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Hey Gang,

Joel Klampert (visionary behind the Forge Conference) and myself (visionary behind the Refuge retreat) teamed up through the wonders of Skype to interview each other about our events.

Enjoy the details – but best of all – you can WIN a registration.  Just comment on this post, or Joel’s post (or both!) and let us know which event you’d like to attend.  (Free registration prize does not include travel or lodging).

A Joint Conference Interview from Joel Klampert on Vimeo.

Criticism and Judgment.  If you can’t take it, you’d best not get involved in worship ministry.

Let’s face it.  The musical aspect of a corporate worship service is filled with the potential for criticism:

* song selection
* style
* instrumentation and arrangement
* volume
* technology used to support (sound, lighting, visuals)

Rarely does a week go by where I’m not blessed by people who share with me how have been inspired by music and ministry.  At the same time, I’m used to getting complaints, suggestions, and criticisms.

Today was a great example.  When I walked into my office I had two pieces of mail (yeah, the real stuff in an envelope with a stamp on it) on my desk.

One envelope included a thank-you card and a sweet note about this person’s experience being so wonderful in our worship service this Sunday.

The other envelope contained a letter from a visitor filled with harsh criticism … but worse, judgment.  It was filled with harsh lines about how “I” attempted to manipulate God, etc.  If the Bible is true (and we know it is), this person has a heap of judgment “pressed down, shaken together, and running over” coming their way, as a result of what they sowed into my heart today.

So how do we handle it?

Criticism: ask yourselves a few questions:

1.  Is there anything constructive that I can learn from the information?
2.  Does this person seem to have a loving, sincere approach?
3.  Is there a relationship present, and does this person have a good understanding of our overall mission, as opposed to a 1-visit snapshot?

Judgment: there is really no place for it.  It stings.  It hurts.  To have someone accuse you of things that are very far away from your heart or motives … things that are actually offensive to your heart and motives … it just is hard to swallow.

I like to spread those out before the Lord and simply ask Him to help me know my heart, my motives, and most importantly, to know HIS heart.  I pray for the person who is clearly reacting out of some other wound or frustration, and pray that I will not allow it to take root in my soul.

There will always be critics.  Some more loving and gentle than others.  Some with information we need to hear and process.  Some who abuse any right they have to comment.

Taking offense is not an option.  It will only drag you down.

How do you process complaints or criticism?  Do you keep them to yourself or share them with your team?

Because we have multiple services at SSCC, margin isn’t something we seem to find.  Despite our many efforts, we typically end up with a worship service that is around 1:15 and is FILLED with outflow.

Songs.
Announcements.
Sermons.

That’s not such a bad thing.  After all, we gather corporately so that we can express ourselves in worship to God (typically, through songs) and be taught and built up (sermons).  Since the body is gathered, it makes sense to do some communication to inform people about what’s going on.  (announcements).

So, let’s think about that.  If you have 5 songs averaging 5 minutes each, that’s 25 minutes.  If you have a sermon averaging 35-40 minutes, now we’re up to 60-65 minutes.  Add in announcements and any kind of transition, you’ve hit your time expiration and there’s no margin.

Now before the zealots start flaming us about the clock, you have to understand — if we don’t try to wrap things up in 1:15 max, we have a logistical nightmare in the parking lots.

This Sunday was one of those rare Sundays where we had “margin”.  Our Discipleship Pastor was preaching and he came to be Sunday AM and said that his sermon would be shorter than he anticipated.  SHORTER?  Are you KIDDING ME?  He even suggested that we have some last-minute planning to allow for more worship at the end of the message.  I was totally cool with that.

The beautiful thing about margin?  You aren’t forced to use it (though we usually do) and you can choose where it comes from.

When I have margin and I know I’m entrusted to steward it, I become a different leader.
It’s not about getting through the setlist on time.
It’s not about avoiding the discussion about going over time.

This past Sunday, as I led through the song we’d selected to happen between the Announcement Break and the Sermon, that margin became invaluable.

We’d just concluded singing a beautiful worship ballad, “Waiting Here For You” from the Passion 2011 album.  Even though it was a brand new tune for our church, I could discern that the people had genuinely engaged in worship.  As the song came to a close, I couldn’t bring myself to just say a snap prayer and move on.  I knew the Holy Spirit was telling me to “wait”.

So I waited.
I prayed.
I played a light, consistent progression slowly.

I took my time.  I asked the congregation to wait.  To pray.  We seldom stop and make time for this.  It wasn’t just a dude on the stage leading a prayer for a quick Amen.  We were waiting in God’s Presence, praying, seeking, crying out.

Knowing we weren’t pressed for time, I took this a step further.  I asked the tech guys (who responded immediately and graciously) to bring up our house lights slowly.

“Who is struggling?  Who just needs a touch?  Who needs prayer?  Slip up your hand – and if you’re around someone raising their hand, just touch them, maybe on the shoulder, to let them know you are there, that you support them, and that you care.  Pray for them.  You don’t even have to ask what it’s about – just lift them up.”

It was beautiful.  I believe we could have stayed in that pause for a long time.  But it was like we stopped the motions for a while and God smiled and said “glad to see you”.

So I took the margin earlier than later.  We concluded our entire service without my adding another song.

In many cases, I’d rather add that waiting time, for prayer, for seeking … instead of yet, another song.

This makes me desperate for margin.  In my life.  In our worship services.  You don’t get it unless you work for it.

How much margin is in your worship services?  Do you feel pressed for time to squeeze everything in, or do you have ample time to wait and see what God may be doing in that moment?

Yesterday was perhaps one of the sweetest days of worship that I can recall at SSCC.  I think there are lots of reasons.  We’d just had a “Night of Worship” event the Friday night before.  We had more margin (see tomorrow’s post!) in our service plan, and the teaching focused on worship.

We opened slowly, with an older classic, “Open the Eyes of My Heart”.  I find it nice to open slowly sometimes.  Paul Baloche calls this an “on-ramp”.  It gives people a transition into worship and I could see people making that transition clearly.

To open up the top of the hour, we introduced a new, upbeat song called “We Are The Free” from Matt Redman’s newest album, “10,000 Reasons”.  I’d originally decided that although I love this song, it would never find a home in our typical sunday service.  I felt it was just too edgy and youth-driven.  It didn’t seem to fit our culture.  I had so many people from the band and congregation who’d already heard the song and really encouraged me to go for it.  To my surprise, the song was really well-received.

From that song we segued directly into super-familiar “Glory to God Forever”.

After a time of announcements, we introduced the brand new worship ballad from the Passion 2011 album, “Waiting Here For You”.  Heather, one of our team members, led this and did a beautiful job.

At the conclusion of this song, I felt a strong sense that we should just wait a moment and not rush into the sermon.  We lingered there, and before I knew it, we were praying and crying out to God.  The congregation was praying, people were praying for others who needed prayer … it was a beautiful thing that I’ll describe more fully in tomorrow’s blog post.

Our Discipleship Pastor did an incredible job teaching on worship, our response to God, and living the life of worship.

We concluded with a traditional version of “The Old Rugged Cross” with nothing but vocals and piano.  IT WAS GORGEOUS.  I loved hearing the people of God sing this classic hymn.  I also sang the deep bass line, which was stylistically different for us, but added to the traditional feel.  It was a special moment.

Transitioning out of the hymn we sang “The Song of Moses”, a newer song from some guys up in Atlanta.  It was massive and I can only say that I felt that our congregation literally walked together through this journey of worship.  It was one of my favorite Sundays!

As always, I’m sharing our worship service recap as a part of the “Sunday Setlists” event, hosted weekly at TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

“Every poet and musician, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.”.  (C.S. Lewis)

Read this.  Read it again.  Process it.

What does this speak to you?