I recently saw an announcement on a church bulletin calling
for worship leaders. The sad part was that they were announcing auditions for
the same.
Who is a worship leader? What is required for one to qualify
as one? What is the work of the person in charge of raising such leaders?
Most equate a worship leader with a musician. And I will not
want us to get into arguments on what constitutes a worship leader. Let us
assume it is music for the sake of this post.
Do we take readymade musicians as the church of Christ or
are we supposed to make them? Are we supposed to look for the best voices and
people with the best diction or are we to train them?
I raised choirs and singing groups and do not remember ever
feeling that someone’s voice was too bad to join my choir if their heart was
right with God. Even if someone croaked like a frog, a good music trainer (if
serving Christ) will never turn them away. For my part (since I never trained
as a musician but a minister) I never attempted to help them sing like a bird.
I simply gave musical direction to that croak. They still croaked but did it
musically. And that because I was convinced that God will never turn anyone who
seeks to serve Him back.
What do you tell someone who fails the auditions? Do you
tell them that God has rejected their voice? Do you tell them that their voice
is too bad for God to use? Do you tell them that they can never sing for God?
Or do you tell them that God has in disqualifying their voice rejected their
worship?
How do you tell someone that their voice can’t praise and
worship God?
Whatever does the Bible mean when it says that we make a
joyful noise to the Lord? Does it not speak about those voices that are so off
that their singing is discordant? Yet God does not reject them. He simply tells
them to continue raising those voices to Him though they are more noise than
music.
Looking for excellence and perfection when raising singers
(forget worshippers) is an abomination. This is because you are in effect
saying that the only people who can worship God are those with professionally
acceptable voices. You are saying that God will not listen to people who do not
have good voices as if they received those voices from elsewhere. You are in
effect faulting God’s creation by finding fault, even rejecting those with a
genuine desire to sing praises to the one who gave those voices.
Let us ask another question. Suppose the ones with sin
issues have the best voices and beat the rest hands down. What if the best
instrumentalists are so because they perfect their skills playing in bars? How do
you to disqualify them seeing they are the best?
You see, if the voice is what you are looking for, any other
qualification takes a lesser part in the qualification. And I can tell you that
for me the only thing that made me reject or chase anybody from a choir I
trained or led was sin and indiscipline. And that was when they were not
willing to change and deal with the issues casting doubt on their commitment to
Christ.
David made the greatest army by developing the rejects who
sought refuge with him, probably with nowhere else to run.
And every one that was
in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented,
gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were
with him about four hundred men. (1Samuel 22:2)
We see Jesus doing the same when He chose the twelve.
That is the spirit resident in anything that is of God. We
take whatever is offered to us and make it worthy of the King we serve.
For ye see your
calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world
to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to
confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things
which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to
nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.
(1Corinthians 1: 26 – 29)
Which spirit are we operating under when we trash a genuine
worshipper by disqualifying them from singing for God because their voice falls
below the bar we have set?
And it is the same with pastors. How many churches raise
their pastors instead of looking for those already prepared, tested and tried?
How many people are frustrated because their calling has been trashed by the
church because they do not have a Masters degree or because they were called in
their youth and so pursued ministry instead of academic and professional
proficiency? Why does the church leadership overlook spirituality and character
and focus on who has what or is what when looking for deacons and other leaders
as if money is evidence of spirituality? How many genuine ministers are
starving of support and opportunity because they chose to go God’s direction
instead of the one the church leaders require to build their babel?
Even evangelism is not much different. How many churches and
evangelistic ministries take the Gospel where it has never reached? Why do all
continue pouring the treasure of the Gospel to people who have heard and
rejected it all their lives yet there are people who are crying for the
opportunity to hear it only once? Why do we plant churches where there are
other churches instead of planting it in places crying for a church?
I develop writers and see the same even there. Publishers
(and they call themselves Christian) look for established writers instead of
raising theirs. Like I say they want to cook when all the ingredients are
available instead of looking for them. Again I thank God that He has enabled me
to take anything brought to me and make it worth publishing. And I do not think
there is greater joy than seeing the gratitude of someone holding a book they
had stayed with rejected manuscripts for a decade or more.
Is yours a Christian ministry or an enterprise with a
Christian name? Is yours a Christian business or a business with a Christian name
or pretense? Does it operate using Christian standards or does it use the name
Christian to get unsuspecting customers by fraud?
The prince of the world (Mammon) operates contrary to the
Spirit of Christ. Self interest is at the core of worldly systems, be it in
ministries or businesses. And sadly it is the same spirit operating in these
ministries and churches who insist on getting ready made ministers. It is a
spirit that specializes on the maximization on as little input as possible to
get maximum profit from that effort.
Sadly that is the spirit that guides the need for auditions
to get worship leaders, whatever they mean by worship. And it is the same
spirit that guides churches that head hunts for ministers instead of raising
them. It is also the same spirit that makes publishers insist on publishing readymade
authors instead of raising them.
I understand how it feels to be turned away from wanting to
sing for God. I was once turned away from a group I really wanted to join.
Sadly, the reasons were not even musical as there were others who later joined
when I requested to join who were not as musically polished as I was. In any
case they did not even ask what I had to offer musically. I suspect I did not have the class they
wanted, a thing I do not have or even pursue to date. But there was a choir in
the same place which did not have those qualifications and I was able to sing
praises to my King, the only thing I sought when I wanted to join the singing
group.
Let me close by asking these questions. Did you pray before
setting those worldly standards for raising a worship team? Did God CLEARLY
give those standards that are clearly not Biblical? Did God tell you that only
a person with a Masters degree can serve Him as a pastor when He chose
illiterates for disciples? Did God tell you to look for a pastor with as wide
an experience and training as you are asking?
How does Christ command us to make disciples yet give us
leeway to look for ones others have made? Are we really doing that through His
leading? Do we follow His leading in anything else if we do not do so when we
are looking for people to lead us to worship Him?
God’s standard is that we see potential where it does not
exist because we are being led by God who sees deeper and farther than we have
any capacity to see.
You see, Esau was more endowed than Jacob. He was more hard
working and did not have a shady name as his brother. Yet God overlooked all
that because Jacob had the potential God needed. David was nowhere close to
potential or anything of worth, yet God bypassed all his visibly endowed,
visible, trained and useful to the kingdom to choose him as king. Rahab the
harlot was a reject even in a condemned city yet was chosen to join the lineage
of Christ.
I believe that is what and how we will choose ministers if
we are connected to Christ and His Spirit. People will laugh at us what we
start our discipleship and mentorship because we have really lost it when they
look at us choosing potential with Christ’s eyes.
God bless you
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