Week 7-Using Our Tools Wisely

Day 1-It's Not About Style

Today's thoughts are great and true. Truthfully, it's a truth that is only accepted after the individual has embraced a mindset of servant hood and humility. Our writer very appropriately put this subject directly after week 6 which was all on Leadership and went in depth on truths like:
(summary on week 6) Are we Ministers through Music? Is Ministry what we do or is it who we are? / Recognition isn't required! The very nature of our "business" is help people fall in love with God and ONLY God. / The Law of God's Elevation. What comes down in through humility will go up through Christ-like exaltation. Because we were created for God's glory, glorifying Him brings us the most fulfillment possible. The challenge is releasing our definition and terms of what that exaltation and His glory in us looks like. For many it's suffering, loss, hardships, etc. His glory is revealed when His grace is sufficient. /Earning God's privilege to lead. Those who should sing are those who are called. Those who would sing are those with passion. Those who could sing are those with discipline and those who get to sing are those with integrity. / The Discipline of Difficulties. If you haven't been tested by fire, you do not know who you are, you cannot be a leader.

A man found a cocoon in his office. He set the cocoon on a shelf and waited for it to hatch. After a day or so, nothing had happened and the man grew impatient. He took a razor blade and
slit the cocoon ever so carefully. Sure enough, within a few minutes, out came a beautiful Emperor Moth. As it spread its gorgeous wings, the gentleman waited for it to fly high into the air. But instead, the moth wandered over to the ledge and dropped off onto the floor. Distraught, he asked an entomologist why his prized moth couldn't’t fly. The insect expert explained that when the man slit the cocoon, he deprived the moth of the very struggle it needed to build strength in its wings. In fact, the expert said, the moth would never fly.

So, after week 6 and all it's probing truth, we approach the ever-brewing subject of style. I love our writer's Biblical observation: Worship throughout the Bible doesn't follow a standard of style, new songs or old. You find it all: lament, rejoicing, dancing, silence, knees to the earth, standing, lying in bed, creatures around the throne, creation, Old songs (Jeremiah 6:16) and new songs (Psalm 96:1). The only current theme through it all is the focus of the worship, the theme of the song. It is God and God alone. For His is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever, amen!

Week 6, Day 2

Recognition Is Not Required

1 Peter 5:6a- "So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God..."

There's a really interesting point today regarding recognition for the Worship Leader. List the Prophets and Preachers in the Bible. Then besides their names, list the Worship Leaders from the Bible. A bit different, uh? Why?

"The more recognition and popularity we as musicians and worship leaders are showered with, the more difficult it is for us to point starry-eyed people from us to the Father. By the very nature of our "business," we must help people fall in love with God and only God."

What are three reasons you could come up with today, to tell someone as to why they should lift Jesus higher than yourself? Will you use one of them today?

Week 6-Qualities of Leadership

Day One: Ministers Through Music

Today was such a goodie! "We may impress people from distance, but we'll only impact them as they see our lives up close."

How do you see yourself: as a musician who is a Christian or a Christian who is a musician? The way we answer that question will determine how we approach music throughout our lives.

Four levels of Effectiveness:
Level One: The Song Leader. This person wants to show up, sing/play then leave. "It's better to have 10 people who are sold on music ministry than 100 who are just showing up."
Level Two: Music Director. They know how to sing or what to play and have a focus on excellence and their organization is great. They tend to forget or lose sight of why they're doing it.
Level Three: Minister of Music. Committed to excellence and pleasing God. However, their ministry is limited to the church stage.
Level Four: Minister through Music. They still desire the excellence of level 2 and see the blessing musical praise can beto God and others! However, Level 4 realize that our music is not the minister, we are the ministers. God didn't ordain the music to bless Him and others, but ordained us to serve Him. And we have a responsibility to serve whether we're making music or not.

"Ministry is more about who we are than about something we do."

Week 4-5

It's been a while for the blog post! I'd like to give a short review of weeks 4-5.
Week 4-Hearing God's Voice
"We must learn to look below the surface of what we can see and hear with our physical senses. We must discern what God is up to." This requires us to be saved, sensitive and surrendered. Perhaps you are saved but sensitive? Surrendered? Jesus said, you who have ears, let him hear. Jesus knew everyone he spoke to had physical ears, but he knew not everyone was listening.

Are you?

Why listen to God? Let's answer that by developing our crisis mind-set.

• Desperation for God. This desperation will come when we see our true state of urgent need of Him.
• Determined to hear from God. Do we want to hear from God or do we HAVE to?
• Decided that God would speak. God's move and power isn't just a hope or a wish, it's a waited upon response to our plea. It's not presumption, it's faith. It's not a matter of if; it's only a matter of when.

The Characteristics of God's Voice-is it Familiar? Personal? Simple and Clear? Loving?

God's Words:

• are consistent with the Bible
• may conflict with human wisdom
• may clash with our fleshly nature
• will challenge our faith
• will require courage

Fine-Tuning our ears:

• Practice Listening
• Focus our thoughts
• Respond to every impulse from the Holy Spirit

In week 4, we have spiraled up. We have developed a closer relationship with the Holy Spirit. We have learned that we're His sheep that can hear His voice. We learned that as worship leaders we MUST hear from God. And we learned to fine-tune our spiritual hearing ears to more easily hear from the Lord.
WHY? Because our goal every day is to connect with Almighty God.

Week 5-Essentials of Effective Worship Services

• Prayer-"every work of God can be traced to some kneeling form." -Dwight L. Moody
  What if the entrance exam to the Choir loft each week was, "are you hearing from Heaven"? Prayer puts our focus where it belongs. "God can only bless people who are in tune...with Him and with one another. That is why we begin every choir practice with a season of prayer...The choir's ability to minister can never be better than their spiritual tone." -Carol Cymbala (Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir)
  Prayer sensitizes us to God's voice. Prayer gets results.
• Planned Spontaneity-We plan out distractions and plan in both flow and freedom to obey whatever God tells us to do. Are we ready for our planned song or music set to be interrupted for God to do something else? Maybe as a Choir member your reply is, "sure!" But are you ready for Him to do the same in your day today?
• Pliableness-Our willingness to be flexible. This comes down to trust. Trusting God even when we don't understand Him. Whether in a spontaneous worship moment in Church or in your week. Either God is Sovereign or He's not. To be pliable means to be bendable, workable and moldable.
• Power in the Spirit-Jim Cymbala, pastor of The Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City, writes,“Our attempt at ministry will be an absolute exercise in futility if we are not
  expecting and experiencing divine help through the power of the Holy Spirit.
  It is not enough to teach and preach about the Spirit. We must experience him
  personally in new depths, or we will accomplish little. Without the Holy Spirit
  there is no quickening of the Scripture. Worship is hollow. Preaching is mechanical,
  never piercing the heart.” If in Luke 3:21-4:19 Jesus needed the power of my Spirit to be effective in ministry, how much more must you have the Holy Spirit anointing your life?
  Adrian Rogers writes, “In my estimation, the cause of Christ has been hurt far more by Christians who were carnal and not Spirit filled than by Christians who were drunk.
  To be filled with the Holy Spirit is really more about getting unfilled with ourselves.
  Here are the simple steps necessary to ensure we remain filled with him.
  (1) We must completely surrender every room and closet of our heart’s home.
  Well has it been said, “If he’s not Lord of all, he’s not Lord at all.” (2) Then we
  invite him to come and fill us up with only himself. (3) To continue being filled,
  we must daily claim his filling and continually surrender afresh to his voice and
  direction.
• Pastoral Direction-Before we can have the blessings of God on our music ministry—or any other ministry, for that matter—we must acknowledge and submit to the authorities
  God has placed above us. (See Hebrews 13:17.)
  Please read 1 Peter 5:5. Notice what our attitude should be.
  1 Peter 5:5-In the same way, you younger men must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you, serve each other in humility, for "God opposes the proud but favors the humble."

The most fruitful day for me was day 5 of week 4: Expecting to Hear, pg 71-73. The exercise with Psalm 23 was amazing. WOW-God's Word IS alive. Can I beg you all to do this before Sunday? please?
Love ya Choir! O, here's a video for you. After the Psalm 23 exercise, I was reminded of this song I sang in High School Choir. It's SO different than what we sing in church, but I still LOVE it. Even though it may not be your style, I'd ask you to just listen and meditate on the passage.