Antonio on drums
What a beautiful thing it is to bring in the new year praising and worshiping God. Granted, my eyes were heavy and my feet dragging as I forced myself out of bed to get ready for church, yet as soon as I stood behind the keyboard I realized what an amazing privilege it is to be able to bring in the New Year with my family in Jesus Christ. All over the world this morning Christians dedicated this year to the glory of Jesus. With too little coffee in my system, I found the greatest source of renewed strength that any of us can have, the presence of the Holy Spirit. My son Antonio laid down the beats beautifully on the drums, a young teenage bass player named D.J. stood over my shoulder laying down the groove and a diverse and beautiful group of singers (including my lovely wife) sang their hearts out along side of us. With my daughters dancing in front of me with their banners waving, and Keliah who is 8 interrupting her dance to go lay hands on some people and pray for them, our pastor and his wife engaging whole heartedly in worship and my mother and father-in-law worshiping along side of our amazing fellowship of believers I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect picture of worship to kick off 2012. Then it happened, out of no where, they keyboard cut out. With no guitar player to keep things moving I came face to face with the real importance of what worship is truly about. Too many times we as musicians and worship leaders put too much stock in the things we ‘think’ we are in control of. Whether it’s song choices, tempo, instrumentation or just simply sound coming out of the speakers – we have made the worship experience something it was never truly intended to be. It was in that moment I had a to make a choice that many of us don’t realize we often are faced with every day in life. Do we stop to ponder the mishaps and struggles that are staring us down? Or do we let the beat go on, so to speak? I must admit that more often than not, when tribulations come against me I find it easy to get caught up in what’s going wrong and try to fix it. This morning however, God reminded me what most of are truly missing in life and in worship. As Worship leaders it’s easy to think that if we get off track somehow then we are ruining the ‘experience’ for other people. We couldn’t be more wrong. The hallmark of any true leader is to realize that it’s our responsibility to EMPOWER others to lead. When I lead worship, I no longer think of it as my responsibility to ‘create an atmosphere for other to engage’ but rather ‘Give them PERMISSION’ to worship the way God created them to.
The saying “Learn to let go and let God” is often used, but do we truly understand the full extent of what that means? From the very beginning of time God was not looking for a singular person to say Yes to Him, but has been looking for a People, a collective Bride to stand in unity and say “Lord we Trust in You together!” This was the passionate prayer of Christ His last night on Earth in John 17, and He who was raised from the dead to stand in intercession is still praying this same prayer today. This morning as the keyboard cut out, I chose to Let Go and Let God, and watched as He moved through the collective body of leaders who were worshiping Him. It was overwhelming to watch as people were still dancing, singing, my son continued pounding on the drums, the dancers continued waving their banners and the sound man Kyle went into action taking care of the problem. I stood worshiping even more intensely than before understanding what it really means to be confident in the Lord, confident in who Christ is within each and everyone of us and knowing that when problems arise in life, we must choose to continue keeping our gaze fixed solely on Jesus Christ and trusting in His leadership, knowing that we are part of a royal family of priesthood believers will stand with us in eternity. So the next time you are faced with unexpected difficulties, just let the “beat go on’, knowing it is the heartbeat of God moving in and around your life. Ultimately, this is what being a worship leader is all about.
It was an awesome morning – and a fabulous moment of worship. When we are truly in His presence, the rest falls away. Shadows mean so little in the Light of His Glory!