In Genesis 4, we read
about Cain and Abel’s offering of worship to God. Cain gave God the left-overs,
giving God nothing more than his mediocrity. Abel on the other hand, gave God
his best in the first fruits of his labor. This made Cain jealous.
When people say that worship
music is not about performance, they are probably trying to guard against
pride. I couldn’t agree more. One of the greatest dangers I see with
culturally-relevant churches is that they risk losing humility. Humility is
having the boldness to stare your weaknesses in the eye without flinching. You
show me a church that is culturally relevant without humility and I’ll show you
a bunch of hipsters, posing in their skinny jeans, drinking their lattes, sporting
piercings and tattoos to lure you into a conformity that they have mistaken for
coolness.
But does humility require
the church’s virtuosos to hide their light under a lamp? Can a church be humble
without lowering the bar to a mediocrity of skill and creativity? What if your
church’s worship team has a singer with the lungs of Steve Perry or a guitarist
with the skills of Lincoln Brewster? Should that church tell them to leave the
high note descants and shred solos at home? Should we tell our most skilled
worship team members that God doesn’t want their greatest skills used within
the church? Should they be forced to only use such skill in secular contexts because
we can’t possibly imagine them being used in humility? Why do we find that the
Old Testament temple worship model incorporated a system of teachers and
apprentices if skill is to be so restrained? And what about Psalm 33:3?
Now please understand, if
you only have the skill of the average hobbyist, this is not an indictment. Attitude
determines altitude. The real issue is not your skill but your heart. Are you
willing to give God all that you have, whether that is a lot or a little? Are
you motivated to do it better tomorrow than today because you are not doing it
for yourself but doing it for the King of glory? If you can answer yes, then
that is the attitude of a humble, perpetual learner. That passion is what God
wants and it is what I celebrate as a worship leader when I see it in any
worship team member, from the beginner to the most experienced and advanced.
In the movie “Chariots of
Fire”, Eric Liddell is both an Olympic runner and a missionary. He is
admonished by his family for putting so much time into his training at the
expense of his missionary work. He tells his family that yes God has called him
to be a missionary but God has also made him fast and when he runs he feels
God’s pleasure.
Is it not possible for a
Celine Dion, Mike Portnoy or Phil Keaggy to be on our praise teams, itching not
to impress people but just to give God the fruits of all of their practice time
and dedication as an act of worship? Within the context of a tasteful fit for a
song’s style, while preserving congregational singability, couldn’t moderate bursts
of such skill be a witness to the people within our congregations? What could
such displays, within the context of humility say about God and our worship to
Him?
If we can’t imagine such
a thing happening without pride, could it be possible that WE have the problem
instead of the virtuoso? Did God admonish Abel for his gift because it risked
being mistaken by Cain as ‘showing off’?
Light is best appreciated
when contrasted with darkness. Humility is best demonstrated when contrasted with
skill. Whose humility is the louder witness, the humility of a musician with
the skills of a beginner or that of the virtuoso? Isn’t the power of Christ’s
humility found in that He is the rightful King who gave His life? Or would this
humility have been better displayed if He were just an ordinary man who died?
“To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist”. - Cardinal Suhard
What if people within our congregations were presented with a mystery? What if that mystery were of a church that is known for presenting worship with excellence and skill not to solicit praise from men but to give praise to someone otherwise invisible, but made real by their humility?
