Messy People

For most of the past six months I have been delivering mail in the Bankers Hill area, about a mile north of the heart of downtown San Diego. My route covered about six square blocks of Class A and B offices and high rent apartments and condos. The businesses I delivered to were predominantly lawyers, dentists, and other professionals.

Two weeks ago I moved to a new route covering about nine square blocks in the East Village. The differences between the two areas could not be more palpable. Now I deliver to low-income housing, homeless shelters, and day centers for the homeless. I see a lot more people but almost never any suits and ties. The cleavage I see now is far less likely to be a from a shapely woman’s low neckline and far more likely to be an indigent’s posterior. While there is some racial diversity farther north, here I am encountering people from all over the world. Last week I met a young girl and boy—maybe 14 and 10—who moved here from Baghdad two years ago. I had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes as I imagined what they had experienced in their young lives.

The route I’m doing now is longer: I rarely finish in much less than eight hours, compared to the six it took in Bankers Hill. It’s messier; I’m often greeted with the odor of urine—fresh or stale—when I stop to get out of my delivery van. But there is a refreshing realness to the people whose paths I cross every day. These people, by and large, are broken, but they don’t hide their brokenness. They’re messy, but they don’t mask it. Farther north, the brokenness and messes are masked by perfect manicures, nice clothes, and gated buildings.

If I have to deliver mail for the time being, this is a good place for me to do it. Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of serving the messy people for whom you died.

Preparing to Worship

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Rock music was part of my teen world. In those days before earbuds were ubiquitous, I would sometimes pull the stereo speakers down from the shelves, place them on the floor facing each other, and lay with my head between them while Led Zeppelin or the Eagles pumped into my ears like an IV. The same music filled my head on Sunday mornings, too, while I was getting dressed for church…until, that is, my dad would ask me to turn it down or even off, replacing my selections with Bach, Beethoven, or whatever he had in the way of Christian music. His reasoning: we need to prepare our hearts for worship. I grumbled about the change then, with the same type of argument my kids give me today.

As parents ourselves now, my wife and I have one-upped my own parents and talked about how preparing for worship needs to begin on Saturday nights, not just Sunday mornings. Sometimes those preparations are practical, like laying out clothes for the next day; sometimes they’re mental or even spiritual in nature—after all, how well does watching Braveheart prepare my mind to hear from God? But preparing to worship is not only about music and movies and clothes. It is about my heart, my mind, my soul… this is starting to sound like something God said on more than one occasion, and saw fit to write down for us:

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” —Mark 12:30

In fact, this command is repeated several times throughout the Bible and, for Jews, has been a centerpiece of twice-daily prayers for thousands of years. It’s also a good guide to preparing for worship. Here are some thoughts on how to do that:

Heart: Think of the heart as the seat of our emotions. We can prepare to worship God by keeping our emotions and relationships in check. This might be as simple as a pleasant morning greeting or a hug and kiss for our family members, or as difficult as intentionally avoiding a relational conflict about clothes! (That’s one reason setting out clothes on Saturday night can help so much on Sunday morning.)

Soul: The soul represents what we most often think of as the spiritual. We can point our soul toward God by listening to God-focused worship music—as my dad exhorted—or by reading a devotional book or the Bible (especially some of the Psalms). The discipline of silence is also helpful; not just refraining from speech, but blocking out the noise around. I know what you’re thinking: “But I’ve got three kids under age six—where am I supposed to find silence?!” Be creative in location and brief in duration. You may not find silence on the couch, but bathrooms—even the shower—are usually good alternatives. And if you’ve never intentionally sat silently before, then you’ll find that even thirty seconds seems long…and can do wonders.

Mind: Reading the Bible can focus the mind as well as the soul, though this is a different type of reading. If you can find out ahead of time what passage the sermon will be focused on, read that. Or if your pastor sends an email or newsletter during the week, read that. These can get your mind pointed in the direction the message will soon be taking it.

Strength: Loving God with your strength isn’t about doing push ups in the morning (though that may be good for you, too). Rather, it is about preparing your body to worship Him. That can mean anything from the clothes you wear to the breakfast you eat to the sleep you get on Saturday night. Setting out clothes the night before—especially for kids or indecisive dressers—can reduce worship-inhibiting morning stress.

All of this can be challenging enough when you’re single; add a spouse and any number of kids—from infant to teenager—and it becomes exponentially more difficult. My wife and I, for example, have opposite ways of getting ready to go to church on Sunday mornings: she prefers to wake up leisurely and relax with a cup of coffee as she slowly dresses and does makeup, then rush the drive to church. I’d rather quickly get myself all ready to leave so I can relax for ten or fifteen minutes before we get in the car, then drive casually, and have plenty of time to find parking and seats before the service starts.

Here’s the rub: going to church is easy. Preparing to worship the Creator of the universe, though, takes forethought and planning… and that can’t happen on Sunday morning. Sometime this week, take time to think through and write down how you can best prepare for worship. Include each of these areas—heart, mind, soul, and strength (body)—noting what is needed in each and what time constraints there may be. If you’re married, do this together; if you have kids, share it with them (or better yet, work with them on it). Here’s a quick sample, assuming your church service starts at 9:00am.

Saturday evening: after dinner, everyone sets out clothes—right down to underwear, socks, shoes, and jackets—and gets appropriate approvals (from mom, dad, husband, wife). Iron what needs to be ironed. Do something fun together as a family, like a board game, puzzle, or fun G or PG movie that ends by 8:30.

Sunday morning: everyone is up in time for showers, breakfast, and coffee. Get dressed, put on makeup. Mom helps younger kids with hair; Dad helps them get dressed while Mom does her makeup. Aim for everyone to be dressed, hair combed and teeth brushed, and ready to leave fifteen minutes before departure time. Relax. Be quiet. Read. Listen to worship, praise, or instrumental music. Finish coffee. Five minutes before you have to leave, get out the door.

A word of caution: this isn’t simply about having a preset morning schedule; it may mean changing your perspective on things. It may mean that the time nazi who’s always watching the clock needs to chill out, and the one who has no concept of time needs to gracefully receive reminders. And as far as time is concerned, keep in mind that this isn’t about “being on time for church,” it is about preparing to encounter and worship God—and in that worship, we get to bless God.

Measuring “Success” – A Guest Post

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I received the following today in an email from Pete Scazzero, founding pastor of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, New York; author of two books, The Emotionally Healthy Church and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality; and, with his wife Gail, founder of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, a ministry that equips churches in deep, beneath-the-surface spiritual formation paradigm that integrates emotional health and contemplative spirituality. I encourage you to check out these books and other resources from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

I particularly appreciate the bullet points Pete includes, which offer the best and most measurable guidelines for transformation that I have seen. Now to work on putting these principles to work in my own life and ministry. From Pete:

Measuring ministry impact with numbers is biblical.

The book of Acts uses numbers to describe the impact of the gospel – about 3,000 baptized (Acts 2:41), about 5,000 believers (Acts 4:4), crowds coming to faith (Acts 5:14). We have a whole book in the Bible called Numbers. So, in the context of the church, it is good to measure things like attendance, baptisms, membership, number of small groups, and financial giving.

The problem comes when that is all we measure.

Measuring deep, beneath the surface transformation in people’s lives is also critically important – if not more important. (Consider Paul, Gal. 4:19, Jesus mentoring the 12). The specifics of these internal markers will differ from ministry to ministry and from context to context.

The following are several examples we set to measure at New Life Fellowship Church:

Each leader at New Life will develop his or her relationship with God by spending ten to thirty minutes in prayer and Scripture reading in the morning, and a few additional minutes of prayer and reflection in the afternoon/evening.
Our staff, board, and key leaders will slow down their lives by practicing Sabbath for twenty-four hours each week.
Our staff, board, and key leaders will pray the Examen at least once a day in order to discern and follow God’s will in their lives.
Every member of our pastoral and administrative staff team will consistently seek to integrate emotionally healthy skills into their ministries and relationships.
Each member at New Life will develop a personal Rule of Life that enables them to receive and give the love of God. They will share it at their membership interview.
Eighty-five percent of our members will connect in a small group or ministry (i.e. a smaller community) for support as part of their spiritual formation.
Every child will participate in a discipleship small group with an appointed leader.
Fifty percent of married couples will go through training to view their relationship as a living sign of God’s passionate love for the world.

Some of these are fairly easy to measure, but others have proven to be more difficult. Yet, even when the measurement is fairly straightforward, it is vitally important to humbly acknowledge our limits in “measuring” a person’s transformation into the image of Jesus.

But one thing is sure. Every one of us must wrestle with our teams and do the painstaking discernment work of identifying precisely what those internal markers of success are for us at any given point in time.

-Pete

Church Music

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My mother-in-law shared an article on Facebook that got me thinking about church music. What she shared was a blog post called “13 Solutions for a Church That Just Won’t Sing,” by Jonathan Aigner, the Director of Music in a United Methodist church. I’ve never heard of Jonathan before; all I know about him is what he wrote on his blog, www.theologyinworship.com, where he says he grew up Southern Baptist, has Bachelor’s and a Master’s degrees in music, as well as Master’s degrees in both theology and educational leadership. In other words, he seems to have some credentials backing what he wrote. And what he wrote was good, even if I don’t agree with some of his proposed solutions.

You really should read Jonathan’s article because I’m going to respond to some of his thoughts and there’s a good chance that something will get lost in translation going from him to me to you. I don’t want to misrepresent him; neither do I want to come across as disagreeing with everything he says. Rather, I want to use his article as a springboard for some of my own thoughts. Briefly, here are his thirteen solutions (all are direct quotes except where italicized):

Teach—how, what, and why to sing.
Dust off the organ console.
Bring the choir back.
Don’t perform.
Get rid of the lead soloist.
Don’t sing so much.
Sing all the time.
Build a resonant sanctuary.
Encourage and support the arts in the community.
Bring the kids back into corporate worship.
Use hymnals.
Make the music worth singing.
Stop doing the same songs over and over and over.

For starters, I agree that churches can teach us how to sing, what to sing, and why to sing. That’s how learned: standing in church between my alto mother and my bass father, I learned to follow the little black dots as they floated up and down the clefs. Those lessons laid the foundation for my three years of clarinet, a year of high school chorus, and four years in a singing and drama club.

But learning to sing—even for the purpose of worshipping and praising God—is not what church is really about, so I’d go a step farther than Jonathan suggests and use music as a teaching tool. After all, many of the great hymns were written, at least in part, to teach about God, not only to praise him. Since music by its very nature tends to stick with us, the songs we sing on Sunday mornings have the potential to stick in our minds far longer than the words of my sermon. We need to tap into that potential.

As for choirs and organs, I agree with Jonathan’s reasoning even if I don’t think his solutions are necessarily the right or even best options. What he wants is instrumentation “able to support sustained, hearty congregational singing” and “a sizable, confident, prepared group” to lead that singing. Both of those goals can be achieved with options other than an organ and a choir, but it takes a skilled and intentional worship leader and team to do so…just as it would demand a skilled organist and choir. I’ve seen—or rather heard—the difference in singing when a well-trained and versatile person is on the piano instead of someone who simply plays the little black notes. No instrument in the world will make an average musician sound great; on the other hand, a truly exceptional musician can make an average instrument do wondrous things.

Having said that, I certainly agree with Jonathan that an organ is a uniquely adept instrument for supporting congregational singing. But that doesn’t apply to every organ; electronic organs can be little more than glamorous synthesizers. A pipe organ, though, is unbelievably versatile, especially at the hands and feet of a well-trained organist. [Full disclosure: I married into a pipe organ family; my father-in-law has been building them for longer than the half-century I have been alive, so I’m just a little biased. That said, if you are at all interested in church music—which you probably are if you have read this far—you owe it to yourself to get in on some good pipe organ concerts.]

Let me take on several of Jonathan’s points together—numbers 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, and 13—and boil them down to this: if you want the congregation to sing, then invite them and allow them to do so. Don’t drown out the congregation with amplified instruments (even a pipe organ) or worship team (even a choir). As Ed Stetzer has written, sing singable songs in singable ways. Follow these ideas and you will probably avoid having your up-front team being performers before an audience. Hymnals can help people sing…if they’re inclined to sing, know how to read music, and are familiar enough to find the song in the time they have to do that. In other words, hymnals might help church people sing. But if you’re trying to help non-church people encounter God, then projecting the words on a screen is a far better choice. (Just be sure your tech people are good enough to stay with the musicians and get the right words on the screen at the right time.)

I may write about worship again another time, but let me close with one more encouragement to read Jonathan’s blog for yourself, and not simply to either argue against or agree with, but to reflect on and impact your own thinking about corporate worship.

Dear Pastor

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Dear Pastor,

Last week I wrote to Youth Pastors asking them to encourage kids to bring their Bibles to church—and to use them there! Not because it makes them look holy, or just because it’s a good habit, but to help them learn to read, know, and understand God’s Word. I acknowledged the changing technologies (from scrolls to books to smart phones) and the changing cultures (from oral to visual and, some say, a return to oral).

Now, thanks to one of those Youth Pastors, it’s time to put in a request to you: encourage us to bring and use our Bibles at church; help us as adults also learn to read, use, know, and appreciate God’s Word. This idea isn’t mine; one of my former pastors put it in my mind when he stood in front of the church and announced that we would no longer be projecting the day’s Scripture reading, for just those purposes: to help train us. Here are some practical suggestions:

Don’t put the main Bible passage on the screen. Instead, ask people to use their own Bible, whether print or electronic. Make sure there is enough light for people to read by. Verses read during the message may be projected, but not the whole text.
Have Bibles available in the sanctuary. If you don’t have Bibles in the seats, be sure they are readily available at the entrance doors. For a while, you may even offer a Bible to each person entering, along with the bulletin or other printed materials. Well before you are ready to read the passage, ask if anyone needs a Bible, and have ushers ready to pass them out. Oh, and be sure they are all the same translation and format (see next point).
Announce the passage at least twice. Make sure the reference is in the bulletin and put it on the screen.
Help us find the passage. Tell us the page number in the available Bibles, but also give some hints on finding it in our own Bibles (e.g., table of contents, general location, major books before or after the passage, etc.). Give us time, too! You may even print a QR code in the bulletin, linking to the passage in an online Bible such as www.biblegateway.com. (QR codes are easy to generate and can be used to link to just about any website. But be sure to test it each week, or you might end up with some surprises.)
Give a Bible to anyone who wants one, no questions asked! This should be the first priority in your annual budget, or at least a non-negotiable. They don’t have to be high-quality leather Bibles; inexpensive paperbacks are fine. But be generous with God’s Word!

One last thought: Ask everyone to stand up when reading the main passage. In this we follow the example of the people of Israel, who stood in honor of God’s Word when Ezra opened the Book of the Law (see Nehemiah 8).

If God’s Word is worth proclaiming each Sunday, and worth teaching our kids, then it’s certainly worth these simple steps. And you just may convince me, too, Pastor, that knowing and listening to God is even more important than listening to you!

A Voice For Good

Musings on Life and Faith

Messy People

Preparing to Worship

Measuring “Success” – A Guest Post

Church Music

Dear Pastor