I'm reminded once again that sometimes ordinary is extraordinary. Ordinary is beautiful if we take the time to be present within it.

There is a danger in working in a church in what we call "vocational ministry" - your pastors, your youth directors, your music directors, etc - and that danger is looking forward. I find myself looking forward 80% of my time, thinking of the next song to teach the congregation, the next event  that needs to be planned, the next move towards church growth, the next season. For all intents and purposes, I'm planning Christmas and have been for two months. August was an incredibly stressful month because it included planning for September, the starting up of youth groups and Sunday School. Every season, I'm given a list of the pastor's sermon topics for the season and I try to figure out how best to re-emphasize the Word of God in music.

There is also a danger in being a part of a church - and that danger is looking back. I can't tell you how many times in the past four months I've heard the words, "Well this is the way we used to do it," or "back when so-and-so was the music director." There is the danger of idealizing the past, of thinking back to the "glory days" and if we could just go back to the way things were then we would have a larger church, more engaged youth, and things would be good. And I confess that I have been a member who has done this very thing on more than one occasion.

The tricky part of both of those things is that neither of them - looking forward nor looking back - are inherently bad. We take a look at the Psalms and see the words, "I remember your goodness when," or, "You have saved me."  We also see in Scripture the expection of deliverance - God's people trusting that He will bring a Savior or that Christ will return and the earth will be fully and completely reconciled to Himself. Those who read the Bible find that it is a very delicate balance of forward-thinking and remembering.

The problem comes, however, when we take those two things and live only within the confines of what will happen or what has happened based not on God's promises but upon our own preferences. Once we live in the confines of what has happened on the basis of our own preferences, we become resistant to change, resistant to hearing the voice of God in the right now. Once we live in the confines of what will happen based upon our preferences, we take control of the future and fully believe that we are the agents of change in the lives of the congregations in which we serve. I've seen it happen myself - church leadership trying to lead (read: drag) a backwards-facing church into a future that they cannot - will not - accept as a possiblility. In most cases, it never works out well for either the church or the leadership.

And that's where we hit a massive problem - because being present is uncomfortable.

Living in either the future or the past requires living in essentially a story of our own making. Since we have made the story ourselves, we are comfortable in it. Our preferences are in that story and in our story, we are gods. We  forget the parts that weren't so good about the "glory days" or we simply choose to believe that in our futures, people will agree with us because we are right.

But living in the present means getting uncomfortable, recognizing that we are not all-powerful, that we cannot control life, and that over the years, life has changed drastically. Being present means listening to those sitting in front of you or behind you or next to you or even in the "other" service. It means recognizing that people have different preferences than yourself and then celebrating the fact that we are all created differently and like different things and think different thoughts and that means that the God we serve is a very very big God. For the person who prefers drums and guitars was created as much in the image of God as the person who prefers organs and hymnbooks.

Being present means that we recognize what is going on in our churches, our communities, our governments, our world, and knowing that God is the God of all of them. Being present means that we take a long, hard look at today and hold to the promise that God will not drop us (future) because we are able to look back and see that He never has (past). It means getting involved in the lives of other church members, even if things like age, race, or gender seem to divide. It means taking an interest in people who look, act, and speak differently because you are able to celebrate that they are who they are because that is how God has shaped them. It means listening to the words of the new worship song and seeing how it fits with Scripture and the truths about God that God has revealed instead of tuning it out because it's not a hymn - or vice versa.

It means loving people for exactly who they are and not trying to mold them into your own image or the image of who they might be.

And that is incredibly uncomfortable.

So as we worship, if we look to the past or the future, let us look to those things on the basis of God's revealed truths about Himself instead of our preferences - but let us also remember to stay in the present, to enjoy the ordinary.

For it is in the Ordinary that we are challenged the most to grow.

Madeleine L'Engle says it best:

"The only reason I can find for all the shouting about how God created is that it allows some people to stop thinking, to settle back into the safety of their rut, to stop thinking about what it is really all about.
What it is really about is that creation is God's. It is el who has made us, and not we ourselves. To argue about how God made us is to argue about non-essentials. AS far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter a whit how God created. The important thing is that creation is God's, and that we are part of it, and being part of creation is for us to be co-creators with el in the continuing joy of new creation.
That is a great calling, and when we argue about how God created us, we forget our vocation, and the tempter rejoices. I'm all for genuine scientific research, but when we argue about how rather than if or why, we miss the point. In a world where fewer and fewer people believe in God at all, where life is for so many an unimportant accident with no meaning, where we are born only to slip back into annihilation, we need to stop arguing and affirm the goodness of creation, and the power of love which holds us all."

We are called to be co-creators with the Creator himself. We are all creative, whether your creative senses are awakened by oils on a canvas, a beautiful Wagner piece, numbers on a spreadsheet, or thinking of new business strategies or architectural structures that are both ascetically pleasing and energy efficient.
What this means is that in God's "common grace" (which isn't so common after all. It is amazing in and of itself!), all of humanity (and it can be argued that all of creation) was given the gift of creating, of working with SOMETHING to make it the best that they can make it. Every human being is endowed with the ability to create. It's not JUST something that the Church can do.

In fact, in the eyes of both Christians and non-Christians alike, it's strange to see that sometimes the most gifted and talented artists that are featured are non-Christians. Why is this? Why is talent and creativity stifled so that we can teach our children that only the Bible and Jesus and defending the Bible and Jesus are the things that matter? Did not the king give his servants talents so that they could grow them and expand them in the parable that Jesus spoke? Why is pleasure something from which we would rather run away?

Now you may tell me that there ARE Christian bands and artists who have succeeded in their talents. That is true. But the non-Christian world generally dictates how the art and the music look, and the Christian world (after debate) generally follows.

I'm not saying that Christians are of little value in this world. However, I AM saying that sometimes, to serve Christ effectively and to spread the truth effectively, we must culture creativity, encouraging children to be a co-creator in this world.

Encourage imagination. Christ valued the children, even told us that we should have a child-like faith.

"I'm not going to define the creative impulse. I don't think it's definable. There are educationalists who think it can be taught like the new math and who write learned treatises on methods of teaching it. The creative impulse can be killed, but it cannot be taught." - Madeleine L'Engle

"We will not have the courage...to keep our child's creativity, unless we are willing to be truly 'grownup.' Creativity opens us to revelation, and when our high creativity is lowered to two percent, so is our capacity to see angels, to walk on water, to talk with unicorns. In the act of creativity, the artist lets go the self-control which he normally clings to and is open to riding the wind. Something almost always happens to startle us during the act of creating, but not unless we let go our adult intellectual control and become as open as little children. This means not to set aside or discard the intellect but to understand that it is not to become a dictator, for when it does we are closed off from revelation." Madeleine L'Engle

All quotes taken from the book Herself, compiled by Carole F. Chase. Published by ShawBooks, Colorado Springs, CO. Copyright 2001.