We’ve been looking at this section of Scripture:

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13, NIV)

I was musing last time about why is it we expect pastors to do so much more than the Lord has called them (us) to.

Today, I pose this question: Why is it (us) worship guys commute ourselves from these verses?

There are three possible answers (there could be many more but most of them boil down to these):

  1. Pressure from our “job”. After all, we were hired to lead the worship. We were hired with the intention that we would be our local church’s “David”.
  2. Pressure from ourselves. Since we are hired to do this, is it right to train others to do it? Is it a form of laziness to “try to get out of it”?
  3. Pride. Here’s an ugly one but if we’re honest, we worship guys struggle with this as much (if not more!) than other pastors. It takes a great deal of humility to start pushing other people up to “your position”. What if they actually get better at than you?

My point: the Lord did NOT excuse ANY Christian leader from these verses. I once had a church administration professor in seminary who said, “If you really believe God’s Word is His Word, and we must obey it: you better get out there and equip the saints so well that they no longer need you!” Amen!

I’m blessed to be at a church who embraces this concept of equipping the saints for ministry. I’ve been blessed with tremendous freedom to allow others to actually take the “lead position” in worship leading. Yes, I’m still on the platform. Yes, at this point, I’m still doing the worship planning. I’m playing piano in the worship band and lead some songs BUT to the best of my ability and the best of theirs we are able to allow the worship team’s giftedness to blossom.

I don’t write this to say “look at me!” instead I write to say, “give it a shot”. You might really be surprised how much worship leading talent is just waiting to be equipped. You might really be surprised what a wonderful blessing it is when your “students” get to the point when they are better than you!

Blessings on the journey.