William Chong

As a fledgling worship leader, two blogs which I read often are Bob Kauflin’s “Worship Matters“, and Jamie Brown’s “Worthily Magnify“. It’s filled with practical and spiritual counsel on how to develop more effective and God-honouring worship leading, and it comes from leaders with many years of experience.

Brown’s recent post caught my attention this morning: it was on how a worship leader could decrease his presence. He gives immensely practical tips on how worship leaders can draw less attention to themselves. An excerpt:

I’ve heard it said that the role of a worship leader is similar to that of an usher at a wedding. An usher at a wedding is prepared, kind, there to serve, shows people how to get where they need to go from where they are, and does everything he can to make the wedding go smoothly. If the usher does a good job, no one leaves the wedding talking about the usher.

If a worship leader does a good job, no one leaves the service talking about the worship leader. That’s a sign that the worship leader’s prayer was answered – that “He must increase, but I must decrease”.

Friends who knew me before I was saved will remember and affirm that I had an extremely gifted opinion (e.g.o.) of myself. My life’s ambitions and goals were ways in which I could promote myself and my fame, whether it was aiming to be a world-famous composer, or a wildly successful singer-songwriter, or just to be well-known and well-liked by everyone around me.

Even stepping up on stage on Sundays is a daunting thing: my old man wants to glorify myself and take in all the adulation and praise, whereas it should all rightfully belong to God. So that’s why John 3:30 is reverberating wildly in my head and is a great verse for any ministry teamster in a public role. I’m grateful that God’s working on me still.

Check out the full post; it’s definitely a worthwhile read.

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John [the Baptist] answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:27-30)

If you like listening to sermon recordings on your iPod/car stereo but invariably find yourself drowsy after the first few minutes, then this might be for you….

Mixing together slick and polished hip-hop, techno and ambient sounds to some of the top pastors in the Reformed tradition, 10:31 Sermon Jams (myspace; website) is the brainchild of Minnesota, US Christian artists Bryan Guenther and Caleb Hoisington. In their own words:

This ministry is based on 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Our main focus is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and to make His name famous. Our goal is to take biblically saturated sermons and turn them into mini clips for edification for the household of faith and tracts to unbelievers.

I think the massively bass-thumpy “War” one (John Piper) is the most hilarious, yet surprisingly engaging to listen to. That synth ostinato on the top really gets the tension going…

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In other news, practised at my first worship band practice recently, and had to focus a bit to get to grips with the various songs. The team I’m in for Sunday is reasonably polished and it’s a special Boys Brigade service at HBC, which means playing a very march-like hymn on the violin!

Website:�http://www.howickbaptist.org.nz/;�Ph: (09)534-5142; Cnr Piction St & Wellington St, Howick, Auckland; Senior Pastor: Peter Somervell;�Sermon topic:�”Leading with Love” (1 Cor 4:14-21), from Adventures in 1 Corinthians series. Communion service, 11.5.08.

Rating:�AA
(A=return worshipper,�AA=excellent and growing,�AAA=must be my home church lol)

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You’ll like this church if you: appreciate/can handle expositional preaching, have family service requirements, prefer an exegetical approach to doctrine/Bible reading, enjoy mix of traditional and modern hymns.

You won’t like this church if you: need to worship and pray with professional musical backing, prefer wholly-topical insights to sermons, are seeking a Spirit-led experience.

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As part of our church jaunt/visiting tour/period, we (Cheryl, Kim and I) decided to attend a local (defined as in the area, not as the Lord’s recovery) service at Howick Baptist Church.�After returning a camping pillow�in the carpark to a friend I knew, we were given warm welcomes from greeters at the door. Being Mother’s Day, there were hand-made bookmarks being given out at the door to any woman that looked old enough to be a mother. We sat in the middle of the wooden pews, and noted large banners declaring God as creator of all things (Rev 4:11) – definitely not a church shy about who they are (I say this in light of the various churches and groups that remove the term “Church” or “Christian” from their names).�

Worship:�I appreciated the thought that the worship leader (Calvyn Jonker, assistant pastor) had for mothers as per the occasion, as well as his earnestness to pray for and encourage the 200-odd congregation. The careful thought put into song choice also bears mentioning, with a mix of modern songs like “How Great is Our God” thrown together with faithful hymns like “Blessed Redeemer”. Largely negating the “worship wars” that’s fractured a great many congregations and caused some tension at the very least, it’s reassuring to know that you can focus on worshipping God with a broad spectrum of respectful lyrics and music (HBC gets it in that order, which is another plus). Adding in Scripture-reading and a solemn, almost guarded Communion service, it was a very respectful experience.

Speaker: While chatting with a lady named Kathy after the service, she told us that one of the strong points of HBC was its preaching – strongly grounded in the Bible. Like other expositional preachers (going through a book of the Bible verse by verse), senior pastor Peter Somervell methodically moves through the Bible (in this case, the 1st letter to the Corinthian church) with clinical exegesis and thoughtful insights at each verse (adding a few useful Greek definitions to augment). Rather than a dry seminary-style overview, Somervell is astute in tying each verse to a key word, and insightful in applying each to the congregation. In this case, chapters 4 verses 14 to 21 came under the points of Admonishing, Mentoring, Modelling, Teaching and Correction/Discipline. Plenty of notes to take and reference to other Bible passages, and his theme of spiritual leadership was explained to include elders, pastors, parents and older Christians. Particularly encouraging was his statement that “love for Jesus Christ should be the driving motivator for all of his points.” Definitely strong and (more importantly) relevant Bible-based teaching.

Church history: There’s not much of an overview on their website, but a friend shared that Somervell has been particularly good for the church, having moved up from Wanganui East Baptist Church after�HBC had�a tumultuous period without a fulltime pastor. HBC is part of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand, a collection of like-minded congregations that share some pastoral and NZ-wide resources and cooperate on outreach and ministry training efforts (more information on the Baptist movement in general can be found here.) – it’s notable though that the church also has strong links with the Reformed tradition, evidenced by their theological perspective as well as participation and cooperation with other Reformed churches in Auckland.

Other faculties: There’s a definite sense of close community at HBC, with groups and services catering for all ages (birth-college age), family news, giving and going opportunites all listed in the church flyer. Strong involvement/association with the Baptist Union of New Zealand, as well as Creation Ministries International.

Visitor treatment: A discreet card can be found in the back of each pew, where you can fill out details and drop it into the offering bags. Chatted with one lady, and three people which we knew (2 fellow visitors), all amiable and very friendly discussions.

Conclusion: A very God-focused, Biblically sound church with evident spiritual growth and maturity.

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(Disclosures: 1 friend is an existing worshipper. EDIT 25/7/08: Howick Baptist Church is currently our home church.)
Next week: Elim Christian Centre (East), Evangelical Formosan Church of NZ.

(This review may not be representative of all of the church�s ministries, or their overall teaching. Opinions expressed in this review are that of the author, and may not wholly reflect all aspects of the church or its national body: nevertheless, comments have been humbly made in both truth and love as much as possible. Please contact the church for more detailed enquiries about their services.)

This article briefly works through the debate in�Christian churches on their stance on music during services. However it also highlights a long-running question which I’ll try and allude to more often in the future, once I’ve successfully formulated clearer thoughts about it.

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If you sampled 5 different churches today, sometimes the differences in�their songs and musical styles during the service are more apparent than differences in theology and teaching.

One church may employ a full rock band and professional singers to lead the singing, choosing “praise” songs written to express in the simplest of terms how much they love the Lord.

Another congregation may sing with the help of just a choir group, or a guitar. Some may prefer singing through a set hymnal with multiple verses. Some congregations include songs that don’t even reference God. And then some�split their morning and evening services, with hymns in the morning and CCM in the evening (perhaps they couldn’t decide.)

Is this a recent phenomenon? No. For a time, hymns by Isaac Watts were the source of church divisions among 19th century worshippers. Four-part hymns were a big issue when first introduced – some even objecting to having musical notation written out! Music is but one of many things that the body of Christ seems to enjoy dividing itself over.

Let’s look at�one of the extremes in today’s musical spectrum. One view deems any form of musical accompaniment to a cappella singing to be inappropriate. By selectively quoting Romans 14:23, which says:��

“But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.”

… this writer’s logic is that anything not expressly condemned by the Bible shouldn’t be done anyways. By this same logic, the internet forum the article was presented on should technically be taboo too, not�to�mention the millions of new�things not available�2000 years prior�-�I’d question the wisdom of a blanket ban of�everything without explicit written Biblical approval.

It’s also useful to note�the context -�chapter 14 was written to Romans who were concerned about which meats were clean and unclean. In 1 Timothy 4:3-5, it’s pretty clear that “every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused.” I concede that Romans is most complex and requires lots of think-thinking to delve through – but to conclude that anything in this world today not mentioned in the Bible is pretty much a legalistic, pseudo-Amish view of the Bible.

We could conceivably apply this to the debate on, say, “clean and unclean” types of music in the church setting. The question is not whether the Bible explicitly approves of music or not. David accompanied his psalms with a harp – would you then say that only harps should be used to praise God?

Here is the opposite end of the music worship spectrum – CCM. Applying rock and pop styles of today to praise Jesus Christ is immensely popular among young Christians, and a big pulling factor for many services. It makes it “relevant” to people today, and some of the praise songs speak right into your heart, as if they were directly inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Yet some people will choose to leave a church because they find they “just can’t worship there” – not very far off from, they “just don’t like the music there.” Some will even equate this good endorphins to good worship. I wonder if this is the right attitude to church.

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There are more important considerations in church besides music. Our attitude should be to exalt God in whatever capacity we are able to. When we choose an exclusive, non-negotiable musical preference in worshipping God, we are selfishly saying, “My musical tastes are more important than my taste for God.”

You can sing 5 verses of theologically-rich “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and not even understand the words, or care to. You can scream out “Hosannah in the highest” and not mean it.

Our worship,�will always be imperfect and a miniscule offering that’s dwarfed by the enormity of His sacrifice for us. But at the very least, our main focus is on God. I love this quote from John Fischer, who says:

“It�s our life, not a worship service, that will make us worshipers. We don�t go to church to worship; we go to church because we are already worshipers. And if someone is a true worshiper, which means their whole life is an act of worship, then what happens for 30 minutes of music once a week is a small thing indeed.”

It’s all about perspective, it seems.

Worship shouldn’t be just about the music. It should be an attitude-change – a commitment of emotion, intellect and will.