Read the rest.Churches who advertise and hire ”music directors” instead of worship pastors are setting themselves up for a spiritually shallow program with possibly good music but little spiritual fruit. What is good music without the passion of the Gospel? It is a concert. It is entertainment. I love beautiful music but in the Kingdom’s work, we are to be about the business of impacting lives with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Can we have both? Yes - excellence in all things and all things to the Glory of God, but we must start with a worship leader who is called to be a minister of the Gospel. Pastoral worship leadership should never be sacrificed on the altar of “beautiful music.”
Friday, January 02, 2009
Music Director or Worship Pastor?
Greg Brewton:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I get what he's going for here. However I don't think it can all be contained or determined by title necessarily. I've known "music directors" (and videographers, audio techs, lighting designers) that are amazing spiritual people and worship leaders. I've also seen "worship leaders/pastors" that are the worst of what their job should entail. I've also known janitors who who are the most inspiring of spiritual leaders. Bottom line, we're all worshipers and worship leaders of our own lives and those around us in our midst at any given moment - in and outside of church. But really hard to say that title in a job position really has anything to do with who or what the person really is in the end.
I would disagree with this, Z -- for two reasons:
(1) The title "worship pastor" propagates the common misconception that worship is synonymous with singing. You do a great job on Sundays of reminding us that the whole service and all of life is to be worship - not just singing. Yet, this misconception and/or mis-labeling of worship (as singing) is still not uncommon. The "worship pastor" title propagates that instead of combats that.
(2) No doubt the person leading singing should be pastoral, when he's "up front" and in any other part of his ministry. But if the person isn't one of the elders, (at least in our terminology and practice) he isn't technically a pastor. He does pastoral work and should seek to do his work pastorally, but that's not the same thing as being a pastor.
So "worship pastor" might be sloppy terminology on both fronts: WORSHIP and PASTOR. I agree, "music director" is less than ideal, but I'd rather the title say less than reality (music director), and not more than reality (worship pastor).
Regardless of titles, the job should be described and pursued in a robustly biblical way. No title, for any ministry position (or for any job at all for that matter), adequately communicates all that that calling entails. Some churches are merely looking for musicians and not truly pastoral leaders of corporate worship. But you wouldn't be able to determine that from what they call the position.
Don't you think?
Ryan,
You know I agree with what you are saying here, but I chose the title I did simply to get the greater point across about having a music leader that loves the gospel and has pastoral skill and not just musical skill.
Perhaps we need to find better titles, but for the sake of a wider audience on this blog that basically knows what these words usually mean I wrote the title as I did.
I do usually purposefully choose to not use the title "worship pastor" on this blog though.
z
I was going to post a comment similar to Ryan's, but he basically wrote most of what I was thinking!
I really think that there should be an emphasis, in evangelical churches in general, to consciously point the "music time" (or "worship time," as so many people unfortunately call it) back to congregational singing. (I do see an emphasis in this direction at DSC, and I am grateful for it.) I'm not talking about a cappella singing (I don't see a Biblical prescription for that, and I wouldn't want Zach out of a job!), but sometimes on Sundays, when I am singing, I can't help but notice that many other people aren't singing. I'm not *trying* to focus on them (of course, God is to be the focus of the music/singing time), but it's hard not to notice sometimes. I wonder if more people would sing if there were simply less instruments, and as I have written before, if the music were less loud? On the Sundays when Zach leads with piano or acoustic guitar, and perhaps one other person accompanying him, there seems to be more congregational "involvement," from what I can tell. When there is a "full band," there seems to be less congregation involvement.
Again, these observations are from what I can tell; I might well be missing some things. If I am, I would be glad to be corrected.
I keep going back, in my mind, to this sense that the "full band" music mode in churches has led people to look at the music time as more of a show to be observed, rather than a time of worship in which to be actively engaged. It's not that I don't appreciate the labors of the musicians where is a full band; I just lament the "quieting" effect that a loud band seems to have on a congregation. I've heard people say, "Bands are loud at rock concerts, and people still sing." That's true, to some extent, but in my experience, there seems to be a different effect with loud bands at churches. I'm not sure why.
Interesting conversation here. One thing to keep in mind - lots of churches have multiple staff in multiple roles. Granted, everyone should be thought of as a worshiper/worship leader and serve pastorally as theh scope of their position allows. But for me, I've mostly been in positions as a "Music Director" chiefly responsible for the band and all that it takes to make that happen week to week (among many other creative/administrative duties) and working under a worship pastor or worship leader. I've been in a position of working with several music directors on staff working under a worship leader who leads the worship ministry but is not called a worship pastor! I've also seen worship pastors that lead a worship ministry but do not actually "lead worship" on stage what so ever, rather lead the ministry pastorally and have worship leaders working under them. So really, the job titles are virtually meaningless. It really boils down to what's happening at the top end of the church from the leadership/senior pastor/elders and how that boils down into who is selected as the leader of the worship ministry, and what their collective values/mission is.
All that to say - I feel it's a bit careless of the writer of the article to in a blanket way say "music director instead of worship pastors" as at face value it kind of slights many very good spiritually leading/pastoral music directors who aren't worship pastors!
Post a Comment