Church Musicians Seminar - Opening Thoughts

Before I start posting videos from the church music seminar we had last Saturday I wanted to post some opening reflections that I communicated to the group before we started diving into the nuts and bolts of playing well in a band.  Here is the essence of what I said:

Before we begin this morning I wanted to draw your attention to a great potential danger that we need to be aware of.

Music is a very easy thing to idolize. We can bow down and worship it so quickly. Why do you think we have worship wars in the church? We have our musical idols and if we can’t bow to them it doesn’t feel like worship! "I HAVE to have this type of music or I just can’t worship."  The moment you add something extra biblical to worship as a requirement you better check your heart really quick.

The essence of idolatry is worshiping created things and not the Creator, so this seminar could feed that if we are not careful. You could walk away from this today and be equipped with tons of great things to implement personally and with your band, but beware that this does not lead to self-focused worship.

Push for the opposite. Not that we should throw down our instruments just because the danger of idolatry is there, but rather, let the gifts that God has given you and is working in you push you to look back to him in thanks and praise. Let your gifts draw you and your people to look to God (and not to self) and praise the Giver. The Giver gets the glory, the glory does not go to the gift, it goes to the Giver.

Being able to play music well in this genre (which is what we are going to be focusing on today) is great, but is a very small facet of the kingdom of God. May the primary ideal be submission to the spiritual and physical reign of the King.  Not that music and kingdom submission are mutually exclusive, but they quickly can be if we are not careful.  

So before we begin let’s try and put this seminar in it’s proper place. If our churches have rockin' music, but don’t do Matthew 22 and 28, we have totally missed it. But if we are doing Matt 22 (loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves) and doing Matt 28 (All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciplines of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you, and I will be with you always even to the very end) then we are probably on the right track with first things first.

So we need to put this seminar in it’s proper place. But it does need to have a place.

We need to have it because there is a complete lack of education for guys to learn how to play in this genre. If you want to learn to play jazz, I can give you a list of guys in the area 25 deep, if you want to learn to sing opera, you can get that here, if you want to play classical piano we’ve got resources for that. If you want to learn to play pop/rock, what do you do? You get some guys together in the garage and “JAM”.  This usually is an exercise in the blind leading the blind.   The point is that there are few resources for training in the genre that most of us use week in and week out.  

But we have a tough gig.  Usually it goes like this:  Show up for 1-2 hour rehearsal, learn arrangements for 5-7 songs, then be expected to be ready to go a few days later in front of a few hundred people. It might be with different players every week. It’s easy to see how most worship bands are kind of a free for all. We do what we can just to get by or somewhat functional.

That is why we need to learn from guys who are farther along in their musical journey than most of us here. These guys do this kind of thing for a living, that is why they are here.

But again, don’t let all this lead you into wrong emphasis for yourself and your church.