Worship
"You asked me "what’s up?" "What’s up" is we are about to fire our worship leader/youth pastor. He might survive another year, but I don’t think he will. It is unfortunate. He is a really talented guy. It will really put him in a tailspin I think, and he may even leave the ministry. It’s sad because it is obvious that God has gifted him in music and inspiring people, and now he is about to lose his youth ministry even though that part of his work is OK. What is the problem with this guy? Is our church "too traditional" and "not open to change" (as he told one of his college buddies recently?) Not at all. The problem is with the guy. He is a narrow-minded worship leader who does not know how to serve people, but wants to make everybody else worship like he did back at college. Here is what has ruined him:
1. He is so narrow-minded.
He wanted to introduce our people to a "better way" of worship. What was that "better way?" It was simply introducing college student worship to our people. His mind was made up. He knew what worship should be like—it should be like the worship in a college chapel or other student-led worship service. How narrow-minded! He had no idea that churches are not full of nineteen year old adolescents desiring to emote. Rather they are full of people of all ages and cultural histories. He simply insisted in jamming his preferences down the throats of our people. It is killing him! He makes no room for other valid styles of worshipping—except as he considers all other styles as "traditional" and "outdated" and "boring" and his own college-boy worship as the only way to go. A college education is supposed to help a person get more broad-minded. It didn’t help this fellow, but only reinforced his narrow-minded preference for adolescent worship styles. There are millions of people who worship God quite well, thank you, without the self-proclaimed college-boy-wonders introducing "authentic worship" to us as if they invented worship just last year while at college.
2. He is not a servant
How do our colleges graduate students with such a poor view of servant-leadership? Our guy has a totally self-centered view of worship. He simply does not know how to lead the people in worship. All he knows is how to worship himself, his way, with his music, and his instruments, and he thinks everyone else should worship like he does. When he came here two years ago he never even asked us why we worship the way we do. Everything that we have done for years which was excellent worship for us was discarded so he could help us "really worship God in a relevant way." Our guy knows how he likes to worship and is convinced he should get us to adopt his college-style worship. He has no comprehension of servant-leadership. He did not start with us or our worship culture or our tradition. He is, as the saying goes, "a fellow bounded on the north, west, east and south by himself." He started with himself. And it looks like he is going to end up with himself—out of a job.
Worse, he communicates an undercurrent of an attitude dripping with arrogance. "I know what is best and I’m here to help you ignorant people develop relevant worship" was what our people feel he communicates (though of course he never has said that). This guy is more interested in himself than the people—and he’s more interested in himself than God. His so-called "worship revolution" was all about doing college-boy music more than it had anything to do with really helping the people worship God. Like all self-centered adolescents he assumed whatever pleased him was a universal law. If he cared a bit about getting us to really worship better he would have started with us and helped us worship whatever way we best could do it best. Can’t these music-ministry majors learn to start with the people, and their history and their culture, and their preferences, and serve them, helping them worship the best the way they can worship? Maybe our music and ministry students should take more missions courses in college to understand this approach to culture. What our worship leader has done here the last two years is about what some missionaries did back in the days when they stomped out all native culture and replaced it with American culture. I don’t know what courses they need before they get here, but I know our worship leader is about to get a course in hard knocks. I don’t know, but they need something or I’m afraid local churches will merely be a short hitch for our music-ministry graduates on their way to becoming an assistant manager of Wendy’s or McDonalds.
3. He is a hypocrite on evangelism.
He kept telling our people that we were changing worship to "reach out" and to "attract the lost" and that got him a lot of leeway at first, perhaps the entire first year. It didn’t last. Why? Because the people finally decided he was a hypocrite. The only time he talked of "winning the lost" was when he was arguing for his pet style of music in worship. He never showed a burden for the lost at any other time. He never joined our Tuesday night calling program—never once even showing up. And after a year the people remembered when our board interviewed him—we asked how recently he had led a person to Christ. He mumbled something about helping youth but was not able to name a single person he had ever led to Christ. Ever! Now you tell me—how can a twenty-three year old boy who does not show up for evangelism night on Tuesdays, and has never actually led an adult to Christ in his entire life, lecture our people on "redesigning worship for outreach." Though our people were cooperative for a long time, they finally decided he was a fraud when it came to outreach—he was just using it as an excuse to serve his own preferences. A worship leader has got to really care for the lost and show it in more ways than designing music, or at least he should learn not to fabricate a pseudo-concern just to coerce the laity into worshipping his way.
4. He wouldn’t listen.
Even with all this I think he could have still survived. But the fatal error was the guy just couldn’t listen to the signals. He still doesn’t know he is about the get the axe! Even his defenders (a group of like-minded people he recruited to be his "worship team") have about given up defending him. They are now spinning, "too much change too fast." But even they know it is not about the pace of change any longer—it is all about the person cramming change. It is about a fellow jamming his own preferences down the reluctant throats of good and faithful people who pay the salary of the very man overthrowing their most meaningful ways of worshipping God. At least three of us have sent signals to our worship leader that he is treading on thin ice. (And the Senior pastor has "talked to him" a few times too, but our senior pastor is not one to confront staff, he simply lets them succeed or fail on their own.) In all three cases when a layman talked to him his response was to "request prayer support" from us because "the devil was trying to defeat our efforts to reach out." Can’t these young ministers understand that anyone who resists their self-centered leadership is not automatically working for the Devil? I went to him myself but he brushed it off. To be honest after getting the brush-off from him I decided he needed a good knock in the head to wake him up. Now that I know that’s coming I’m just waiting to see if he will learn from it. That may not be very godly, but I tried and he wouldn’t listen. Isn’t there some way they could learn this in college? Wouldn’t it be better to learn to listen, to lead the people in worship, to resist setting up worship in their own image when they were still in college—before they get married and develop an effective youth ministry, then see their ministry crumble? We tried to save him from himself but he wouldn’t listen. It won’t be long now until he finds out his job is gone. Amazing! He doesn’t see it coming. He is too busy wrapped up in himself and his own worship forms to be in touch with others.
It’s sad. If only they could learn these things before they leave college it could save some of our graduate’s entire life’s ministry. Some might switch from music and ministry majors to business or something where they could "do their own thing." And others might really understand what their "call" is from God—to help others, not just coerce people to adopt their own worship preferences. It’s either that or they get washed out later."
--Name withheld
This direct and accusatory lay letter has been edited adapted to obscure the location and persons involved, but the situation is real and the persons are real. The letter reflects a host of e-mails I have received form the laity. I teach the worship class at Indiana Wesleyan University--every student is required to read this letter and develop a personal code or strategy regarding leading change in worship. So, you are already "out there." What are your principles of leading change in worship that they should consider? What would you suggest these students consider in their personal code?
So, what do you think?
So what do you think?
To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu
Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury --
http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday