Category: Tales From The Worship Trenches

Grace Versus Rules

Posted on by Bill Kirkwood

The Story

Jean was almost always late to just about everything, including worship team singer rehearsals. I always started working with the singers thirty minutes before the band arrived so we could work out vocal parts and harmonies. She would usually miss the rehearsal for the first song or two, meaning we’d all have to go back and run those again after she arrived.

Now Jean was a steadfast member of the vocal team. She had been on the team for several years before I arrived at the church. She had a beautiful, solid, soprano voice that easily carried the melody, and the sweetest disposition of anyone on the team. Her husband and children were pillars of servanthood in the church. But she was always late. 

I had spoken to Jean several times through the years about her tardiness and the effect it had on the team. Being late shows a disrespect for the other team members. It means extra work for all of us. After these conversations she would always do better for several weeks, but would eventually lapse back into her old habit.

Finally I reluctantly decided I needed to let her go from the team. Our face-to-face conversation was one of the most gut-wrenching experiences ever, with this incredibly sweet lady in tears in front of me. Now guys you know how awful it is having your wife or girlfriend crying because of something stupid you did. I can tell you it’s easily three times as bad when it’s a beloved team member pleading with you not to let them go.

In a very few minutes I realized I was making a terrible mistake. We ended up both pleading with one another, her pleading for me to not force her off  the team, and me pleading for her to try really hard to be on time. I left drained, and she was still part of the team. 

To her credit she was very much on time for several months. And I had to do some soul-searching about what my priorities are for my teams.

The Moral

The title of this story is “Grace versus Rules.” I’ve written before about how I usually tend toward grace, allowing the Spirit to work in the hearts of people rather than being harsh with the rules. Each one of us must wrestle with this bifurcation; how strict is our own personality and the culture of our worship ministry? Do you set out standards and rules in a clear manner that everyone understands? (We had a Worship Ministry Handbook that spelled out expectations.) What happens when somebody doesn’t adhere to them? 

Part of that answer depends on how severe the infraction is. Someone who is tardy should be treated differently than someone who arrives at rehearsal inebriated. In Jean’s case her tardiness did affect the efficiency of our rehearsals, but everyone loved her and knew and accepted the fact that she would be late. It was part of our culture. I don’t think it bothered anyone except me, and my ultimate response was way overkill.

The other moral of the story is to honestly weigh the benefits against the harm an individual brings. In Jean’s case, her commitment to the team in every other aspect, her contributions to the spiritual conversations, her tender care for other members, and her solid help in several other church ministries far outweighed the annoyance I had built up against her tardiness. Make sure the consequences of someone’s actions are commensurate with the harm done to the church or team.

In the end Jean apologized for her habit of tardiness, I apologized for taking a much more drastic step than was necessary, and we moved on. She and her family and I remained dear friends, and are still close friends today. 

Community Christmas: Part 2

Posted on by Bill Kirkwood

The Story

Before you read this second part of the Community Christmas story, be sure to read part 1 here. 

All the comments and debriefing after our first Community Christmas were positive. Stories came in from the fire department about stuffed animals given to children after a fire. Food was distributed. Pastors and music directors of the churches were excited about the collaboration with other churches. We learned a lot about how to improve it for the following year. And after such a huge success, of course God wanted us to do it again. 

We started planning the second Community Christmas in March, reaching out to the eleven churches who participated and returning to the ones that didn’t to see if they’d like to this year. The same churches were all on board. At first…

The first sign of trouble was when one of the more liberal churches got a new pastor, a man married to another man. This immediately set up division between those pastors who were okay with this and those who were not. 

My own pastor was not on board with this. The previous year we ended the program by encouraging audience members to attend one of the churches listed on the back of the program. This year my pastor, who initially said we could not participate at all, was at least willing to compromise with the situation by saying our church could join in the event if we did not make that statement at the end. 

Scheduling the high school auditorium was another issue. We could not coordinate the same weekend around school events on those dates. Opposition arose from a few people associated with the school and some people from non-participating churches. Around mid-October at our planning meeting, we were looking at the cascading events blocking our way. We finally looked at each other and realized we could go no further. The event was cancelled.

The Moral

The moral of the story is don’t assume something God blesses once will be blessed again. In our excitement over what just happened last Christmas I don’t recall going to God to ask if he wanted us to repeat it. Human nature says if something is successful, you just do it again. 

I’m reminded of the battles listed in the book of Joshua as the Israelites were conquering the promised land. After Jericho fell their cockiness told them to attack Ai with just a small number of troops. They were badly defeated by a much smaller foe. After they eliminated the sin in their camp, God told them how to attack Ai, splitting the army and setting half in front of the city and half behind in ambush, a very different tactic than any other battle they fought.

Isaiah 43:19 says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” God has limitless ways to accomplish his will in our churches, families, and communities. When we take time to allow him to show us his ways, then he is the one being glorified, not us. We already had the planning/production team in place for year two. We had churches on board, drama picked out, songs selected. We were going to make this a success. God had other ideas. So the moral here is always, ALWAYS seek God before assuming he wants to repeat a successful event. He may just want to do a new thing. 

Just as the previous Community Christmas was one of the greatest successes I’ve been a part of, Community Christmas 2.0 was one of my greatest failures. But in every failure there are glimmers of good. The relationships forged among the leadership team remain strong even now fourteen years later. Clarity emerged among the two camps of churches (liberal/conservative) about how to bring the gospel to our city and where our points of collaboration could be. 

My Worship Think Tank returned to the table to see what God did want for our Christmas event. What materialized the following year was much improved over the WinterSong we had done previously. New leaders emerged within my church that had been overlooked before. While it was still entertaining and the gospel presented, it was much more of a worship event than previous years. We realized that people, believers and unbelievers, really want to sing familiar Christmas songs at Christmas. Through that participation God can open up hearts to the beautiful theology contained in many of those carols. This was the model at that church for several years afterward.

Remember, the only real failure is one we do not learn from.

Community Christmas: Part 1

Posted on by Bill Kirkwood

The Story

Every December my church in Kent, Ohio would put on a big Christmas program called WinterSong. This event was described as our gift to the community, and included music and drama to celebrate the Christmas season and present the gospel message. Over a thousand people would attend the three shows we would put on. From a numbers perspective it was a huge success that many people looked forward to each year.

After I had been doing this in my first five years there, I assembled my team in February to ask one simple question: “Is WinterSong accomplishing what we say it is accomplishing?” Were people from the Kent and surrounding community actually coming? Were unsaved people getting saved? We discovered that in reality 99% of those attending were either from our church or from other area churches, and most were already Christians. We asked ourselves what could be an alternative to WinterSong?

The team (we called it the “Worship Think Tank”) came up with the idea of Kent Community Christmas. The goal was to get every church in Kent (17 churches at the time) to participate in a Christmas event that would be presented at the local high school. We would get as many participants as possible from these churches. There would be music, a play, original poetry, a simple presentation of the gospel, a collection of non-perishable food, and a collection of stuffed animals to be distributed by the fire department in crisis situations. 

In the next couple months I presented this idea to every pastor or music director in Kent. Eleven churches enthusiastically agreed to participate. The leadership/production team included members from 4 churches. Each church was responsible for promoting the event in the community in their own circles of influence. Actors and band members were from several churches. But the most beautiful and unforgettable moment for me was at our first choir practice where all sixty people from eleven churches stood in a large circle in our worship center. I asked them to look around the circle and marvel at what God had done to unite our very diverse churches for one event in order to share the love of Christ with our community. So many tears of joy flowed in that moment.

I wish I could say all the pieces easily fell into place but this event was one of the most stressful yet joy-filled things I’ve ever done. The three shows were very well-attended despite having an absolute blizzard on Saturday evening. We took in a mountain of non-perishable food and another mountain of stuffed animals. I still remember talking afterward to the three elderly choir ladies from the Catholic Church who were so excited to sing together with other Christians in our community.

Kent Community Christmas ended up being one of the most meaningful successes of my entire worship leading career.

The Moral

Jesus prayed in John 17:21 for his followers to “all be one, as you Father, are in me and I am in you.” Why was this important? “May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me” (emphasis added). The church has such a bad rap in today’s culture. It has moved from being seen as irrelevant to being a dangerous institution. One way churches can begin to counter the cultural narrative is to take visible steps to integrate into their communities with tangible, positive acts of service. Many individual churches may do this now, but for us in Kent, the fact that ¾ of the churches came together to help the community spoke louder than words ever could. 

The publicity was overwhelmingly positive. (Unfortunately the only negative responses came from a few people from non-participating churches taking potshots at the event.) For one weekend these eleven churches all became one—one mission, one message, one love for Jesus, one love for each other, one love for our town. The moral here is to look for ways to collaborate with other believing communities in your own town.

It becomes so easy for us worship leaders to focus on our tasks at our church. In smaller churches with bivocational leaders there is just not enough bandwidth to add another layer of work to partner with other churches. For those of us in larger churches we have such a big responsibility to keep all the balls in the air. It’s impossible to devote time to working with other churches, especially if the lead/senior pastor does not share the vision. I was fortunate enough to have a lead pastor who supported the vision of the think tank.

The moral for us is to seriously consider the impact you are currently having on your community. Here are some key questions for church leaders:

  • Do unbelievers actually walk through your doors and hear the gospel?
  • Do your “outreach” events actually reach the lost?
  • Does your church have any impact on your community?
  • Does your community even know your church exists? Here’s another quick story: Our pastor once attended a luncheon with the mayor and other civic leaders in the community. Although our church was the largest in town, as the pastor spoke with the mayor, he was stunned to realize the mayor did not know anything about the church, and was not even sure where it was located. It was a real wake-up call for us.

After asking the tough questions, if you’re dissatisfied with your honest answers, it’s time to get out of your silo and look for ways to bring unity (oneness) to the local church body. There are a hundred ways to do this. For us it happened at Christmas. For you, well . . . wait upon God to do a new thing in your town.