Emergence

Let me start by saying the title of this post does not mean that I'm through leading corporate worship. I just have a bit of church geek venting to do.

I'll just come out and say it. I don't think that there should be any more "worship pastors" in the Church. Look, I've spent many a year being the "worship guy." To this day, when I bump into people outside of the church building, I often get the "hey...aren't you that worship guy?" question. I always answer yes, but to be fair, the answer is no--and I couldn't be happier about it.

As Pastor of Development at Emergence, I think I have the best job in the world. I get to work with our hundreds of volunteers, identify and equip leaders to coordinate all of those volunteers, disciple a group of guys for the duration of a year, watch people give their lives to Jesus, work with Ryan and our leadership team on seeing the vision more clearly, and then putting pieces into place to see it accomplished. I get to meet with other church leaders, preach from time to time, marry people, bury people, counsel people, baptize people, meet missionaries, dream about what the Church could be, make videos, play webmaster, and yes--I also plan services and lead the music portion of the service. Lately, I'm also designing buildings, being evaluated and developed as a leader, and helping other church leaders process changes in culture and challenges in ministry.

One of the awesome things I get to do is work with other churches and worship leaders, coaching guys and gals who are new to leading worship music and running a music ministry. The first question that I ask them in coaching is a simple one: "what does success look like for the worship ministry at your church?" Typically, the answer I get is something like "success is to provide an environment for worship where people can connect with God."

Here's the problem: you can have the best music ministry on the planet--the best musicians, best tech guys, best tunes, best production--and still fail as a church. In fact, I think it is, at times, even harder to succeed as a church if you do have the best music in town. Good music does not equal a good church. The only thing that will make a music ministry successful, or any ministry for that matter, is for the church to succeed at fulfilling the mission of Jesus. If it fails at making disciples and baptizing new believers that Jesus sought and saved, all you have is a great club with some good music.

I believe that the problem stems from the very idea of a "Worship Pastor." churches spend countless hours trying to teach people that worship is far more than music, and yet, the music portion of the service is still called "worship" and the music guy is synonymous with the "worship guy." The emphasis on music and programming, as well as the interchangeability of music and worship work against the very thing churches try to teach.

In reality, worship pastors should just be pastors, who happen to spend time making sure the music helps support the mission. Ministry isn't a golf match--where it is ok for one player to fail and another to succeed. We're playing the same game on the same team with the same goal. There's only one score at the end of the day. When a ministry is only concerned about itself, the church stands a big chance of losing. Given the supernatural and sometimes fleeting nature of God's blessing, that's a chance that isn't worth taking.