Most people who know me and know LifePoint Church no that we currently don’t have worship music on Sunday mornings. Through various life happenings a majority of the musicians are no longer available. This seems like a huge gap in the expectations of a Sunday morning church gathering and I have to admit it takes a little getting used to.

First let me say that I’m capable of leading worship but it is not my skill or gifting by any stretch of the imagination. I have also decided that as a new years resolution that I was no longer going to allow myself to live outside the provision of God. What that means is we will have worship music when God provides a worship leader.

The reason for this post is to respond to the various people who have come up to me offering to lead worship. I guess the simplest way to put it is I’m not interested in anyone leading our worship. I am looking for somebody who has an interest in being a worship leader. And not just a worship leader, our worship leader.

I thought perhaps I would share the following list on what I think our worship leader should be.

• Committed. To God and the people who make up LifePoint. Seems obvious but for many it isn’t.
• Driven. I expect our worship leader to think about the music the same way I think about the  message. Throughout the week with expectation and much planning.
• Consistent. The worship leader is expected to be there every Sunday. I can’t miss very many, either can they.
• Passionate. Not for music but for people. I don’t preach week after week because I love preaching. The stress of the weekly pressure would have caused me to quite a long time ago. I do it because I love people and opening up God’s Word to them.

That’s it in a nutshell. None of this is to say that I’m not appreciative of those who have offered or that I won’t occasionally work with people to do music for us here and there. It just means that I will not put this responsibility and huge task on just anyone. You have to be called to it and want it out of obedience to the One who placed those gifts in you.

Any Questions?

In preparation for something that I want to do at LifePoint I sent out a question into the social sphere. One of the questions that I got was one I decided to answer here on the blog.

@robalderman asked, “Ecclesiologically, how does a pastor/church justify a Sunday-centric model of worship? Is it wholly an ontological shift?”

While I’m confident that Rob already has his own opinions about this, you can read more of his stuff at http://robalderman.net/ and http://theinsurrectionist.wordpress.com/, I thought I would give my 2 cents.

To begin I can’t really answer this for all pastors or churches and I don’t suspect he meant it in that literal sense but I thought I would make that clear anyway. Okay, lets begin.

I personally don’t hold any particular day as sacred. Without getting into a history debate, most churches have embraced Sunday as “the Lord’s Day” or “the sabbath”. While I feel the evidence is clear that the actual sabbath was on Saturday, I don’t think it really matters. I take Saturday, to the best of my ability, as a sabbath but this is really a heart issue as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, the real question isn’t whether Sunday is sacred but why we insist on it being the main focus of church worship. This isn’t a biblical command and yet we hold to it like it is. Or at least we appear to.

There is no doubt that tradition plays a big part. I grew up with Sunday service being the main church event and I guess I’ve fallen in line so to speak. Tradition aside, I’m not married to it. If I thought it would be better to have it on a Tuesday afternoon, I would. It’s the gathering that is powerful, not the day.

That only deals with the day though. What about it being the centric form of worship in a particular church? First let me say that I don’t think it has to be. There is no reason the central mode of worship couldn’t be the Monday soup line, The Saturday Habitat build, or the Friday night potluck. I think this is based solely on the mission of the particular local body.

I also think what is central becomes so because it’s what gets the most attention. Leadership is an issue here but so is everyone else. In all honesty, Sunday centric worship has the best chance of being the largest communal gathering. It almost become majority rule and even leadership can’t change that. If our missions event repeatedly had more congregation participation than our Sunday morning, than it has by default become the more centric mode of worship.

I would also like to add that having a Sunday service as the main thing that happens every week does not mean that it is the only or even the most important thing. It just means it may be the biggest thing. Small groups can still be vital and service events can still be crucial.

There are so many other areas that could be covered here and I’ll leave it to the comments for the conversation to continue. Please, share your thoughts or ask further questions and I or others can respond right here.

No doubt this title inspires some sort of emotional response. Love it or hate it, it affects you. You love it because you yourself have been jaded by the corruption within Christian communities. You hate because you feel it is cynical at its best and judgmental at its worst. You love it because it draws you to a pure Christianity that is not hindered by the chains of self-interested humans. You hate it because I use the word bullshit. Is a pastor even allowed to say bullshit?

I purchased a domain with this phrase inspired by a conversation I had at dinner with some cool people. I don’t have a plan for it. I’m not sure what kind of website I should put at such a domain. I think it should be intentional since I believe a lot of people would be drawn to such a website. This brings up the subject of this post.

Yesterday I sent out an update asking for suggestions. While I got a couple good ones I also got a couple jabs at the likes of Benny Hinn and Pat Robertson and a few jabs at those who made or agreed with such sentiments. While these comments all took place on my Facebook status and some have deleted their comments, I wanted to address both of these groups here. I would like to address some, most definitely not all, of the “bullshit” that I see in Christianity and compel us to not get sucked in.

To those who took pokes at specific people who you feel have added “bull” to Christianity.

I completely understand where you are coming from. I have been put off by them and many others. I abhor those who claim Christ but then make a mockery of His gospel. I have been known to refer to TBN as my own special Comedy Central. But I would like to share a quote that I shared earlier by Ed Curry.

“Cynicism is a good thing as long as it’s your vehicle and not your home.”

Healthy cynicism will not allow you to swallow all the garbage that is offered to you by so many who claim to be from Christ. Scripture supports this healthy cynicism. Remember not to remain focused there. Our faith shines as we stay fixed on the Father and not those who defile His Word.

To those who cry foul when someone points out one of these obvious people of concern.

I am so dangerously close to being part of the problem when I live in this constant state of cynicism and I recognize this. I don’t want that any more than you do. But lets not kid ourselves into thinking that Jesus, the Apostles, and the entire Word of God doesn’t call these types of people out for who they are.

We can swing to far on this. We can try so hard to be non-judgmental that any statement of truth can be seen as condemnation. Calling a wolf a wolf is not condemnation, it’s species identification. This does not mean there is no forgiveness, grace or mercy. It simply means that believers are well within their right to sound the alarm when error is found.

We also need to be careful not to take ourselves to seriously. This is part of the problem in Christianity. When we take ourselves and “ministers” to seriously and Christ not seriously enough.

I would like to add that this website, whatever I do with it, will not be used to point the finger at specific people who might blemish the name of Christ. If anything it will be a site that proclaims who He is and that He wants us.

So, what is the real “bull” that has been added to Christianity? What say you?

Leave a comment with one thing per comment. I’ll start…

When giving becomes a way to manipulate God into making us rich instead of caring for those who are in need at Christ’s command.