Jubal’s Jottings

I often recommend to those who lead worship that they should take some retreat time on a regular basis.  Now, I don’t mean being gone to the hills for 3 days every month.  What I do mean is some kind of “take in” time to hear from God, talk to the trees, whatever.  There is so much “give out” that goes along with worship leadership.  It’s not just about getting up on a stage and jamming with the seraphim and a few other friends.  There is a lot of emotional energy that gets spent…it’s a larger issue of total ministry life, not just what may be seen on Sunday.  Please believe me on this one!

There are many ways to get “retreat” time.  It may mean fasting…or even a semi-fast, like yogurt under a tree instead of lunch.  A walk in the park…extended prayer time. It can even be pulling weeds!  Yard work is great therapy…grow some roses and talk to them.  And, at times it is important to go to the hills for a few days.

Jubal, I don’t know if you needed a retreat from time to time, but I suppose you didn’t have a very nice camp ground to visit…or did you?

I attended a conference this morning.  In the course of some conversation, someone said that they were going to meet this coming week to talk about the Advent season.  There are a couple of ways to look at that, I guess.  Today is November 8th, and I suppose you could say that Advent doesn’t begin until three weeks from tomorrow…plenty of time.  On the other hand, my immediate thought when I heard the comment was…THERE ARE ONLY THREE WEEKS UNTIL ADVENT!  (Did you catch the volume and stress in that statement?)

I know it’s difficult to be timely about things like worship planning, but I also know that many planners will wonder why things didn’t quite work out like they had hoped when looking back on some of these seasons of the church year.  The simple and obvious answer is that there isn’t always a chance for things to work out because there wasn’t enough time allowed to even open the door for the possibility of success.  Honestly, while I know that Advent/Christmas preparations are ongoing right now, this is the time to start thinking about the Lent/Easter seasons.  No, I’m not nuts, I really, I mean it.  If you want things to develop, gather resources, be creative…you MUST give some longer range time to the process.

Sorry, Jubal.  I went off a little there, didn’t I?

I have been struck by the fact that while many newer worship songs are not bad when it comes to mentioning God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (though there is ample mention of “LORD,” whoever that may refer to!)…there are a hand full of quite popular songs that make no mention of anything close to the Trinity. Just the other day, I found myself scouring BEAUTIFUL ONE for any mention of the Godhead…not there!  BREATHE has been another song that came up in a recent discussion…again, no God reference. Now I will quickly say that I really like both songs, but if they’re used outside of a larger connected context that makes their reference to God more obvious, they can be really nice songs that my friend, Todd Johnson, calls “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs…and he may have gotten that from Bob Webber!

Watch out what you pick! AND, when you combine that issue with a previous blog related to the lack of capitalization of pronouns for God, then there is double confusion.

So, Jubal, once again you have escaped by being way back in Genesis before any of this became so complicated! You’re so innocent!

I was surprised to hear from someone that a co-worker they brought to church was overheard telling another worker that, “They do karaoke at that church!”  I think it was meant to be a compliment, but I sort of didn’t take it that way.  I think she simply meant that we had words on the screen.  Where did my mind go when I heard that?  I thought about the impersonal, highly programmed, performance nature of karaoke.  I hope she didn’t miss the point of worship because she was so busy being taken in by the graphics…even with no bouncing ball!  WOW!  I never thought about anyone reaching that conclusion…but maybe we should be careful with our projected graphics to make sure they focus the congregation where we want them to focus…hopefully on God, and not the images on the screen.  Something to ponder!

Jubal, I was trying to imagine a karaoke setup out in a desert location near Jerusalem.  Somehow I just can’t quite get there in my mind.  Sorry you missed it…but not really!

I recently participated in a couple of worship-related conferences.  They are always stimulating to attend.  The attendees are people who are generally taking time and making significant monetary sacrifices to attend these events.  As a result, they are pretty motivated to experience and learn.  At one of these conferences I attended, there were some pretty high profile plenary speakers.  Most were quite good…certainly engaging and insightful.  I did pick up on a statement here and there that found me saying to myself, “Wait a minute.  I don’t think so!”  The one statement that is still ringing in my mental hard drive is this one…”Worship is the place where you put your heart above your head.”  Really?  I don’t think so!  The implication is that to worship is to place your thinking – your head – in subjection to your emotions – your heart.  That may be the case at times, but aren’t there also times when your thoughts about the truth of God and His attributes should override your emotions in worship?  Shouldn’t there be a sort of ebb and flow in the worship experience between the things we know to be true about God and the way we feel about God?  Not one over the other?  My concern is, obviously, that people were taking notes during that talk, and have now taken that home to there worship ministries…encouraging heart over head.  Dangerous!  Heart over head?  I don’t think so!

Jubal, you are so fortunate to just make your instruments!

The answer to this question is, “Not usually.”  There is plenty of cry for “unity” and “one body” going around, but when it comes to worship, most churches seem to decide otherwise.  I wish I had statistics on how many churches have made a choice for multiple styles of worship services under one roof.  My suspicions are that there may be more of those than not anymore.  Even those that don’t advertise multiple styles may in fact have multiple services inside the church, if you count youth services, children’s church, etc.

What is beginning to concern me more and more is that we have done a lot of intentional things that keep the one body split into many parts.  It seems that corporate worship should be a place to work really hard to embody the unity of the church, as a true one body, focused on one true God.  I know, I know, I can hear all of the reasons NOT to do that.  I think there are also a lot of good reasons to make some sacrifices TO worship together.  It would make such a great statement to have young worshiping with old, hymn with worship song, families sitting together at times, organ with band.  In the days past we didn’t have all of these services…and we may not be better off with them.
Jubal, didn’t you just like the one service that you had?  Much more simple!

Projection of lyrics for singing in worship presents a number of challenges that many people have yet to work out.  One of the issues is whether or not the pronoun for God is to be capitalized or not.  I know that in some preferences of formatting a choice is made not to capitalize the pronoun for deity – even many versions of the Bible.  I’m not talking about that.  I’m talking about consistency that leads to clarity of focus in worship.  I have often experienced projected lyrics in which some references to God are “you” and others that are “You” – in the same song!  That’s a mistake that someone should correct, I assume.  More confusing is having a song in which there are references to other humans – “you” – as well as references to God – also appearing as “you.”  I have caught myself stopping in the middle of a song and asking myself, “Now, who was that “you” that I was just singing about?  Was that “You” or “you?”  To add to the confusion, some formatting choices show everything along the left-hand side of the slide as capitalized.  In that case, you can end up with a “you” as a human, “you” as God, “You” as a human, or “You” meaning God…all in the same song!  So, where am I to direct my worship?  Help me out here!

The solution on this one is simple, of course.  Make all the references to God as “You” and all the references to humankind as “you.”  That’s clear to me!  After all, if God provided for my salvation, I think the least I could do is capitalize the reference to Him in my worship of Him.

Jubal, see the things you didn’t have to deal with before all this technology?  Lucky!

So, when sometimes there doesn’t seem to be much of a bright spot for the future of worship and music, we should take a look at things like this for both a smile and hope!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR4PQ30VkBk

Too bad you didn’t know this song, Jubal

There was quite a little stir recently when American Idol used SHOUT TO THE LORD for a closer…2 times!  And, they even said JESUS one of those times!  (I actually hope they said JESUS because they got forced into it!)  And, for a song that is kind of on the “I’ve done that one enough” list, it is sure to get an uptick in CCLI reportings and ASCAP performance royalties (keep creating, Darlene!).  Anyway, while I do applaud the use of SHOUT TO THE LORD as opposed to any other song in the world they might have chosen, I end up having an underlying concern about the whole thing.  Here’s my deal…I want to know about the faith of each one of those performers singing the song.  Was it a true expression for all of them, or was it just a song to go off and wail on to impress the judges and audience?  If it wasn’t an honest, heartfelt expression of their faith, then the word “blasphemy” enters into my thinking.  There’s nothing to get excited about if that’s the case.

Jubal, aren’t you curious about how that song got picked in the first place?  I am!

I have just read the book entitled REVEAL, which is the study that was done at Willow Creek, and 5 other churches.  The self-study has created quite a stir among the evangelical church world, since one of the monoliths of the mega-church world has looked inside of itself and found itself wanting in some significant ways.  At least they’re honest and willing to look…most aren’t!  It is interesting reading, to say the least!

The one area of the REVEAL study that I found most compelling for me and my world is one statistic related to worship.  While “compelling worship services” is named as THE most important attribute for those surveyed (page 105), it also points out (page 53) that of those who were ”Dissatisfied” with church, only 20% rated the services in the “outstanding” or “excellent” categories.  I would REALLY like to know more about what’s behind that statistic!  The study doesn’t elaborate on the subject, but it might well be something for a follow up study…which they say the plan to do in certain areas.  By the way, you can see some of the basic findings at revealnow.com.

So, Jubal, something tells me that they didn’t have opinion polls in your time.  Aren’t you fortunate!