Ephesians 4:3 – Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (NIV)

I discovered something interesting: after you spend a lot of time and effort working towards unifying the worship, you start to value, to truly value, unity in the Body of Christ. And that is one of the most profound changes that happened to me as a person as I left the realm of performance music and started playing with the congregation in mind.

More importantly, this guards your heart against pride. For example, I can achieve holiness with just my relationship and fellowship with God. The Levites in Exodus 32 were set apart for the LORD (made holy) by obeying Moses’ command to slay the Israelites who had fallen into idolatry. They didn’t need unity with the rest of the congregation in order to become holy unto the LORD. “The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, "You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day." (Exodus 32:28-29, NIV)

But you CANNOT achieve unity without the cooperation of others. This is something you need others in order to achieve. And that means you need the rest of the Body of Christ. Yes, even those members who have a different theology from you, those who slandered you behind your back, those whom you just don’t like because they rub you the wrong way. You need them.

Are we humble enough to admit that we cannot achieve our goal (on a deeper level) as worship ministers without them?

This, by the way, is a fundamental difference in the mindset, one that separates the performers from the worship ministers. The performers can succeed without the unity of the people. They just need to get their act together and maintain that connection to the Vine, the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you are a genuine worship minister, you will find that being a peace-maker (not peacekeeper, there’s a difference), valuing and esteeming unity in the body of Christ, will grow in your heart the more you serve.

And that is what will protect your heart from the root of bitterness and pride. Performers, because what they do need not take the specific needs of the congregation into account, can end up separated from the rest of the Body of Christ. If they ever encounter any opposition or misunderstanding from the body of Christ they face the danger of ending up offended and resentful. They can see themselves as modern-day Jeremiahs, misunderstood and persecuted by some elements in the body of Christ, and they start being defensive and easily offended. Once they go that route it is only a matter of time before they become hardened and calloused in their hearts. They start to hold ideas like “As long as God is with me, I can ignore the rest of those back-slid, lukewarm, pew-warming people who are pitiful excuses for Christians. I don’t need them…”

But if you seek unity, you will ALWAYS have your heart broken and tender towards even the weakest in the flock or those who oppose you. You will find yourself crying out to God for them, that he will show them the mercy and grace he has shown you. Your heart will be always open to find ways you can serve them, because you know that you yourself can reach your completeness and fullness in Christ only when they too rise up and mature in Christ.

“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in ALL THINGS grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as EACH PART does its work.” (Ephesians 4:15-16, NIV)

This is the attitude that will protect your heart from bitterness and pride when opposition comes.

And opposition WILL come.

Two posts ago I briefly mentioned Praise and Worship Inc. To further elaborate, it is a mindset (I hesitate to use the word “spirit”) in the worship business that seeks to achieve financial gain at the cost of the actual praise and worship itself. This paradigm is administered through Sacrifice Merchants, those selling the cattle, sheep and doves for the worship of God in the temple courtyard.

One day I stopped and asked myself what the temple courtyard was like with all the sacrifice merchants inside. Two things came to mind. First, do you think the cattle and sheep miraculously became house-broken the moment they stepped past the threshold of the temple gates and entered the courtyard? Or that they left cattle droppings all over the place, so that the fragrance from the incense of the temple became mixed with the ‘aromatherapy’ that arose from the droppings?

Try worshipping God with all your heart when you are constantly inhaling cattle droppings. And let me know how it goes. (No thanks, I’m not going to try it myself…)

Or how about the noise level? Do you think the cattle and sheep manifested a reverent silence once they stepped across the temple threshold? Or were they still carrying on (as sheep and cattle always do) while their handlers and merchants shout to each other and the customers to be heard over the prayer and praises offered within the temple itself? (“Those people inside are so irritating! Why must they pray so loud?”) Would all that shouting from the courtyard help the worshippers within to focus on God? Or be a massive distraction?

But the sad fact is that as time goes by people get used to all this. To them it is just part and parcel of praise and worship. Even worse, some have been convinced by the sacrifice merchants that the way things are is the way things should be. Don’t mess with the status quo!

And on my part, I have taken the sacrifice merchants for fools. I thought that if I quietly stay in the background, clear up some of the cattle droppings and teach you people to do the same, the sacrifice merchants will leave me alone. How foolish could I get? Of course those sacrifice merchants will realize that if I oppose cattle droppings in the courtyard, it’s only a matter of time before I oppose them bringing the cattle (the source of the droppings) into the temple courtyard itself, right?

John 2:18 (NIV) - Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"

Notice that when Jesus cleaned the sacrifice merchants out the temple courtyard, nobody said what he did was wrong. They only questioned his authority to so such a thing. They indirectly accused him of being presumptuous, going beyond his limits. (What a thing to say to the God to whom the temple belongs…)

Now because my guard was down, not expecting any backlash from sacrifice merchants trying to maintain their hold on the minds of people, I was taken aback when I was whacked for clearing cattle droppings. Yup, it really happened to me. So what was I to do?

2 Timothy 2:24-26 (NIV) “And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”

For you, I admit I haven’t been preparing you for any backlash from the sacrifice merchants. Other than my post “Who’s the mediator?” 13 July 2006 I’ve not directly addressed any of the teachings that help keep the sacrifice merchants in place and Praise and Worship Inc. in power. All that changes now.

Pray for me, that God will guard my heart from bitterness and give me his wisdom as I try to systematically explain all the areas from which I believe the Word of God teaches differently from what the sacrifice merchants would have you believe. This topic is so deep, pray that I will be careful and wise in the way I present it to you, that God will give me the right words to use to bring across what is on his heart. Pray also that my family and I will be protected from the attacks of the evil one as begin to teach what God has entrusted me.

Thanks, everyone! Be blessed!

Serving the Master...

Proverbs 27:18 - He who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who looks after his master will be honored. (NIV)

As I was preparing for the Petra keyboardist workshop, the above verse just came to me. It really expresses very well my major emphasis as I train and equip worship musicians, giving the worship leader what he/she needs.

What would you think of a man who tries to tend a fig tree without knowing about trees in general and fig trees in particular? Not very wise, right? But that is what is common in worship training these days. Very little (if any) emphasis is given to what worship leaders actually need. How well can you serve worship leaders if you don't know what they need?

And please don't give me the cliché of "My master is Christ, not my worship leader." There are people use that as an excuse to not work with their worship leaders, expecting their worship leaders to conform to their whims and fancies. They then throw in the claim to be led by the Spirit to do things that give their worship leaders problems (such as play their musical instruments in a disorderly manner, drawing attention to themselves rather than to God) and you have the right mix for dissension, division and conflict.

That such things can be accepted or tolerated is the result of the idea that the Holy Spirit's working in praise and worship is an unpredictable, anything-goes, anti-technicality kind of thing, as I mentioned in my last post. I'll address this misunderstanding in greater depth some other time. It requires greater attention, because these problems come out repeatedly in worship ministry and cause great confusion and damage.

So when I talk about looking after your master and how it applies to you, as the worship minister, let's get specific. If you are serving only as a worship musician, you are serving the worship leader directly and the congregation a close second. Therefore any training as a worship musician has to specifically teach you what a worship leader needs and how to use your music to provide that for him/her. And this also means that you need to know what a congregation needs so that you can provide that.

Any worship training that doesn't include those two closely linked elements doesn't deserve to be called worship training. I'm serious. You can get music training using worship songs, and even have deeply spiritual devotionals as part of the course, but if you are not taught how about the people you serve in order that you may serve them better you've been led up the garden path...

Now, because of all the current confusion about what worship music is about, what your worship leader wants may be very different from what he/she needs. And at that point of time, please don't get all offensive on them and tell them "My job is to give you what you need, not what you want. And because you're so misled you don't know the difference! JJ said so..." Please, this is an offensive message already and I already am an offensive person, with frequent bouts of Foot-in-Mouth Disease. Don't help me make things any worse!

What you could do in such a situation is to refer your worship leader to my blog. And if he/she resonates with what I write there we could arrange a meet and just talk. If there's an opening for me to serve more directly I've prepared workshops that introduce various facets of what I teach in a simple to understand manner. And we can see how things go from there.

Now what if you are a worship leader? Then besides knowing how to serve the congregation you'll also have to understand how your pastor thinks and study what your pastor needs. And what I said about worship musicians not getting me into any further trouble with worship leaders also applies to you too. Don't go telling your pastor "You don't tell me what you want! I'll give you what you need! That's what JJ taught me!" Please, I have enough enemies of my own. I don't need help in getting some more...

In today's terms I'd be seen as being very unspiritual, very materialistic, because I emphasize the specific technicalities that minister to the congregation. There will be people who feel threatened by my emphasis on understanding the congregation and worship leader (because they don't teach that but want to pass off what they do as worship training). They may say that you need to understand worship from God's point of view (which is true) and imply that if you know that you don't need to understand it from the congregation's angle (which is not true).

In reply to them I'll say that when Jesus was asked to choose ONE commandment as the most important, he couldn't. Think about it, the living Word of God himself couldn't narrow the commandments to one. He said the most important is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength and your mind AND to love your neighbor as yourself. He had to give two. If you read the account in Mark 12:29-31 he said that loving your neighbor is just like loving the LORD your God.

So if we see worship leading as part of serving God and loving him, how can we leave out from the equation what Jesus himself could not leave out, the loving (and serving) of our neighbor?

Prayer time: Thank God! I just led worship for Acts Centre last Sunday and God gave his people great release in worship. I had supportive musicians who actually played what enhanced the worship rather than distracted from it, and the congregation was more ready for a deeper level of worship than I had given them credit for. (Which explains why God told me to use a more intense worship set than I originally dared to use.) I'm still basking in the afterglow of that even now!

My restructuring of my teaching (to fit into my current lifestyle and schedule) is pretty much done and God is opening doors for me to expand my territory. So I am really very thankful. Thank you for your prayers, everyone! They mean a lot to me, and I thank God for you!