My goal is to seek and follow God's will, to continually strengthen and deepen my relationship with Christ, and to help others discover the experience of salvation now by accepting His grace. The reason for this blog is to explore the concept of worship and understand how this verb intersects our lives.
The recording below was a heart-felt tribute to my time in service at The Pointe, our church of the past 2 years that we will sadly be leaving in the next couple weeks. The arrangement was written by our Lead Pastor Jim Taylor, John Joiner and Cara Satterfield, performed live by Jim Taylor (vocals) and Ben McCain (piano and harp). I was truly moved (really!) when they closed our worship service with this song, and it is well worth a few minutes of your time to listen... especially if you need a laugh. A special "bravo" for Ben's phenomenal keys and harp playing - he usually plays bass guitarfor our worship team!! Click on "Guitar Man" to play the recording.
Watching this really made me laugh, but it also made me think. In satire there is truth, and in this video truth is at the heart of the issue. Are we attempting to be relevant for the purpose of God, or for our purpose? Obviously I can't speak for another person or church, but my goal is always to be God-centered first... and I truly believe that the vast majority of other ministers and churches have that same goal. Unfortunately, we can all lose our way from time to time. It's easy to do. We are humans living in a world that celebrates talent and accomplishment. Before we realize it we slowly begin to prepare a worship service that highlights our abilities rather than God.
As part of the production and worship team, I've worked hard to refine the talents that God gave me - this is what He calls us to do! I seek excellence in music and worship production, I want to lead others in passionate worship, I want to be used by Him, I want to... hold on... there it is; "I want", or more simply put, "I". You see how quickly that happened? But it is I AM who deserves my praise, I do not deserve anything nor should I desire anything but God. I AM deserves my surrender, my focus, my intentions. It is all too easy to say, "look at me" when you lead worship. But I AM created music - he conceived the idea and gave us passion for its melodies. My talents are from God, and I stand in awe each week as He allows me into His presence to sing. When I keep my motives pure, He tells me that what I have to give is worthy - that is the feedback I crave.
So, is church production evil, misguided or self-driven? No. As long as you can always answer the question regarding your motives; "Why?" If my heart seeks God, then I am on track. If my heart seeks my self, I need to stop and refocus on I AM.
I'm starting to believe that the folks at Apple are pretty smart. If you haven't noticed, and I'm sure you have, the products they market are as eye appealing as they are technologically brilliant. The iMac, iPod, iPhone, iTouch... my eyes literally burn when I watch the ads. Recently, as I prepared to purchase a new cell phone, I spent months researching (yearning, craving, coveting) the iPhone. In the end I needed a phone with better call quality, couldn't justify the extra $30/month required data plan, and Verizon sweet-talked me with a hefty discount. My heart still aches. I'm still quite happy with the phone I chose (the Dare), but cannot shake a growing desire to purchase the iTouch (the iPhone without the phone). Of course, my obsession doesn't stop with Apple. Yesterday I found myself reading about the new Kindle2, a small, portable, wireless electronic book-reader thingy. Even though 95% of the books I read are for seminary, I began wondering... how much does this cost? ($350... ouch!) Could we afford this? ("absolutely not" says my wife's subconscious brain transponder). And what does it matter? I don't read so many books that I need a small, portable, wireless electronic book-reader thingy. But, and the guys will back me up here, it's a new form of technology (really, it is quite impressive) and we (men) must acquire all things of this nature. If we do not, we are not real men and have failed at achieving what is written in our genetic code.
I'm starting to wonder if marketing strategies are built around the sin of envy. When I think about it, how many of the things I want are simply a desire of having what someone else has? Envy...iWant.
This was too good to pass up. For those of you who don't know him, Lincoln Brewster is actually a phenomenal guitarist. I'm not sure who did the editing on this, but I think Lincoln is going to egg their house. The funny thing is, every guitarist sounded like this at one time in their career... sometimes I still do. :)
