When I was in high school, I played baseball. As a matter of fact, I played baseball starting at age 6. I’ve always been on a team. I love the game. I love the strategy. I love that you have to think through each and every move. It’s a fun, calculated game that I can’t get enough of. During my years of playing, I was on some good teams and some not so good teams. Each team had its own personality. One year we had a team that was like The Rams of the late 9os. They would let the other team score 48 cause they knew they would score at least 50. Everyone on that team could hit. Only about 3 of us could play defense. I was also on a team that couldn’t win to save a life. Both of those teams had struggles, but only one of them really cared about the struggle.

See, when you are losing the main goal and focus is to stop losing. So we kept trying to find ways to NOT lose games. We pretty much lost all of those. We weren’t set up to win games. We were set up to not lose them. I played every position on the field that season. Although I was a plus defender, I wasn’t suited for every position. So I didn’t always succeed. That team fought and struggled for quite awhile until that season thankfully ended. We didn’t get to the postseason, but we didn’t care.

The second team was the one that made me the most upset. This team made me upset because we settled. Sure, we won most of our games. We even got to play in Busch Stadium. But we settled. Our coach first, and then the players second, didn’t care that we most of our outfield couldn’t catch.  We didn’t care that we would consistently give up 3, 4 and 5 runs per inning. Because we were sure to grab 7 when we came back to hit. So our 7 inning games would have scores like 23-19. It would have been so much easier to get better — just a little bit more infield practice. Less meeting at the batting cages and more in the field. A few minutes working on defensive technique. Any of these things could have turned those scores from 23-19 to 23-4. I mean, I’m not trying to demolish people. For crying out loud, we were 12! But I was always confused at why we were just okay with winning and as a result it didn’t matter that our defense looked like the pitcher was playing with no one behind him. I’m pretty sure that my dad sitting in the stands caught more of the tosses to first from the short stop than I did, and I was the one playing first.

So where am I going with my little trip down memory lane? Well, I have a lot of things on my heart and I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to share them all. However, this post is as much for me as it is for whomever happens to read it. There are some things in my life that I should really be pushing for and continuing to move forward. But lately I have just been happy with what I have and saying that is enough. For a while I had become spiritually complacent. I had become musically complacent. I had become content with whatever I was being told and wasn’t searching the scripture for myself as much. I wasn’t doing my best to present myself approved to God (2 Tim. 2:15). I wasn’t practicing piano anymore. I had become complacent. What did it matter? People enjoyed what we were singing on Sunday. I was receiving compliments on the service and how things flowed and that the Gospel was being presented. Those things were true. But, at the same time there were a lot of things that would happen that were a result of complacent leadership. Just like that baseball team that didn’t care about the fundamentals because the outcome was still winning, I stopped pushing people to move forward because we had gotten “good enough for Sunday morning to work”.

What’s that thing in your life that you have decided is “good enough”? Is there something that you have let settle? Think about it. Share. Even more importantly, what’s the next step?

Have you ever seen the “Like Mike” Gatorade commercial? It’s from the early nineties when Michael Jordan had taken the world by storm. There’s all these little kids trying to do some of his signature moves on courts in their driveways and at various parks while this song “If I could be like Mike” was playing in the background.

Check out the Gatorade Commercial if you’ve never seen it.

I don’t know the specifics, but I’m positive that the sales for Gatorade, basketballs and garage hung basketball goals when up significantly during this time. They portray this guy who does extraordinary things on the basketball court and at the same time makes it look easy enough to make us think that we can do it as well. Even better, we are told to believe that the only thing missing from our lives is Gatorade. I bet the other numbers that really jumped was the enrollment in youth basketball leagues and high school tryouts. Everyone was told that they have the ability to do what the great Michael Jordan does. So everyone tried. There were some pretty good players. There were a bunch more that never made the cut. There were some that were playing with 2 left feet, a knee brace and an eye patch. But everyone tried. We felt empowered to do so.

Flash forward and switch genres. This smiling Texas boy starts writing songs and they are catchy enough. Then the Christian world gets a hold of them and now you can’t find a church on a Sunday morning that isn’t singing at least one of his songs. He plays four chords, writes what seems to be some pretty simple words, throws in a catchy hook and we’re all singing and praising God. Before too long someone decides, “If Chris Tomlin can write 52 songs in 47 minutes, so can I. None of his songs are that difficult, I bet I could do that too. He’s only playing 4 chords. It can’t be THAT hard to learn to play guitar!” Then youth group kids begin to flood Guitar Center, spending their allowances on a $2500 Taylor or Martin guitar when they barely know the difference between major and minor.

Why am I writing this one today? Well it’s sort of a follow up from yesterday’s post about creativity. Granted, I’m not blaming Chris Tomlin for anything, so don’t go and tweet him and tell him that I think he’s the problem with churches today. That’s not what I’m saying. What I AM saying is this: when someone is so good at something that they make it look easy, everyone starts to believe that they can do it as well. Now there are all of these imitators, or even better, people who think they are going to one up one of the most influential songwriters in contemporary Christian music today. The major problem comes when these kids step into our church and show minimal at best talent, and then they are throw up front and now they are leading worship for the youth and then maybe they get a shot in the main service. Some of them are the ones with talent that end up going pretty far in the game. Some of them are decent and with a little coaching could be pretty good. Some of them are playing with two left feet, a knee brace and an eye patch. But in the church we have let them all flow through. It has lowered the quality level of the music in our churches and somewhere along the line we just became okay with that.

Again, before you start beating me up, I know that this doesn’t apply to everyone. Some churches just don’t have a lot of talented people in them. Right now, in my own church, I can’t seem to find a guitar player to save my life! Even though what I just said is true in most churches, it is not the case in my own. So I spend most of my time trying to find someone to play guitar with me and I end up more times than not just going without one. So I understand that this may not apply to your church. And if you’re getting super mad about this one, I may be talking about you. Just saying…

At some point I believe that we have to find ways to allow people to use their creativity in ways that bring glory to God. Again, we were created by God. Created being the key word there. Why is it that we have gotten to the point where the “creative” stuff is good outside the walls of the church, but doesn’t work on the inside? I have another theory about that one, but maybe I’ll start my creativity theories next week. Chew on this one for a minute and let me know if you agree or disagree.

Those of you who haven’t spent much time with me will not know this. Those of you who spend a lot of time with me might not even recognize this. But whenever we are in a room or go out to eat, I try to sit with my back to the wall. It has been my thing for quite a while. I like it because it gives me a full view of the room and everyone there. I love to sit and people watch. Also, I can see what’s going on in the room and can assess situations from that spot. Case in point, when my family was on our road trip this past summer, we were sitting in the middle of this restaurant and all of a sudden a man comes up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. It freaked me out because I didn’t know where he had come from or what was about to happen. My girls were there and I went into protect mode. It didn’t end up being a big deal at all, but I wasn’t able to prepare for that moment and I didn’t like it. As a result, I always try to put myself in a position to see everything.

I also approach leading worship that way sometimes. I feel like I need to be able to see everyone on stage to make sure they are doing what I need them to do. The leader is generally in the front of the stage leading the people so everyone can see them and know where they are going. Most Sundays I stand in front of my band with the congregation watching me and wondering if everything behind and to the side of me is going to do what it is supposed to do. I know we rehearsed and had sound checks, but I always wonder in the back of my head about what just might happen. Should I be that worried about anything? No, not at all. And I know that. But for some reason I get stuck there and it is hard for me to get out. On my own. So I decided to try something different. I’m here at the church a fair amount during the week and most of the time I’m the only one here. So this past week (and a little bit later today) I went up into the sanctuary and just sat down in the middle of the room. Right in the floor. It was there that I had to come face to face with God and give Him control of the worship band and the singers and the tech booth and everything else that was under my supervision and “control”. At the end of the day, I’m not fighting for control with the others on the stage, I’m fighting with God. I will, and have, lost that fight every time. But I’m stupid enough to keep up with the fight.

See, I don’t do what I do because I’m so good at it. I don’t get the results that I get because of everything that I have done to research songs and the people and what instrumentation may work and the range of the voices I have and all that good stuff. Anything that I do is because God has called me to that place and then equipped me to do the work. So why would I try to take that control from Him? That’s why I have started sitting in the middle of the room. In the middle of the room, I can’t see everyone, but the One who needs to see all of me can.

In the middle of the room there is nowhere for me to hide. All of my insecurities, inadequacies and feelings of failure are out in the open. I notice how messed up I am. But the abrogation of my sins, inadequacies and insecurities by Christ’s death on the cross covers all those things up. So when a note is played wrong, God can handle that. When a cue is missed, God can handle that. When a light blows out in the middle of the service or a headphone blows in the middle of a song set, God can handle that. Most importantly, when your heart is broken and you’re lost and alone, God can handle that. When you feel like there is nothing for you to hold on to, God can handle that. Come to the middle of the room. There’s balance and warmth. The outside edge may seem like the place to be, but it’s cold and you’re causing things to tip over. Take the walk toward the middle. Then grab my hand cause I’m heading that way too.

Every February I’m reminded of how grateful I am to be doing what I do. This February is no different. I’m so glad that God had it in His plans to include my story and my life in a way that could only be orchestrated by my Creator. Part of that orchestration is the battle that generations before me had to fight to get to this point. As an African American, I know that I must never forget to give thanks to people like Martin Luther King and Medger Evers for fighting with an unending passion to see Black people have freedom in this country that we all call home. And whenever I hear stories of people I know personally, like my grandparents on even my own parents, or people like Pastor Frances Cleveland, I know that I’m not too far removed from a time that is SO unlike what we live in today.

I often wonder how I would have fared in a segregated America. What type of person would I be? Would I have been able to express my feelings about Christ, worship, family, life and other things the way I am today? Would I be one of the few to have a platform to share the heart for giving God the praise He deserves? Would I have the opportunity to connect with people the way I’m able to through music? How different would my life have been 50, 60, 70 years ago? We will never know the answers to those questions, but I do know that I’m here today because God put a fire in the hearts of some special people. He also gave some intelligence to Black people to invent many of the things we use today. Many of them we take for granted in everyday life, but would be lost without in most cases.

The argument is and probably always will be “Why is Black History confined to only one month?” “And why is that month the shortest one of the year?” and other ridiculous things. I have always thought it an honor that my people were given a whole month dedicated to their struggles and accomplishments and how they overcame such a torrid life and paved the way for us today to live in the freedom that this country boasts. But even Black History is deeper than that for me. The only reason we can have this discussion today is because God is in the plans. I worship a God who saw the struggle and put the right people in place to fight through it. It was the Holy Spirit and ONLY the Holy Spirit that got all those people through the torture and pain and the marches and the sit-ins and the arrests and the name calling.

There is an intense amount of pride for me that comes from being a Black person. I’m thankful for that everyday. The intensity of that pride is dwarfed by the intensity of the pride I have in being able to call Christ my Savior. I rejoice greatly in the fact that we can stand confidently and live freely in this country when there are some that looked like me not too long ago that couldn’t do that. I rejoice even more in the fact that I “once was lost, but now am found. Was blind but now I see”. See, I’m can never be anything but the person that I was made to be. No one can take that from me. People argue about why there’s only one month dedicated to Black History. I would say that no one is stopping you from teaching your children about it everyday. You have that freedom. For me, Black History is wrapped up in a much bigger story. That’s what I choose to teach my children. Is Black History important? You better believe it. Is it more important than Christ’s history? Not even close. Does Christ’s history directly impact Black History? Thankfully yes. Without Christ nothing else would matter. And for that reason, I don’t care HOW many days or months they dedicate. In the end, the truth remains the same. We HAVE overcome.

I will admit before I even get started. Someone will probably get mad at this. Granted, there aren’t hundreds of people reading what I write, but I’m convinced that out of the few of you that read this someone will get mad at me. That. Is. Totally. Cool. With that being said…

I’ve been thinking a lot about faith impacts culture and vice versa. As I continue to look at it, it seems like both have been generally bad influences on each other. It reminds me of when I was a little boy. I am an only child, but with my mom being eighth of 9 and my dad being the oldest of 6, I’ve got a TON of cousins. We used to do so many crazy things and we would get the other in trouble all the time. I guess that’s just part of life as a kid. One of us would dare the other to jump off the bed. Trouble. In retaliation, one dares the other to grab an extra cookie. Trouble.  We are good at influencing each other to push the envelope, and we usually pushed it too far.

So how have faith a culture been mutually bad influences on each other? Well, as I sit here in my office and have been thinking about the upcoming weeks in our church from a worship standpoint, one of the things that continues to be at the forefront of my thinking is the relevancy of our worship experience. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that we have to be relevancy is tremendously important to the church. So I don’t see that as a negative thing. I think the line gets blurry when we are striving to look so much like the world in the things that we do that “they can’t tell the difference”. I don’t think it is my job as a worship leader to confuse the people that walk in the door. I don’t want to put them in such a trance that when the service is over they say, “I didn’t even know I was in church! How did I get here???” Especially since I’m called to be different. As a Christian, it’s an honor for me to BE different. Look at 1 Peter 2:9. Being different is part of the job description. But I’ve been to churches where the people are trying to be relevant, or cool and trendy and they pull some things off. But inevitably, there’s one thing that starts to waver when we try to look like the rest of the culture we live in. That’s the gospel. I feel that in the different times I’ve gone to places that are trying SO hard to be attractive to the rest of the world, they end up diluting the one beautiful difference between the two.

This is the hinge between both faith and culture. As I said yesterday, when we turn both of these fast moving cars toward each other, there is only one place for them to crash. What was done at the cross changes both sides dramatically. I believe the reason that the church has influenced the rest of culture negatively is because of the way they look at culture. Just as you have some churches who try too hard to be cool, you have just as many trying too hard to make sure you know that they AREN’T anything like the rest of the world. Granted, we are called to not be lovers of the world or the things of the world (1 John 2:15-16). That doesn’t mean that we should shun the people that are in the world. As a matter of fact, they are the reason we are still here. Some of us have run so far away from the line that we are simply screaming at the cruel, vile world far from the other side. The rest of the world and the culture we live in has never asked us to change ourselves and then maybe they would be a part of the church. We are to look different and they will hate us for it. Bible says so. BUT, there is a lot more room closer to the cross for us in the faith as well. When we run so far the other way, no one can hear you except for when you scream about how bad the other side is. No one wants to hear that. Come a little bit closer. A lot of things change at the foot of the cross. The other side even looks a lot different than you think.

As someone who spends his days sculpting a service that is designed to bring glory to the Father, I have to keep in mind that in my church there are some people who will have never had this experience before. Do I want to alienate them so much that they feel uncomfortable and never want to come back? Heck no. But do I want to present the gospel in a way that it challenges everything they have ever thought about life and Christ and the people around them? Heck yes. But here’s the secret: I’m doing that for you Christians as well. Think about it. Then meet me as I push toward the foot of the cross.

Do you ever see to people and wonder how in the world they ended up together? You see a really tall woman and a short dude and wonder what in the world happened? How many of you paid attention to either the NFL or the NBA labor disputes? When they were in the midst of all of that, it seemed like we would never get football or basketball back. But as time went on and the two sides got closer together things started to fall off the table until they were able to reach an agreement. The middle ground caused each side to lose some thing that was a part of them going in just to make the situation work.

What about in the instance of our faith and our culture? When I look at the two of them, I see a lot of stuff connected to both that probably shouldn’t be there. There are some things in this culture that I have to actively shield my children from because I don’t want it to become a part of their lives and thought processes. And if I’m completely honest, there are some things in faith that I have to actively shield my children from because I don’t want it to become a part of their lives and thought processes. So how do we get them to move toward the middle? Do we think that there IS a middle for the two? Well, I stand here today (actually I’m sitting, but I digress) saying that there is. Why? Because the church should be part of the culture. And because the people in the church are part of the culture they live in. They are married whether we like it or not. However, we have spent so much time trying to separate the two that we forget that there’s really not a way to separate the two. Most of the time they are fighting like teenage sisters who both have a date and one is taking too long in the bathroom. The church has alienated the culture in which we live to the point that when you mention church to some people they have already turned a deaf ear to anything you might have to say. Culture has gone so far south in many ways that the church believes that nothing good can EVER come from outside the doors of the church. So they sit at opposite sides of the room staring at the wall with their arms folded, occasionally looking back to give a scowl to the other. Someone needs to get the two of them in a room and mediate a conversation. Are there distinct differences between the two? Heck yes! Don’t get me wrong here. There are some things that won’t work in either place, but I’m convinced that is because both sides have traveled so far that neither side will ever be able to release some things.

So the question remains, where is the middle? I believe that the middle sits right at the foot of the cross. To those more embraced in the culture than the church, you might already see that as leaning to the wrong side. And that’s okay. To those of you more embraced in the faith than the culture, you’re probably excited about that. But as Lee Corso says, “Not so fast, my friend!” The cross is so welcoming and polarizing at the same time that it is able to handle being the middle of this complex spot. I like to think of it as the impact point for the collision between faith and culture. When we look at all the things that we hold on to in faith, some of those things aren’t necessarily things that we should be holding on to. We created things that we were never supposed to create. And then it threw the other side for a loop. When it comes to culture, there are things that just aren’t right. When people are left to their own devices, we get some crazy mess. Unfortunately, that can be said for both sides.

So why is the cross an impact point? Well, when you bring all of your baggage to the foot of the cross, it just can’t all stay there. Some of it was never meant to be. When two cars collide, there are parts of each car that are impacted. Neither of those cars come away looking like they did before they hit each other. They end up exchanging paint, losing windshields, denting doors…they both change. Both cars are changed individually, but they both end up sharing parts of themselves with the other. I tend to believe that the close faith and culture come to the cross, the faster things will fall off from either side. And if they ever collide at the cross, both sides will be amazingly surprised at what happens. Faith will be left with some bits of culture in it and the other way around.

What does this look like? Well, what does it look like to you? It’s my blog, so I can take your hypothetical question and turn it around on you. HA!

This is the question I continued to ask myself after watching last night’s State of the Union Address. After watching President Obama talk for a little over an hour, it was obvious that there was much discord in the room. Throughout the speech he seemed to be calling everyone out in hopes that they would attempt to work together for solutions to the country’s problems. After his speech was over there was the rebuttal from the Republican party. To me, the fact that there is someone ready to blow holes in what the President says before he even gets out of the room good speaks directly to my question. Was everything that he said true? Probably not. Will all of the things that he is pushing for happen? More than likely not. Is the chance lessened by the fact that everyone believes that they can do a better job than the person they are sitting next to at the table? You bet they are.

I don’t claim to be political by any stretch of the imagination. I try to stay current on thoughts an ideas because I believe it is a good idea to know where money is going and what my country is doing to keep us safe and educate our children and keep us moving forward for years to come. But I notice that every time I try to get a little deeper than that I’m turned away by the ugly underside of politics that shows its head in times like these. Something tells me that there has to be a way to wade through some of the egos to get to a working medium. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m sure that people are being paid to stand and clap, you would think that everyone had a great working relationship and was willing to take major steps toward fixing the problems in our country. But if that was really the case, I don’t think we’d be sitting here in the constant aftermath of problems that beset us.

After watching this whole thing, I thought about the church and how we relate to each other. I saw some nasty similarities. Unfortunately, lots of times there are people in the church who always feel like they can do a job better than the person doing it. There are factions and cliques that use harsh words in relation to the leadership and it creates instant division. At the same time, people spend time talking to the pastor or leaders and encouraging them to keep up the good work. It reminds me of the initial walk into the room for the President and his exit after he finished the speech. That may be the most superficial parade I’ve ever witnessed…except for right after church in the foyer. Eerily similar again…

Unity seems to be the one thing that everyone is asking for and no one is willing to really work toward. Maybe I’m speaking with cynical overgeneralizations, but that’s what I see. I see it in our country and I see it in the church. I don’t know if will ever happen in either place. But when it comes to the church, there’s one thing that always stands in the middle and if we continue to move toward that, we have a better chance to get this right. The cross, has been, is and always will be right where we need to be. If we aren’t moving toward it, then we will find unity a fleeting thought. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to keep praying for my country and I’m going to keep moving toward the cross. Who’s with me?

I have been terribly busy lately and there is SO much going on right now. Generally that would be grounds for lots of good blogging material. And believe me, it is. I just haven’t had much time to sit down and do this. I don’t even know what to say at this point because it is all swirling around in my brain right now. Here’s what I have noticed in the past couple weeks. In order to attack the real problem, you have to settle in enough to figure out what the problem really is. Case in point: Friday night.

This past Friday night was The Perk:(the event) at Missouri Baptist University. They take the gym and turn it into an enormous coffee house and people perform and they give you coffee and food and it is a fun evening for current students as well as alumni. Anyway, I was there and performed a couple songs and got to see some friends that I hadn’t seen in a while. As is customary, I got my cup of coffee and began to walk around the room. Upon my first drink I realized that this coffee had some punch. So over the course of the evening I nursed this one cup of coffee. I never finished it. I finally got home around 1am and wanted to jump straight into the bed. I tossed and turned for a couple hours and got really frustrated. Around 3:30 I stopped for about 30 seconds. It was then that I realized that my heart was pounding out of my chest because I was so wired from that coffee that I started drinking at 10:30 the night before. I was thinking about taking some sleeping medicine because I was feeling some other “symptoms” as well. Once I slowed myself down, all I needed was to drink some water and start reading.

I was actually considering treating a condition that I didn’t even have because I hadn’t slowed myself down enough to see what the real deal was. As I thought about it later, I found that I was guilty of not slowing myself down enough to listen to what God had for me. Everyone talks about the passage 1 Peter 5:7 where it says “casting all your cares on him because he cares for you”. But there are 2 things that got overlooked by me because I wasn’t looking for myself. Verse 6 says “Humble yourselves therefore before the mighty hand of God…” That tells me that I have to slow down and shift my focus. We always think that we know what we want and need. As a result we go and try to take NyQuil when really all we needed was to sit down a second and drink a glass of water. Sometimes we jump into another relationship when we really need to stay single. Sometimes we buy that car when the one we had was more than adequate.

Like I said at the beginning, there is a lot going on right now and my hope is that in the near future I’ll be able to share some of it. In the mean time I need to sit back and process it all and make sure that I’m sharing what God wants me to share.

I can’t believe that I haven’t written on this before now, especially since this is sort of what I do. Okay, it is exactly what I do. Sometimes I feel like I have no idea what is going on and how to pull it all together. Sometimes I feel like I have a solid handle on what I’m trying to communicate from the stage. After being in many different musical positions in my life, I would have to say that this is the toughest. I was having a conversation with some a couple of weeks ago and they were asking me why I do some songs and don’t do other songs. In this situation the answer was pretty easy: you do what your people can do. But there are a lot of things to consider weekly. Here are a couple that I deal with.

Bringing Cultures Together

I look at this part like solving Rubik’s Cube. You’re spinning around old and young, black and white and Asian and whomever else, traditional and contemporary, male and female and trying to make all those things come together somehow in 20 minutes worth of music. It. Is. Hard. It’s next to impossible to bring them all together, and most weeks you can’t. For one, there’s hardly ever enough time. But even more than that, unless you have an hour long show you are not going to make everyone happy. When you spend your time trying to make sure that everyone is happy, you’ll find that know one is. Including you. Your best bet (which is ALWAYS your best bet) is to listen to God’s voice and let him tell you what needs to be conveyed through the music and then you play that. Let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes that’s David Crowder. Sometimes that’s William McDowell. Sometimes it’s Isaac Watts. It’s a wild party in my head, but with every wild party there’s usually good music.

Blending Styles

There are some similarities between this one and the first one, but this applies more to the way a song is arranged. I personally love to mix up the arrangement of a song. That’s one of the easiest ways to make a song accessible to different types of people. Of course, this also one of the more dangerous moves on a weekly basis. Why? Well, I call this one The Sing Off effect. If I haven’t said it before, this is by far my favorite show on all of television. I wish I was on everyday so I could keep getting ideas and hearing what these amazing people can do with their voices. One of my favorite things about the show is the fact that these groups with different styles have to find a way to approach multiple genres of music, sometimes in the same night. I find myself having to do that on a weekly basis to give things some variety. It’s a fun and it allows me to branch out. But there’s a lot of care taken since an arrangement could either really shine or flop. It’s one of those risks you have to take.

Letting Christ Be The Star

You would think this wouldn’t be a big deal to keep in the forefront. However, sometimes as musicians we work really hard on a project or an arrangement and then we take things personally good or bad. If a song goes real well and people give compliments then it can be difficult to step out of that feeling of “yes, I put in a lot of hard work that you would never understand to make this be something that you would enjoy”. Whether you are in a multicultural church where people are looking for variety in almost every chord or straight Sunday morning gospel or the Chris Tomlin Pandora station, this NEEDS to be your major focus. Otherwise you’re a thief and you’re trying to rob the kingdom of the glory that should be headed that way.

Are there any other worship pastors that are leading in my type of situation? What are your thoughts? How much do these thoughts translate to leading in general? What about those of you that aren’t on the stage weekly? How do you gauge what you hear when you go to church?

As I thought about writing this, I realized that there is a lot of insecurity in this job and in the people that occupy this position. Then I remembered that we are all musicians and to some degree we all suffer with a bit of that insecurity. But this is one of those things that happens probably more than we care to admit. We work hard to put a set together for church or a retreat weekend and feel pretty good when we finally put it all together. Then we sit down with other worship leaders and talk about recent sets or songs that we just introduced and think, “Man! I’m missing out on a whole set of artists” or, “I wish I would have thought to put those songs together”.

I know for sure that there are a lot of people out there that I haven’t heard of or don’t listen to normally that have written great music for the church. I also know that I have friends that are better at this thing than I am. I have suffered from Set List Envy on many different occasions. I can’t say that I know how to get around it or that you other worship leaders won’t ever go through it yourselves. But one of the things that I have learned to do is take advantage of the friendships I have and the opportunities to learn new songs. Once I realized that I could be that same asset to my friends as they are to me, the envy started to fall away and turn into fact gathering moments.

So if you’ve been this person before, don’t worry. You aren’t alone. I’ve been there with you. It gets better. Of course, I’m speaking as if I’m not the only one who has felt this way. Is that really the case?