FROM: David Lyons
Since I have been an assistant pastor, and even a Minister of Music and
Youth Pastor at the same time, I found your latest article on your web site
to be very interesting.
First of all, since you said that this was a real situation, it sounds to
me like the one to blame is the Senior Pastor, not the Assistant. In our
denomination, Nazarene, the assistants basically work for the Senior
Pastor, not the board. When an assistant is hired, the Senior Pastor needs
to explain clearly what will be required, and what it is that the Pastor
wants the assistant to accomplish.
I have been an assistant three times, once doing both leading the music
(playing the piano at the same time) and being the Youth Pastor, and twice
being mainly the Youth Pastor, but also being involved in the music. In
each case, I was willing to do things the way that the Senior Pastor
wanted. I had no problem with this, and feel that it is the only way to
really work correctly. This answers your question of "What would you
suggest these students consider in their personal code?"
Even though an assistant may be the Minister of Music, I believe that the
Senior Pastor is still the Worship Leader. Though I was given lots of
freedom to do my jobs, the Pastors made it clear what it was they wanted,
and I worked within that framework. When changes needed made, or if they
weren't satisfied with something, they let me know. In each case, we
worked as a team.
How do we lead congregations to change their patterns of worship? Well,
this is something that I have dealt with more as the Senior Pastor than
when I was an assistant. I have two ideas about this. First, it is
possible to make major changes at the very beginning of a pastorate, in
some cases. Of course, sometimes this can really be trouble. Second, and
my basic premise, changes should be made only when necessary, and should be
done gradually.
For instance, I think it is too drastic a change to go from four or five
hymns in a service to only one hymn and five to seven choruses. The real
question is whether worship is really happening or not. In my home church,
which was also my first pastorate, we only used a few choruses, but had
mostly hymns. The worship was out of this world. What is wrong with
that? It worked well.
When leading worship, we do need to realize that there are lots of
different styles and methods, and not think that only "college-style" is
real. A better decision is to make sure that the worship team rehearses
the music, so that the music is done very well, no matter what the style
might be.
I think pastors and congregations and music leaders all need to have
realistic expectations of what will actually take place during worship.
--David Lyons
FROM: Dwight Eldeen
How sad. Why is it that we are so prone to think that what we like is
equal to what God wants ?
In my church we have some 'older' saints who are just as selfish as the
young man in the letter.
One dear saint said to me one day, "If you want to get me out of this
church just try having that
contemporary music. It will be my lst Sunday, I promise you that." What
did Jesus say, "He who would be greatest must be servant of all." Where
are our servant hearts.?
Dwight Eldeen, Pastor
First Baptist
Hanover, Pa.
FROM: Brad Harris
Suggestions?
Leading worship does not start up front. It starts with each of us being
humbled before God and realizing that in myself I really can't do that much
in leading others in worship. I'm not talking talent but the heart. I
had a teen who grew up in our Student Ministries and now is graduating from
Western Michigan University. She didn't have a voice or new a thing about
music but she new how to lead people in worship. She lead worship on
youth nights and God used her in ways that I can't really
describe. Why? She walked humbly before God and it impacted her friends
and others around her.
I think we have worship all wrong. We think sometimes it happens when we
bring the right chorus or hymn before a group of people. Worship is being
broken, humble, and knelling down before the King. If I new worship then
it wouldn't matter if I sing a Hymn or a chorus. Worship isn't a song but
a attitude of the heart. I would say that your young man in your letter
didn't know a thing about worship because if he did he wouldn't have been
asked to leave.
Actually, worship might just start with Discipleship.
One more thing, I see Pastors, Youth Pastors, and etc... who do the same
thing as this young worship leader. Thinking there way is the right way
and do their own thing and never understanding what it means to be a
ministry of God.
Every thought about this as a topic to talk about, "Programs". Why I
bring up programs is because I found out that in the last year I got my
focus off lives and on programs. I had to go back and realize the
greatest impact for the Kingdom is one life at a time and loving on that
life. Programs are useless without relationships. I think sometimes
we can get caught up in the programming of things and lose sight of what
really is important. Possibly, worship has become more programming than
life on life.
--Brad & Judy Harris
FROM: Jonathan White
The accusations don't sound unique to worship ministry. The same things
could be said about 90% of all young, male pastors, be they Worship
Pastors, Youth Pastors, Senior Pastors, "Solo" Pastors, or Pastors of any
other sort of stripe. Young pastors are egocentric, opinionated,
underdeveloped in people skills, visionary in a purely personal way, and
generally obnoxious. It is not because they are pastors, but because they
are young. Lay people generally aren't put into major leadership positions
at such any early age--they have to "earn their spurs," so the comparison
of a 22 year-old pastor with a 35 year-old lay leader is inherently
unfair. What was the layman doing when he was 22? He almost certainly was
not under the spiritual microscope to the same degree that this worship
leader is. The college can't make young people grow up faster than God
designed them to mature. Getting married, having kids, and generally
experiencing life is what using shapes us. Lay people shouldn't hire young
people if they aren't prepared to handle some immaturity........but. Young
pastors need to get it through their he