Deep Words from Dr. Harold Best

Dr. Harold Best, dean of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, is one of the elder statesmen of Christian worship musicians … a wise voice that several generations listen to and continue to learn from. Yesterday a friend sent me a link to a recent online article on Dr. Best’s web page. It made my brain hurt … but in a good way. Here’s a brief excerpt (long article).

If, among faith, hope and love, love is considered the greatest of the three, and if loveless faith makes its practitioners nothing, then we must say this: If faith is the only thing the just can live by (Habbakuk and Romans), and if faith brings substance and evidence to everything done, said, and hoped for (Hebrews), then love raises the whole of faithful living and worship into a gracious, a celebrative, unfussed, giving, and sharing witness. This is the way of Jesus, the way of continued worship. This is what Paul was referring to when he said that we are to be living epistles. And this kind of living then authorizes us to say that the best witness is overheard worship. Christian worship is therefore to be undertaken as an act of love, undertaken by faith, architectured by hope, irrespective of content, context, time, place, or circumstance. Consequently, worshippers, along with those who work so hard trying to tell us how to worship, should free themselves of the assumption that things like music and art are tools of faith and worship, aesthetic overlays on faith and worship, and affective propellants into faith and worship. They should be relieved of the temptation to believe that if the music is just right, if the order of worship is just so, and the styles all patty-cake and blessing, faith will be bettered, more souls might be saved, or worship would be more “meaningful.” Likewise, we musicians would be delivered from the opposite temptation of making musical quality more important than purity of heart, and pastors would be divested of the assumption that music is the great lead-in to the sermon and the sermon the high point. We should never confuse the power of faith and the power of work. Remember, worship is full of works and can therefore degenerate into a self-consciousness about the earning power of works. The expressive power of music and art, as well as any sequence of liturgical events should never be mistaken for the presence of God or the increase of faith.

Where he goes from there is important, but I don’t have room for it here. I find it tough to read long articles online, so I try to keep my blogs to what would fit on a half-page 8.5x11 paper. The bold (or better) of heart and mind can read the whole article at:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/haroldbest/worship.html.

That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Right Relationships

I had hoped to write this in time for last weeks rehearsal when I was away helping my parents in Dothan … and getting my “new” car (it’s a 2001, but it’s brand new to me). I still haven’t bought the book (I will very soon, I guarantee), but have gained a lot from Bob Kauflin’s 4 short meditations on YouTube … promotional material for his book Worship Matters. The following comes from the final meditation: Right Relationships.

Won’t it be great when we get to heaven and there are no more arguments about which style of music is best, no one to tell us if the music was too loud or too soft, no more church members who don’t like the songs we choose, no more disagreements with our pastor about how long we should sing? Heaven is going to be awesome; but you may have noticed we aren’t there yet. And in the meantime, God has put people all around us to help us grow and become more like His Son … and how we relate to them is one of the most important aspects of being a worship leader.

One of the sentences above (I put it in italics) caught my attention.
I know I’ve shared it before, so I’ll be really brief with it this time. The Toothpick was very young, but old enough to be a right troublesome handful. I was talking to a guy who had worked with the teenagers at the church a couple of summers previous, and who (to hear everyone tell it) did everything right and extremely well, so I already felt a bit intimidated by him.
While talking with Pete, I was trying to hold the Toothpick, who was throwing a bit of a fit. I made an apologetic statement to Pete and must have made some reference to the fact (and it IS a fact) that the Toothpick seemed to be more difficult that most children his age, and that I was having a hard time dealing with it. Pete looked me in the face and said, “Maybe he’s the chisel God is using to shape you into the image of Christ.” The last thing I wanted was some spiritual statement … and while I believe that what Pete said was true, it was hard to take at the moment because what I really wanted was some understanding and some relief for me and for the lovely wife.
I’m reading in Judges now, and I have found it very interesting that God repeatedly used all kinds of godless nations surrounding Israel to bring them to a point where they finally turned back to Him. God may use some of the people around us to give us examples to follow (I thank God for these). Others may simply be sharp cutting tools or abrasives that God uses to, as James 1 says, test our faith and help us to learn patience and endurance … and shape us into the image of Christ.
That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Tension Can Be Healthy?

Tension. It’s a word that often has negative connotations. We think of muscle tension (pain), nervous tension (pain), relational tension (pain), tension headaches (pain), hypertension (hurts and can kill). I could go on, but you get the idea. How about a complete elimination of tension from life? Hold on before you answer too quickly.
Some tension is necessary. The wires that support telephone poles function properly because of tension. Each string on a piano, violin, or guitar must have a specific amount of tension in order to make beautiful music. Were it not for a certain degree of tension in the right places in our bodies, we would all collapse in a heap on the floor. Some tension is healthy. Bob Kauflin talks about healthy tensions in worship:

Should congregational worship be planned or spontaneous? Is it for the head or the heart? Should our gatherings equip the church or be intelligible to non-Christians? These are all examples of what I call healthy tensions. Healthy tensions are aspects of Biblical worship that seem opposed to one another or in tension with one another, but both make up Biblical worship. And both are important to consider if we want to lead worship in a way that reflects biblical values and proportions.
A few years ago I was on vacation at the beach with my family and I thought I’d set up a volleyball net … by myself. So I stood up one pole in the sand and I attached two guidelines to stakes, and then I ran as fast as I could to the other side to set up the other pole before the first one fell down. I didn’t make it. I tried again and didn’t make it again. I tried one more time and still didn’t make it. And what I realized was … that unless the two poles were pulling in opposite directions at the same time providing this tension, the net wasn’t going to stay up. In the same way when we fail to pursue the healthy tensions of Biblical worship, it’s like putting up one pole of a volleyball net. It won’t stand. And it certainly won’t reflect the healthy tensions we find in the Bible in places like Psalm 2 where we are told to rejoice with trembling.
The reality is Jesus Christ is so glorious, He’s so great, He’s so magnificent that no single form, style, liturgy or structure can ever completely or fully express His greatness. So we need to be constantly evaluating our practices to make sure they’re really magnifying Him. My prayer – and I trust it’s yours – is that our meetings in churches will be places where God is worshiped in spirit and truth, where people can exalt God without having to choose sides, and where the glory of Jesus Christ is truly seen in everything we do.

There will always be tension. Let’s pray that we keep it healthy. That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Bob Kauflin on the Task of Worship Leaders

A few weeks ago I introduced the words of Bob Kauflin on the role of the worship leader in a worship service. The second part in that series concerns the task … what it is we actually do and how we should evaluate it. Here are Kauflin’s words from a summary video found on YouTUBE.

… a few years ago a friend and I came up with a definition of what a worship leader is supposed to do. It goes like this:

A faithful worship leader magnifies the greatness of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit by skillfully combining God’s word with music, thereby motivating the gathered church to proclaim the Gospel, to cherish God’s presence, and to live for God’s glory.

Now, there’s a lot to unpack there, but I think the most important phrase is magnifying the greatness of God in Jesus Christ. In Psalm 34 David says, “Come, magnify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together.” And that’s what we’re seeking to do every time we lead people in praising God. We want to magnify Him. We want to make Him bigger in people’s eyes. When people come into our meetings,so often they are overwhelmed with their problems and sins. … Our job as worship leaders is to use God’s word combined with music to help them see in a compelling way how great God is; how holy and awesome He is; how good and merciful and sovereign He is. …
We don’t want people leaving our meetings saying, “What a great band!” We want them leaving saying, “What a great Savior!” Because apart from Jesus Christ and His substitutionary death on the cross for our sins, all our worship, all our achievements, all our efforts are unacceptable in the eyes of a holy God. But because of Christ and His finished, atoning work, enduring God’s wrath in our place – and through faith in Him – God hears our songs and prayers as though Jesus Himself were offering them.
This is successful worship leading: helping people see that Jesus Christ has opened up the way for us to draw near to the Father; and that we have every reason to give Him glory, not only when we sing, but every moment of our lives.
[Emphasis mine]

Here is the whole YouTUBE post in Kauflin's own words:



The peace of Christ to you.