church and do everything excellently ?” versus , “ Let ’ s check on your heart ; let ’ s check on your thinking . Are you actually maturing in Christ ?”
I think that gets missed sometimes . And I think it can get missed in any church , no matter the size , no matter what the teaching , the approach , or the expression are . With Alex and Henry , one of the things that I think has happened as a result of their pastoralship of saying , “ Hey , we are going to build a church where people learn how to cultivate a relationship with Jesus Christ on their own ; we cannot spoonfeed you because if we spoonfeed you , then you ’ re dependent on us . And the minute that we don ’ t feed you the thing that you want or the way that you want it , you ’ ll be looking for a meal somewhere else . And we want you to learn how to feed on the word of God and the presence of God and on him and Him alone .” And what happens is that people mature if you ’ re willing to do that — the hard work of that , the messy work of that in community — you mature .
As you mature as worship leaders , you begin to love the Word of God because you want to be in relationship with Jesus . And you love being in his presence . There is an overflow that happens when you ’ re leading , and it ’ s all coming from that place . It ’ s not coming from a place of , “ I ’ m trying to convince you that I have potential to preach a message next week , or you know what ? Look at me . I ’ m a great leader .”
The only thing I ’ m thinking about in that moment is , “ Holy Spirit , what are you doing ? What are you saying ? And how can I partner with you to minister to the people in this room right now ?” That ’ s it . There ’ s no other agenda than just that . Or it could be that you feel like the Lord has said something to you earlier in the day or in the week , or there ’ s a scripture that ’ s burning in your heart , which is still the same thing of God . How do I partner with you to actually minister to people in this moment ? Henry is a very generous pastor , a generous leader , and one who doesn ’ t micromanage . And I think when you lead with generosity and you lead with trust , it makes for really messy things in the beginning . And people make a lot of mistakes , but he knows that that ’ s the only pathway to getting mature leaders that can then also carry it , carry it with care , and steward it well . And I think that ’ s what you see with our team .
[ Andrew ] Also , just quickly , I ’ ll add , I think what comes along with that maturity that Hope ’ s talking about is the realization that the goal in a service of worship is that we would enter into the presence of God , lift up a song to him , praise his name , and encounter his presence . So that ’ s the main goal . And sometimes you can ’ t reach that goal just by singing three or four songs from top to bottom and not doing anything else — just singing it like the record does it . Our job as worship leaders is actually to lead the room . And so sometimes the room really needs to be led in a direction that you weren ’ t planning on . And you get into that moment , and you ’ re like , “ Man , people are just ... they feel so bound up , and they need freedom in this moment .”
So we need to take a left turn right now and go into that and say , “ God , how do we invite the freedom of your presence into this place ?” But I think there ’ s also the other side of where you can begin to make the goal : “ Well , we need to
14 February 2024 Subscribe for Free ...