Confidence in God’s calling

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Before worship service, about two years ago, our very talented and gifted worship pastor shared with me that he was stepping down. I was devastated at that moment! We are a small church operating on a limited budget and I considered ourselves blessed beyond reason to enjoy a worship leader of his caliber. As soon as he shared the news with our church community I immediately asked the congregation to pray that God would hand pick someone and lead them to our church. I for one, prayed hard and often knowing the importance of music in worship and also knowing that worship leaders are far and few between. I know that others joined with me and prayed passionately before God. In a few weeks God answered those prayers and sent us Jimmy, founder and director of All Praise Ministries, a seasoned worship leader who’s talent helped churches grow to mega church status. Once again God blessed us beyond our means and budget restraints. I shared with him my vision and heart to be a contemporary, progressive and diversified presence in our community. We agreed that if we were going to change our culture around us that we were going to have to make decisions to get our culture’s attention. The staff and leaders agreed that we needed to change our presentation, our stage, lighting, sound, message topics and style of delivery. I will admit that many of these changes took me out of my comfort zone but I was convinced change was necessary. I have been accused of targeting the younger generation. Even though I am always concerned about the future of the church, we are not targeting a certain age group but an undecided group. A group that has not yet decided to make Christ their Lord. Many times it appears that the younger generation is being catered to, but I have found that many in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and even order are being drawn to this style of worship which ultimately leads them to discover Jesus. When I look over our church community I see that many who attend are already Christians, but have children and grandchildren that are not. I don’t know about you but I would do about anything, in reason, to have my children or to see your children have a closer walk with God. In regards to music, which seems always to be a hot topic, Jimmy has taken us to the place that I laid out in the vision the first time we met. We didn’t talk about style or volume but he moved according to my vision to do whatever it would take to capture the interest of the non committed. Jimmy has a pulse on the style of music that is changing our culture around us and has moved accordingly. To be honest, as the concerns about style and volume of music escalated, being a person of grace, I tried to make everyone happy. God did not bless me with musical ability. I have never played an instrument, I can’t read music, I do not know how to turn on or operate the sound board, I didn’t even know there was an instrument called a decibel meter, but I quickly tried to become an expert in all these areas to get control of the situation. That is where I failed. Instead of being a leader I became a dictator trying to control the music. I had forgotten that I prayed that God would send a worship leader. I had forgotten that God had hand picked Jimmy for our church. I failed him by not putting trust in his talents and experience. And my greatest mistake is that I have become so distracted by the music that I have not been able to focus on the word and prayer. That’s exactly what the enemy wants. God has called me to preach and lay out His vision. I feel that he has gifted me with an ability to do that effectively. On the other hand, God has called Jimmy to lead the worship and I am confident that God has blessed him with that ability to be successful. Jimmy spends many hours in prayer seeking guidance for song choice and spends much time mentoring and challenging the worship team to display holiness in their daily walk and encourages them to be passionate about worship. While reading the Psalms, I started noticing that David was writing a lot to his director of music. Maybe music was a big debate even back then. Psalm 20 spoke to me as I read, “May the Lord answer you when you are in distress, may the name of of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary…” I pray that God sends help from the sanctuary to support Jimmy and his ministry. To prepare meals for the worship team and their families, to offer to pray for them before practice, to pray for Jimmy as He seeks God’s leading in this ministry. Let us together put trust in the one who has been called by God to lead us in this area. The enemy want us to keep distracted and so that we will miss the working of God. He didn’t want us to notice that two young ladies made decisions for Jesus, he didn’t want us to see all the returning visitors, he didn’t want us to enjoy the largest Easter attendance in eight years at our church. When it comes to conversations about music, Jimmy is the expert and I encourage you to prayerfully go to him if you have any questions. You will discover that he is a man of God with a wealth of knowledge about true worship.

Staying True to God’s Calling,

Pastor Dave

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