Great Worship with Modest Means - Christianity Today

I didn't choose to become a church pianist. I was in high school, attending Grace Gospel Church in Chicago, when our regular pianist moved away. Since I had endured piano lessons, the mantle fell on me. My skills hovered somewhere between John Thompson Levels II and III. I was hardly ready for prime time.

For the big day, I learned "To God Be the Glory." The leader led, the people sang, and I played. I finished the song about two measures ahead of the congregation (what I lacked in technique I made up in speed). But it didn't matter. They loved me enough to overlook my mistakes, and they loved God enough to worship him anyway.

Each week I practiced one new song, and each Sunday our congregation endured not only my narrow repertoire but also my nervous accelerando. We had heart, and we had spirit, but no one would have accused us of excellence.

I blush a little as I think about it. Still, when I am tempted to envy big-league churches with their drama, orchestra, and professional singers, my mind slips back to those days on the piano. Was our worship any less spiritual or powerful for its modesty? I don't think so.

Since becoming a pastor, though, I have often forgotten that truth. Years after my not-ready-for-prime-time debut, I found myself striving for perfection in worship, and giving my small church a lot of headaches in the process.

What I had to re-learn was that is possible to worship God well with modest means. Here are the values that helped us do that.

AUTHENTICITY OVER EXCELLENCE

Excellence is overrated.

Before planting Windy City Community Church, I had been pumped up by speakers inspiring church leaders to excellence. So I committed myself to avoiding sloppiness. Everything we did would be done with excellence.

In pursuit of musical excellence, though, I became oppressive. I pressured our music directors to recruit better singers, to wave a magic baton to make them sing better than their ability. No matter how much pressure I exerted, however, our musical teams could not satisfy me. We were a small church with a limited pool of talent, and I was raising the bar to a height only a large church could clear.

Then I stumbled upon an uncomfortable truth: What I had nobly justified as excellence turned out to be something else–my ugly need to impress. What my church needed to worship God was not Broadway musicals but authenticity–people worshiping God in spirit and in truth. Authenticity, relating honestly to the Lord, was more important than excellence, doing something well.

Authenticity, however, isn't an excuse for laziness. Excellence is a legitimate value within the church. It's tough for the congregation to worship when they're squirming because the worship leader or special musician is embarrassingly flat.

But when we pursue excellence at the cost of authenticity, the church suffers. I've learned to be satisfied if worship leaders possess decent musical skills. And if some of them are exceptionally talented, that's a bonus. But in recruiting worship leaders, we look first for authenticity–and just enough skill not to embarrass the congregation.

This sends an important message to the congregation: a person doesn't have to be spectacular to serve the Lord. If we say that God uses ordinary people, why only promote extraordinary people?

Shifting from excellence to authenticity has changed the songs we sing. Just as a football coach must send in plays the team can run, so the music director must select songs the church can sing. We won't be singing Handel's Messiah anytime soon; we enjoy a treasury of hymns and praise songs that are simple, singable, and powerful.

We occasionally tinker with the music to make a song easier to sing. For example, "Great is the Lord," by Michael W. Smith, contains a big finish with the words "Great is the Lord" repeated five times. On the last repeat, the music instructs us to sing something like "Great is the (pause four beats) Lord!" Every time we tried that, people belted out "Lord" during the pause and were embarrassed. What makes a dramatic finale for a performance makes for a confusing flop in congregational singing. So we eliminated that pause.

Putting the stress on authenticity over excellence has also affected my preaching.

For the first five years of my pastoral ministry, I preached from manuscripts. In the writing phase, I labored over every word. On Sundays before church, I made last minute corrections on the computer and printed out thirteen pages of notes. I brought them into the pulpit and basically read my manuscript to the church. Though I occasionally ad-libbed, I normally stuck close to the notes.

One Sunday disaster struck. Halfway through printing my sermon, a fuse blew and damaged the disk. I could neither access nor print my sermon notes. A week's study was electronically imprisoned. I had to leave for church, so I scribbled my outline on a single sheet of legal paper, dashed out the door, and preached (on the subject of the Holy Spirit). It went surprisingly well.

Why? In part because I was forced to shift from a focus on performance to authenticity. Instead of giving words, I was giving myself. That day authenticity became more important to me than excellence. Through this little calamity, God taught me to quit fussing over my sermons till they were like overcooked eggs.

W. H. Griffith-Thomas advised young preachers:

Think yourself empty

Read yourself full

Write yourself clear

Pray yourself keen

Then enter the pulpit

And let yourself go!

LEADERSHIP OVER MUSICIANSHIP

Pastor Jones needed a music pastor. He contacted Melody Smith, an old friend from seminary days whose musical gifts were beyond question. An excellent pianist, she could sight-read, transpose, arrange, play in a band, and accompany both soloists and the congregation with equal skill. She displayed an obvious love for the Lord; her character was above reproach; she related to others in an authentic way. It seemed she was the ideal choice.

After considerable discussion, Jones invited Melody to join his staff as music pastor. Patting himself on the back, Jones thought, That's one less ministry to worry about.

When Melody arrived, she quickly won the hearts of the people. Her solos led them into the presence of God. She radiated godliness.

A few months passed in sweet harmony, but then discordant notes began to be heard from the music ministry. A persistent discontent surfaced among the two dozen music volunteers. They bickered over song selection, solo schedules, even the tempo of the music. Musicians arrived late to rehearsals. Though church attendance was growing, the number of musicians stayed the same.

Morale plummeted into the bass clef. Melody grew increasingly upset and finally asked Pastor Jones to intervene. After all, God had called her to make music for his glory, not to referee fights.

Jones had already noticed other problems in the music ministry. Little things. Week after week during morning worship, the slides that projected song lyrics were out of order. On a regular basis, the soloist began with a dead microphone. Stage lights burned out without replacement. Melody wanted to play music, not worry about details.

But most disturbing to Pastor Jones was that while the quality of music had improved, the congregational singing had deteriorated. They had moved from being worshipers to being observers. The music ministry had become a performance.

For months Pastor Jones spent considerable time troubleshooting the music ministry, wondering what was happening, trying to get to the root of the problem. One day the root problem became clear: at the head of the music department was a musician, not a leader.

It takes a leader to inspire a congregation to enter wholeheartedly into worship. It takes a leader to create a system to care for the details. It takes a leader to resolve conflict and maintain morale. It takes a leader to motivate others to volunteer for service.

Melody's love for God and her musical talent could not compensate for her lack of leadership. The most important strength of a music leader is leadership, especially when the person is working with volunteers.

Your church may not have the resources to attract top-notch musicians, but the best person to lead the music department may be sitting under your nose: a man or woman who loves the Lord, who has decent pitch and tempo, and who can lead people.

GIFTS OVER IMITATION

Early in the life of Windy City Community Church, we experimented with "seeker sensitive" worship services. We tried drama, Christianity 101 messages, and shorter worship periods.

Attendance dropped. One Sunday, after sitting through a particularly painful skit (I forced the drama group into it before they were ready) and preaching a weak, uninspired message, I knew something had to change. What we had been trying was foreign to us.

I began asking myself questions: Who are we as a church? Who am I as a pastor? Just what is our mission anyway?

Then I did what many pastors do when all else fails: I went to a seminar. I figured that might help me discover my personal mission and the mission of my church. With a dictation recorder in hand, I interviewed dozens of pastors from all over the country, asking one question: "What is the mission of your church?" (I didn't have the answer, so I hoped to borrow someone else's!)

It turned out we were all in the same boat. Some pastors spoke vaguely about the three E's: evangelism, edification, exaltation. Some talked about their church constitution and their mission statement that filled ten pages. Others confessed they didn't know what their mission was. No one answered with a concise, clear sentence. We were like sermons without propositions.

Almost in despair, I approached the seminar speaker. Like me he pastored the church he had planted. I stuck out my tape recorder: "What is the mission of your church?"

Without hesitation he replied, "To mobilize an army to fulfill the Great Commission by developing nonreligious people into fully-formed followers of Jesus." He explained that fully formed followers of Jesus "love God with their whole hearts, love the body of Christ, and love the world for whom Christ died."

"How can I decide," I pressed, "if my church should be seeker sensitive?"

Without batting an eye, he asked, "What's your passion?"

That question of four years ago still echoes in my mind. God has wired some leaders one way and me another way. My God-given passion is to expound the Word to believers. I'm not a Christianity 101 kind of guy. I get excited about Christianity 201. That's my contribution to the Great Commission. I don't have to do it all.

All of a sudden, like a dog that gets out of the yard, I felt release. Free at last! I could be myself.

I could also let my church be itself. We started to organize our church around our gifts. We planned our worship around the people we had instead of around the people we wished we had. Whatever resources God had given us were enough to accomplish his will in our place at this time.

God expects us to give him only "such as we have."

SMALL CHURCH, GREAT GOD

We're surrounded by media offering practical help in the Christian life. Publications, seminars, and counselors offer ways to better marriages, relationships, finances, parenting, and self-esteem.

What the church offers that these resources cannot is meaningful corporate worship.

What makes for meaningful corporate worship?

While the list of important qualities is long–biblically true, practical, relevant, sensitive to the culture, visual, focused, and so on–only one rises head and shoulders above the rest: transcendence.

Transcendence means we catch a glimpse of God and his throne and recognize we are in his presence. Transcendence is what makes a worship service meaningful. Our two most significant tools, singing and preaching, must lead people to God.

Transcendence means doing for our people what Elisha did for his servant. When the servant saw the Syrian army surrounding them, he panicked. At that moment Elisha could have talked about confidence and self-esteem. He could have probed the source of the servant's fears. Instead Elisha prayed that God would lift the veil and give his servant a glimpse of heaven's victory.

Elisha gives us a model for meaningful worship. We may not have drama, exceptional music, or even well-crafted sermons, but the quality of transcendence week after week will provide our people with a bedrock foundation for life.

Transcendence, at first glance, seems easier to convey in a large church with high, vaulted ceilings, a powerful sound system, and an aesthetically inspiring sanctuary. How do you get people meeting in a country church or grade-school gym to lift their eyes to the greatness of God?

It's not a matter of money. Transcendence comes from the content of preaching and singing. It's seeing who God is, and leading people to see themselves in light of who God is.

Someone has said that if you want to convey to someone how scary a certain road is, you don't tell them that it is scary; you show them what it is about that road that terrifies. Likewise we convey transcendence when we help people see the greatness of the invisible God.

That's done by praying and singing about the glory of Christ in heaven, which a church with modest means can do. What's important is not what people see around them but what we help them see with their imagination.

Preaching recently on the despair many people feel, I said, "If we could take such a person into heaven, where they could stand before the risen Christ, with myriads of angels on their right, millions of saints on their left, gold under their feet, and then help them see what God is doing, their emotions would change."

When Martin Lloyd-Jones, the great Welsh preacher, came to Aberavon, Wales, he came to a bleak, despairing coastal town. The working-class community had suffered economic depression, high unemployment, and low education. Yet Lloyd-Jones was determined to preach God's transcendence. He brought a great vision of God. Not surprisingly, the church flourished under his ministry.

When the church of my youth let me play the piano, I learned a lesson that will last a lifetime. I learned we can worship God meaningfully even if our means are modest.

********************

Bill Giovannetti is pastor of Windy City Community Church In Chicago, Illinois.