Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Explaining myself:
My son was asking me a question the other day, "Why don't you put your name in to be considered to pastor an existing church?" (as opposed to being a bivocational pastor doing all the work that it takes to start a new church. He still attends my former church, where I was the youth leader. Many of the people there perceived that I was "just a youth guy" and so any expression of worship I did was a phase I would grow out of when I became a "real minister." I was having this discussion with my wife via email and this is what came out.
The style of worship is not youth, the style of worship is me!!! It's not really about reaching or anything else, (i.e. worship is worship first and foremost) I hope this doesn't sound self centered. The worship at New Creation is really about the way God created me to worship. It's not like it's all about my preferences. God created me to think a certain way, feel a certain way and reach a certain group of people. I believe that God created me to bless a certain group of people. There are puppets because as long as I can remember, I have loved them and know they are a great tool for touching people, there is contemporary music because God uses that music to minister to me. I preach in a story fashion because that is how God made me. It's casual because God made me to be sensitive to hurting people who feel like they don't fit. The people that God will bring to our church to lead will have a similar ethic.
In our worship you see me as close as there can be to how God created me to be. He didn't make me to be a staid, organ music loving, theologian with an interest in keeping people happy and comfortable, he made me a passionate, guitar loving, storyteller with a passion for motivating people to reach a lost and hurting world. That's what I wish I could have expressed to [my son] yesterday. The thought of going to an established church that would expect me to be that other guy is more than I can bear.
My call to the Church (that's the whole church, the kingdom) is not to become a different kind of pastor so I can fit their mold, nor is it to go out and force a church to fit mine. Both of those lessons were extremely painful. My call is to love the Church and motivate them to be all that God has made them and not to be satisfied to fit into someone else's mold. Now I have to learn that myself.
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My son was asking me a question the other day, "Why don't you put your name in to be considered to pastor an existing church?" (as opposed to being a bivocational pastor doing all the work that it takes to start a new church. He still attends my former church, where I was the youth leader. Many of the people there perceived that I was "just a youth guy" and so any expression of worship I did was a phase I would grow out of when I became a "real minister." I was having this discussion with my wife via email and this is what came out.
The style of worship is not youth, the style of worship is me!!! It's not really about reaching or anything else, (i.e. worship is worship first and foremost) I hope this doesn't sound self centered. The worship at New Creation is really about the way God created me to worship. It's not like it's all about my preferences. God created me to think a certain way, feel a certain way and reach a certain group of people. I believe that God created me to bless a certain group of people. There are puppets because as long as I can remember, I have loved them and know they are a great tool for touching people, there is contemporary music because God uses that music to minister to me. I preach in a story fashion because that is how God made me. It's casual because God made me to be sensitive to hurting people who feel like they don't fit. The people that God will bring to our church to lead will have a similar ethic.
In our worship you see me as close as there can be to how God created me to be. He didn't make me to be a staid, organ music loving, theologian with an interest in keeping people happy and comfortable, he made me a passionate, guitar loving, storyteller with a passion for motivating people to reach a lost and hurting world. That's what I wish I could have expressed to [my son] yesterday. The thought of going to an established church that would expect me to be that other guy is more than I can bear.
My call to the Church (that's the whole church, the kingdom) is not to become a different kind of pastor so I can fit their mold, nor is it to go out and force a church to fit mine. Both of those lessons were extremely painful. My call is to love the Church and motivate them to be all that God has made them and not to be satisfied to fit into someone else's mold. Now I have to learn that myself.
