How do you know for sure that you really are a Worship Pastor? Here’s a sometimes humorous and sometimes serious look at twelve ways to be sure of your calling to lead God’s people in worship.
When you were called to ministry, you had no idea of the multitude of hats you would wear as a Worship Pastor. (Some of them may include: Technical Problem Trouble Shooter, Peacemaker, Calendar Coordinator, Instrument Repair Technician, Set Designer and Builder, Script Writer, Liaison to the Decorating Committee, Video Editor, Music Arranger, and others too numerous to mention, depending upon what is needed at your place of service.) The blessing that you recall while juggling your responsibilities is that you are never alone, no matter what hat you may be wearing on any given day. The Lord, your refuge, is with you… in everything that you do in His name and for the sake of the Kingdom.
Because you are up front and leading God’s people, they really notice (and comment on) what you wear. Whether you are a skinny jeans and plaid shirt wearing Worship Pastor in a contemporary church, or whether you wear a suit every Sunday leading worship in a more traditional congregation, people do notice.
When you get together with ministry colleagues who serve in the same vocational ministry calling in their own churches, you love the fellowship time; but the main thing that you want to do together is make music and worship the Lord.
You are very familiar with the initials CCLI, and somewhere in your office is a stack of browser packs from music publishers.*
* Note: CCLI is the copyright and licensing service for Christian music, which enables churches to legally project song lyrics onto screens and print them in church bulletins. Churches must report the songs used, and all of that information is compiled to pay royalties for the usage of songs to composers and publishers. The information is also compiled into lists of most frequently used songs from different genres, with links to different versions. These lists can be very helpful for worship pastors.
Your planning tools for worship include your Bible, prayer, hymn and song books, worship song charts, your anthem and orchestration library, your praise band or rhythm section calendar showing who is in town for a given Sunday, your vocal team list and calendar, your soloist list and current rotation, your worship log of recent services and the songs sung, your choir and orchestra worship personnel responses to calendar queries as to which Sundays they will be gone, responses to that week’s worship team e-mail, information about your Pastor’s sermon series and special ministry emphases, online music resources, your available tech team members list, and information about any special additions to the service such as baptisms or a baby dedication.
You can rattle off a list of every piece of equipment in your sound and tech booth and who runs each one. You also know the quirks of each of your worship related computer programs.
You are called as a Pastor to those who lead in worship and often know the true testimony behind every message in song that is shared. In this area of your ministry, you are often amazed by the strength and faith of God’s people, undergirded by the everlasting arms of the Faithful One, our Refuge, Helper, Redeemer and Lord..
Hallway encounters or greetings called out across the parking lot don’t always include a “hello”. Sometimes they are statements or questions like these: “Why can’t we sing “Oceans” every week?” or “More southern gospel!” or “Why don’t you let _____ sing a solo more often?”
You can spend hours and hours seeking music that is congregationally friendly and will lift up the Lord while engaging the hearts of your people. You can spend weeks preparing for a specific service through prayer, planning, calendar coordination, recording demos for your team, and rehearsing. You can spend months working with your groups to move them a step closer to a point of excellence in leading worship that you feel is their calling (such as challenging them to sing from memory with only a confidence monitor and no music in hand). You can spend years leading your congregation to understand worship and to go deeper in their relationship with and their worship of the Lord. And yet, on any given Sunday, the “delivery” of the worship message through God’s people and the authentic connection with the Lord during worship are dependent primarily on the commitment level, worship mindset, preparation , and passion of the volunteers who make up your worship team, leading a congregation who may or may not be wholly focused on worship during that time.
Thou shalt not age (or appear to age), but thou must be wise beyond thy years in order to balance a multitude of preferences with real ministry to the body of Christ, having the goal of providing the opportunity for true worship that ministers to all and gives them an opportunity to give unto the Lord the praise, honor, thanksgiving, and glory due His name.
With all of the hours that you spend every week living and breathing worship, planning worship, reading articles and blog posts about worship (gotcha!), planning or leading rehearsals to prepare for worship, reading and studying worship scriptures and books about worship, praying about worship, personally spending time in private worship, and preparing detailed order of worship information for your worship team, tech team, and ministry staff… sometimes it’s hard to let go of all of the ministry mentor concerns about what everyone else is doing in their worship leading or tech responsibilities … and just worship.
You can’t imagine doing anything else and are so thankful for the privilege of being entrusted with the task of leading God’s people in worship and working with all of the wonderful worship ministry team members, who have their own gifting and calling to serve. It is a joy for you to encounter both the human and the divine in the process of preparation for worship. During rehearsal, you embrace the human element of needing to practice in order to eliminate error and to interpret the music well, both musically and spiritually. You also embrace the divine as you pray with your people, love them, work together as unto the Lord, and lead them in sharing messages of profound, eternal truth, knowing that the goal is effectiveness and whole-hearted devotion in communication with the Lord and with His people rather than perfection. Even on tough days, you know that you have found God’s purpose for your life and are amazed by the blessing of walking with Him through it all.
So, keep on giving it your all, Worship Pastors and Ministers of Music and Worship.
Your calling is all about worship, and worship is all about giving.
23 Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. 24 Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ. ~ Colossians 3:23 – 24
(To inspire you as you worship, work, love others, serve, and continue to lead God’s people, we have added the “giving verses” of worship to the end of this post. They can also be found as a portion of the text from our blog post entitled, “Worship… It’s all about Giving!”)
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The “Giving Verses” of Worship
When the very living of our lives has become an act of worship, recognizing God’s supremacy and worth in every decision and thought, worship is no longer an action but rather a lifestyle. It’s a 24 / 7 / 365 … every moment of every day … goal of intentionally expressing God’s glory in all that we do, think, and say.** In seeking to live out this lifestyle and this heart commitment to the One who has given us His all, we give the only gift that we can give to our Creator and Savior: the gift of a transformed life that brings Him glory and joy!
1. Giving God THANKSGIVING and PRAISE!
* Psalm 100:4 “Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.”
* Psalm 9:1 & 2 “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart: I will tell of all Thy wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in Thee, I will sing praise to Thy name, O Most High.”
2. Giving God GLORY!
* Psalm 86:12 “With all my heart I will praise you, O Lord my God. I will give glory to your name forever.”
* Psalm 96:6 – 9 “Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts. O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.”
3. Giving God AWE and REVERENCE, acknowledging Him as the Lord and Creator of all.
(In some verses and some translations, “the fear of the Lord”)
* Psalm 111:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!”
* Psalm 86:9 – 12 “All the nations You have made shall come and bow down before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name. For You are great, and You do wondrous things; You alone are God. Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name. I give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with my whole heart; and I will glorify Your name forever.”
4. Giving God BLESSING.
* Psalm 103:22 “Bless the LORD, all you works of His, In all places of His dominion; Bless the LORD, O my soul!”
* Psalm 28:6 & 7 “Blessed be the Lord! for He has heard the voice of my supplications. The Lord is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts; so I am helped and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.”
1. to raise or elevate in rank, position, dignity, etc.
2. to praise highly; glorify; extol
* Psalm 34:3 “Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!”
*NOTE: The word ‘exaltation’ sometimes gets confused with ‘exultation’, for which the definition is “to rejoice greatly, be jubilant or triumphant (or, as in triumph. We rejoice greatly or exult in His triumph.) — same source
6. Giving Him SERVICE!
(giving of our hearts, our time, our gifts, and our lives in serving Him)
* Joshua 24:15 “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Lift up His name!
7. Giving Him WORSHIP!
True worship rises up from the people of God, who are choosing to intentionally express His infinite worth! **
**(see note at end of post)
You have probably noticed by now that there is some overlap in the various types of giving to the Lord. For example, in singing praise to God, we can bless His name. In the worship category of giving, there is overlap with all other types of giving. All of these ways of giving to the Lord are worship (lifestyle worship) when we are giving with the purpose of bringing glory to God and expressing His infinite worth through giving our best to God in every area of our lives.
* Psalm 29:2 “Honor the LORD for the glory of His name. Worship the LORD in the splendor of His holiness.”
* John 4:24 “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
8. We are to SING UNTO HIM!
* Psalm 5:11 “But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread your protection over them, that all who love your name may be filled with joy.”
* Psalm 30:4 “Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy name.”
* Psalm 59:16 & 17 “I will sing of Thy power; yes, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning; for Thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. Unto Thee, O my Strength, will I sing; for God is my defense, and the God of my mercy.”
9. Giving Him TITHES and OFFERINGS!
* Malachi 3:10 “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”
* Exodus 35:29 “The children of Israel brought a voluntary offering to Jehovah, every man and woman whose heart prompted them to bring for all manner of work, which Jehovah, by the hand of Moses, had commanded to be done.”
10. Giving Him HONOR!
* Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”
* Psalm 96:6 – 9 “Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts. O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.”
* Proverbs 3:9 “Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the first and best part of all your income.”
11. Giving Him LOVE!
The words of Jesus Himself in Mark 12:30 “AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.”
* Psalm 31:23 “Love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.”
* Joshua 22:5 “But be very careful to obey all the commands and the instructions that Moses gave to you. Love the LORD your God, walk in all his ways, obey his commands, hold firmly to him, and serve him with all your heart and all your soul.”
* Psalm 116:1 “I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.”
Give Him your heart
12. Giving Him OUR WHOLE HEART AND LIFE!
* Psalm 86:9 – 12 “All the nations You have made shall come and bow down before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name. For You are great, and You do wondrous things; You alone are God. Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name. I give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with my whole heart; and I will glorify Your name forever.”
* Colossians 1:10 “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.”
* Psalm 56:13 “For you have rescued me from death; you have kept my feet from slipping. So now I can walk in your presence, O God, in your life-giving light.”
* Mark 8:35 “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.”
* Romans 12:1 – 2 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
For us, giving these to God (honor, blessing, exaltation, thanksgiving, praise, glory, awe and reverence, love, honor, service, tithes and offerings, songs, and all that we are in life and in our hearts) is our gift of worship and devotion to Him.
Giving is about worship, and worship is all about giving.
“Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts. O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.”‘ Psalm 96:6 – 9
GOD HAS GIVEN HIS ALL… and continues to give in every moment of time.
May we follow His example.
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**Here is a link to John Piper’s devotion where this definition of worship, paraphrased here, can be found: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/bodies-breakfast-and-the-marriage-bed
The wording of the original definition (directly quoted) in the first paragraph of this devotion is as follows:
“Worship” is the term we use to cover all the acts of the heart and mind and body that intentionally express the infinite worth of God. This is what we were created for, as God says in Isaiah 43:7, “Everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory…” That means that we were all created for the purpose of expressing the infinite worth of God’s glory. We were created to worship.”
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This post was written by C. Boyd.
For other posts on worship, view our category called “Worship with Wonder” at https://worshipsounds.wordpress.com/category/worship-with-wonder/
We also have a page entitled “Lifestyle Worship” at this link: http://wwwworshipsounds.wordpress.com/lifestyle-worship
The titles of additional pages related to worship ministry (on topics such as creative worship ideas, worship planning and preparation, and avoiding burnout in ministry) can be found in the header on our home page at the bottom of the scenic photo.
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Do you know Jesus?
The decision to ask Jesus to come into your heart and life as your Lord and Savior is the best decision you could ever make! The one true God is ready to give you forgiveness and eternal life as soon as you understand your need for Him and believe on the name of His only Son, Jesus, for your salvation. Here’s a blog page link to help you find the answers to your questions about Jesus. http://www.worshipsounds.wordpress.com/do-you-know-jesus/
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Worship Sounds Music Blog Blessings of Faith. Songs of Worship, Life of Joy!
sionally throwing in a new song. However, if we have been created in the image of God, He has given us the ability to create. He takes great delight in seeing his children follow in His footsteps, just as we are thrilled when our own children create something, whether it be a priceless work of preschool art, or the performance of an original piece of music.
Creativity is God-given. What we do with it is up to us. We must ask ourselves, “How can I be used to reflect this incredible attribute of God?” We might just be surprised at how creative we can be when we take the time to allow God’s Spirit to direct and empower us. It will be a blessing both to our Heavenly Father and to our churches.
Worship Sounds Music 