Confessions of a Worship Leader

As a worship leader, I’m not always comfortable on stage. I’ve struggled with this my whole life. Unlike my extroverted husband, I don’t like being the life of the party, the one everyone’s looking at. I dread the thought of people analyzing whether my skirt matches my tights as I lead them in the worship of our Savior.

To be fair, I’m sure most people aren’t judging my hosiery. I fabricate most of these perceptions. And awhile ago I realized I’ve got more important concerns during a service, so I prayed that God would take my insecurities that I might focus on the fierce power of worshiping Christ as his church.

I know God has gifted and equipped me for this ministry, but that doesn’t always mean it comes easily—or naturally. I make many clumsy mistakes as I grow into these gifts that, like ill-fitting attire, often feel cumbersome and awkward on my frame.

I used to long for a behind-the-scenes ministry, to serve where nobody but God would notice. In my purest moments I wanted to be rewarded by God alone, like Jesus talks about in Matthew 6. Surely this would make my life easier, my ministry “holier,” I believed.

Sure, it’s healthy for me to serve in other ways that don’t involve me being on stage. But had I mistakenly created a hierarchy for gifts? Did I believe that behind-the-scenes service was somehow better than what God had made me for?

I’ve been learning that a true worship leader recognizes their role of humble servant above everything else. What is more humbling than leading the church in the adoration of Christ? Our hearts should quicken at the very idea.

This is not a position of flashy power. Worship leading is rarely glamorous, and most of our ministry doesn’t even happen on stage. The hour-long service on Sunday morning is informed by many hours of prayer, fasting, choosing songs, administration, and ministering to our team. These behind-the-scenes moments of openness to the Holy Spirit are often what matter most when we open our mouths to praise Jesus.

A life of transparency and service is the greatest gift we can give our congregations in worship. Worship leaders need to be present and authentic, and, at the same time, our greatest desire is to disappear that Christ might be the center of our praise. I found that this paradox is the beauty of our calling and the reason we are free to love, serve, and praise Jesus—even in the midst of our insecurities.

Gospel in the Dirt

One day, my sixth-grade science teacher announced we were about to begin a secret experiment. She immediately got our attention.

The clandestine study was an analysis of house dust. We would get to scrutinize the stuff under microscopes and find out what it contained. Stealthily, we collected dust samples from various locations in our households; the strict secrecy was necessitated by the rumor that our mothers would shut us down if they got word of this public exhibition of dust bunnies. Dust was meant to be kept in the dark, its embarrassing existence denied in the interest of maintaining the fiction that every kid had a spotless, happy home.

Like the mothers of my sixth-grade class, I’m invested in what the world thinks of me. Before company comes, I race around wiping down surfaces and committing telltale dust bunnies to the garbage can. When we’re trying to convince the world that we’re clean, it’s not only our homes that are on display. With family and friends, at work, and, for many of us, especially at church, we strive to show others a pristine life, a life that is whole.

With the imposition of ashes, the secrets of dust are dragged into public light. Ash Wednesday forbids our cheerful fictions. It’s an uncomfortable thing, after all, for us upstanding folk, normally neatly groomed, to walk out of the church and into the sunlight with dirt smudged on our brows. For many churchgoers, Ash Wednesday is one of the only things about our faith that makes public demands on us. We can leave our singing, our prayers, our table fellowship and our tithing behind in the house of God. But the ashes that begin the Lenten season are brought outside. Those ashes beg odd looks and, perhaps, awkward explanations.

The dust on our brows tells the truth about human existence. It’s an allusion, painted in dirt, to the creation of human beings recounted in Genesis 2 and to the realities of sinful life first described in Genesis 3.

This dust testifies to the fact that human creatures are God’s creatures. We are not our own, but are dependent on our good creator. It forbids us to tell any number of popular lies: the lie that we invent ourselves, the lie that we aren’t full of need, the lie that our flesh doesn’t matter. Dust is a physical reminder that we are clay in God’s hands.

This dust testifies to the fact that human creatures are broken creatures. Our lives, in truth, are not whole. They’re scarred and twisted by sin. Our dusty heads forbid more popular lies: the lie that we are righteous, the lie that we’ve got life under control, the lie that repentance is something for other people. Dust is a visceral reminder of brokenness, corruption and decay.

The ashes are a kind of gospel in the dirt. Not only do they mark the truth about sin and God’s call for us to repent, but, in doing so, they are a public witness to the healing and forgiveness that God pours over our repentant selves. “All flesh,” 1 Peter quotes from Isaiah, “is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” (1 Peter 1:24-25) The epistle links Isaiah’s truth about dust to the good news of Christ; “you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23) The reminder that death will reduce all flesh to dust stands in contrast to the promise that flesh and dust belong to God.

The word of the Lord, that same word that remains forever, was made flesh. The eternal word dwelt with us dusty people and never hid the truth about our dependence and brokenness. That living word testified in his flesh to the truth we try to hide beneath polished surfaces. In beginning Lent, we march towards the cross where that testimony was made most painfully and plainly. Pain and sin are real and terrible, but God is creator of and Lord over dust and responds to the truth of our brokenness with the wider truth of Christ’s mercy.

Dust is a public testimony to who we really are. It strips away our facades. When we leave the church and run into friends and neighbors, they find it hard to look away from the dust on our faces. The problem, though, is that most friends and neighbors don’t know the biblical referents the dust contains and so can’t see the witness to our true human condition that is written on our faces.

So we’ll have to do something to translate.

We’ll have to speak the truth of that dust, not only in the marks on our foreheads, but with our words and our bodies. Perhaps our dirty faces can be a little means of grace. Perhaps they can be a nudge from God, the push we need to live out the truth of repentance in our everyday lives. Perhaps they can prompt in us the courage to go public with the truth that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

Heading to Synergy!

When I thought I’d miss the upcoming Synergy Conference in Orlando, I was bummed. Yes, a teeny bit of it had to do with my longing for warmth and Florida sunshine in the long, dark Chicago winters, but really, the conference could be held in the North Pole, and I’d be thrilled to go.

That it’s in Orlando in March is really just icing on the cake. But the “cake” is what’s really yummy. In the years I’ve attended Synergy, I’ve met great friends, made good ministry contracts, and learned so much from the wonderful women and men who speak and attend. It’s the sort of place you go and just know God is present—and at work in the hearts, minds, souls and bodies of his people.

Honestly, each year I’ve gone has been stellar, but this year’s theme—“Conflict in the Story”—and speaker line-up has me pretty over the moon. Look at this lineup:

• Scot McKnight, author of Jesus Creed and Blue Parakeet (one of my favorite recent books)

• Michelle R. Loyd-Paige, president of PreachSista! Inc and dean of multi-cultural affairs at Calvin College (my alma mater)

• Susan Isaacs, comedian and author of Angry Conversations with God

And those are just the plenaries. In many ways, the interactive workshop sessions are the heart of the conference. This years’ workshops will deal with questions such as:

• How do I best exercise my gifts in the local church?
• Should I pursue higher education?
• Navigating through unexpected leadership trials?
• How to spread the “ezer” message to teens and young women?
• Understanding women “behind bars" and "behind the veil"?
• How do I live in uncertainty and find my place in the bigger story?
• Insights that foster healing for domestic abuse, eating disorders, and other areas of pain that are part of ministering to women?
• What are the nuts-and- bolts of strategic planning and contextual ministry analysis?

I know budgets are tight for all of us this year, but if you can make it, do. Synergy really is a “shound not miss” conference for women in ministry. I hope to get to meet many of you there. For more information, visit www.SynergyToday.org.

No Questions Asked

You would have thought he was in kindergarten: (Hand waving frantically) “Me! Me! Send me!”

Who was this eager emissary? The prophet Isaiah. His story is told in Isaiah 6.

He had just seen the glory of the Lord, fallen on his face bemoaning his unclean lips—and had those same lips seared by an angel with a hot coal! So when God (Father, Son and Spirit) remarked, “Who will go for us? Whom shall we send?” Isaiah was the first to volunteer.

I might not have been so quick to respond. I’m sure I would have had a few questions:

Go where?

When?

For how long?

With whom? Will I like my teammates?

Pay rate? Benefits?

Will it affect my lifestyle?

Will the job fit my strengths? My EQ?

Will it be fun?

Will I be successful?

Reasonable questions, surely. But not needful to Isaiah. Just, “Here I am. Send me. Wherever, whenever, to do whatever, with whomever.”

Sure, he and God discussed the details—and his assignment was no easy task —but the questions and answers came only after Isaiah had signed on the dotted line.

God’s will in anything—a job or ministry, a relationship, a location—can be challenging, and we never know where it will take us. But God asks each one of us to say, “Here I am. Send me.” Then He will fill in the details and slowly unfold the amazing opportunities He has planned for us.

For more on what God's will is for you, join Judy at the Synergy Conference in Orlando, Fla., March 5-7.