You Must Have Me Confused With Someone Else
A few weeks ago, our area was hit by hurricane Irene. Irene was really more like a 12 hour nor-easter but it still ended up knocking out our power. While we were without power, my wife was checking on Facebook at work and somehow got us invited over to a friends house. I'd never met them before and if I remember correctly, Katie only knew this family through Facebook. All I knew was that it was a hot meal and air conditioning.
It turned out to be one of the bests nights we'd had in a long time. We had lots of laughs as we shared funny stories about marriage and our lives.
It was also an interesting time. Everyone was shocked when I told them that I didn't work full-time at the church. I think it's similar to when you were in elementary school and you saw your teacher outside of school. You imagine that the school keeps them in some glass case like a fire alarm "Break glass in case of teaching emergency".
The conversation continued; their 17 year old son asked me, "how do I become a worship leader?" (translation - "I have a calling, but how do I get paid to do play music every week?" )
I have to admit, when people ask me this I often don't know what to say. In some respects, I'm kind of an example of what not to do to become a worship leader. Like my normal 9-5 job, I didn't go to school for it. I was a philosophy and religion major which basically meant, that when I graduated I could think deep thoughts about flipping burgers. My schooling didn't prepare me to be a worship leader.
I read the "Purpose Driven Life" when it first came out and I remember it saying that whatever you are passionate about tends to be your calling. However, I'm not sure that is always a good example. I can't say I've met a lot of people who have a passion for cleaning toilets or doing things that are generally considered undesirable. However, if you're out there called-to-toilet-cleaning guy, clean on.
I have, on the other hand, met a lot of people who are passionate about music. The temptation I've found is that it's really easy to christianize our passion for music. Most musicians I know have all struggled with the "rockstar" mentality of making it big. Then we get saved so we paint that dream with the Jesus paintbrush. We dream of leading worship at passion or some event where there are 20,000+ people screaming in adoration of Jes(us). Notice the parenthesis. If you drop out the Jes then everyone ends up screaming for us. Clever, huh?
So, this gets us back to the question, "how did I get here?" The answer is kicking and screaming. I wrestled with God over the christian rockstar mentality for years. After a particularly bad experience working at a church, I vowed to God I would NEVER work at another church again. I even at one point stopped being in bands and writing music for an entire year. Slowly, God started to break me of wanting the christian version of the rockstar dream. Now, my goal is to be the best worship leader that no one has ever heard about. If God chooses to elevate me to something higher, that will be entirely on Him.
So, if you're trying to figure out how to get churches to hire you or how to make it big, you probably have me confused with someone else. All I can say, is learn how to be happy cleaning the toilets first (i.e. humility). It's more important than your educational pedigree, how many records you've sold, or how expensive your guitar is. True worship both starts and end with humility, everything else is vanity.
It turned out to be one of the bests nights we'd had in a long time. We had lots of laughs as we shared funny stories about marriage and our lives.
It was also an interesting time. Everyone was shocked when I told them that I didn't work full-time at the church. I think it's similar to when you were in elementary school and you saw your teacher outside of school. You imagine that the school keeps them in some glass case like a fire alarm "Break glass in case of teaching emergency".
The conversation continued; their 17 year old son asked me, "how do I become a worship leader?" (translation - "I have a calling, but how do I get paid to do play music every week?" )
I have to admit, when people ask me this I often don't know what to say. In some respects, I'm kind of an example of what not to do to become a worship leader. Like my normal 9-5 job, I didn't go to school for it. I was a philosophy and religion major which basically meant, that when I graduated I could think deep thoughts about flipping burgers. My schooling didn't prepare me to be a worship leader.
I read the "Purpose Driven Life" when it first came out and I remember it saying that whatever you are passionate about tends to be your calling. However, I'm not sure that is always a good example. I can't say I've met a lot of people who have a passion for cleaning toilets or doing things that are generally considered undesirable. However, if you're out there called-to-toilet-cleaning guy, clean on.
I have, on the other hand, met a lot of people who are passionate about music. The temptation I've found is that it's really easy to christianize our passion for music. Most musicians I know have all struggled with the "rockstar" mentality of making it big. Then we get saved so we paint that dream with the Jesus paintbrush. We dream of leading worship at passion or some event where there are 20,000+ people screaming in adoration of Jes(us). Notice the parenthesis. If you drop out the Jes then everyone ends up screaming for us. Clever, huh?
So, this gets us back to the question, "how did I get here?" The answer is kicking and screaming. I wrestled with God over the christian rockstar mentality for years. After a particularly bad experience working at a church, I vowed to God I would NEVER work at another church again. I even at one point stopped being in bands and writing music for an entire year. Slowly, God started to break me of wanting the christian version of the rockstar dream. Now, my goal is to be the best worship leader that no one has ever heard about. If God chooses to elevate me to something higher, that will be entirely on Him.
So, if you're trying to figure out how to get churches to hire you or how to make it big, you probably have me confused with someone else. All I can say, is learn how to be happy cleaning the toilets first (i.e. humility). It's more important than your educational pedigree, how many records you've sold, or how expensive your guitar is. True worship both starts and end with humility, everything else is vanity.
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