God’s Grace: is there a limit?

Wednesday night I found myself getting sick for the first time all year. I had knocked on wood a few times hoping to escape the turmoil of a lingering cold. No such luck. For the next couple of days I was fine, then Saturday hit and my voice was gone. It was as if my voice went from Prince to Worf in about 2.1 nanoseconds. I thought the new depth of my voice was sexy, my wife just kept reminding me that I was sick. She was right. I had a nice chest cough, swollen throat, pounding headache, insane nasal pressure and Sunday morning staring me in the face. I quickly jumped on to our church’s website (www.tfhofvancouver.com) and submitted a prayer request that I knew would simultaneously go to multiple people to pray.

Sunday morning came and with it came a fever. I was hurting. But there was a job to do and I wasn’t going to let my sickness rob the church of an opportunity for corporate worship. So I plugged away, tea in hand. All practice my voice was cracking as if the horror of puberty was repeating itself. I was thinking “I don’t know how I’m gonna make it two services…” But the grace of God was so very evident. As soon as I walked on stage, my stomach settled, my head stopped pounding, I could think clearly, I could remember the words (LOL) and people worshipped. The funny thing was that as soon as I got off the stage all of my symptoms returned. It was an even greater disparity during the second service. Greater symptoms lead to greater grace.

2 Timothy 2:1 1Timothy, my dear son, be strong through the grace that God gives you in Christ Jesus.

Have you ever experienced anything like this? I’d love to hear about it.

Practical Steps

Here are some practical steps that will help you with your song list.

1. Key
a. Is it in a key that people can sing?
b. Can we do multiple songs in the same key so that we can keep a good flow of music?

2. Theme
a. Prepare your list like a sermon. Have a consistent thought.
b. Is your theme connected to the sermon or sermon series?

3. Tempo
a. It’s easy to become schizophrenic in our song selection when dealing with tempo.
b. My high recommendation is to group songs together within the set that help you establish a mood and a flow.

4. Theology
a. Are all of your songs in agreement?
b. I’ve heard worship leaders sing one song that says, “hold on” but the next song says, “let go”. Which is it?

5. Modern vs. Classic
a. As much as I love leading the latest worship song, we must always value songs that last the test of time.
b. There will always be someone in your church who will be overwhelmingly grateful that you pulled out an “oldie but a goodie”.
c. Put your twist on the classics. Don’t be afraid to mix it up a bit. It’s like a foreign language, people are just happy that you’ve tried.

Gospel Virgins

This past weekend I was away at camp with some of our students. We had a great time in the Lord that stretched us, humbled us and renewed us. We got to experience and east coast style of ministry that was different from what we are used to and I think that was good for us. At first it was very difficult for my students to get involved. One of my 8th grade boys said, “Pastor Nathan, who do I sing with? Do I sing with the first guy or with the choir?” It was precious. I guess that’s what happens to young gospel virgins. Who do you sing with? It was funny and sad at the same time. I felt bad for the kid. However, I came away from that experience with two things I want to share with you today.

1. Worship God……regardless
I am so glad that we don’t worship God because of great music or familiar music. We worship God because of who He is and He is aaaaamazing. After the final service I told my students that if a change in music style is a big enough circumstance to hinder our worship, we have a lot of growing up to do. Part of spiritual maturity is the ability to worship God regardless of the circumstance we find ourselves in.

2. The Body is beautiful
If the whole body were an eye, where would it’s sense of smell be? If the whole body were rock n’ roll, where would hip-hop be? If the whole body were Gospel music, where would folk music be? God is so creative. What a shame it would be if we limited our expressions of praises to a preferred style. One of the things that makes the body beautiful is that it IS made of different parts. We come from different regions, different backgrounds, different viewpoints, different governments and different diets and yet the same God created us all. The same Spirit of God dwells in us all and when we come together in unity there is a beautiful tapestry that makes up the Body of Christ.