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    Serving in Your Church Music Ministry
    Serving in Your Church Music Ministry
    Serving in Your Church Music Ministry
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    Serving in Your Church Music Ministry

    By Randall D. Engle

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    About this ebook

    For:•Individual use•Group trainingIncludes instrumentalist survey and worship planning checklistWorship is a slice of eternity that Christians can participate in on earth, and nothing can facilitate our experience of worship like music. This wise, concise guidebook will help you harness your God-given musical talent as a gift to the body of Christ, in a way that brings joy to both God’s heart and yours.Serving in Your Church Music Ministry discusses•Words on Worship•Planning for Worship•Serving at the Keyboard•Serving with Your Voice•Serving with an Instrument•Serving in the PewZondervan Practical Ministry Guides provide you with simple, practical insights for serving in today’s churches. Written by experienced pastors and church workers, these easy-to-read, to-the-point booklets address the fundamentals of different ministries as practiced effectively in real life. You’ll find biblical insight and wise, field-tested advice you can apply today, as well as discussion questions to help you think through and integrate what you read.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateJul 13, 2009
    ISBN9780310833505
    Serving in Your Church Music Ministry
    Author

    Randall D. Engle

    Rev. Randall D Engle is Sr. Pastor and Director of Music at the North Hills Christian Reformed Church of Troy, MI, and is working on a PhD at the University of Wales.

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      Book preview

      Serving in Your Church Music Ministry - Randall D. Engle

      PREFACE

      A wise teacher of preachers once quipped that poor speakers ask, What shall I say? but good speakers ask, Who is my audience? Indeed, key to all communicative projects, including this book, is finding a voice and reaching the targeted audience.

      That said, 1 need buckshot to hit my target. I’m writing to musicians and encouragers of musicians, to church employees and church volunteers, to ministry professionals and persons who just got the assignment to run the worship program at their church, to independent churches and churches that belong to denominations of all stripes, and to churches whose worship style runs the gamut from storefront gospel to high Latin Mass! All of this without being too technical on the one hand, or too simplistic and general on the other. I hope my aim is good and, if you can excuse the oxymoron, both broad and specific so that all persons and churches will be equally fortified and inspired to better ministry.

      More than that, I also want to offer something new. I am aware of all the excellent academic texts and journals that exist in liturgics, church music, choir directing, improvisation, service planning, and so forth. However, in most publications, theory and practice often exist across a great divide. Either one hears from academics, who, quite honestly, have little experience working for a volunteer, not-for-profit organization (the church), or one hears from musicians and worship planners, whose ideas often have no theological rudder and whose writing remains only on the level of a neat thing you might want to try.

      What I have tried to do is to ground the duties (practice) of a church musician and worship planner in a biblical mandate for worship (theory). I want to knot theory and practice tightly together. In doing so I hope to stimulate musicians, artisans, preachers, worship planners and instrumentalists, Sunday school teachers — everyone who is connected in some way, shape, or form to the worship life of the church. I want us to look at worship and our role in it in different and new ways. I want to remind us all that our work has biblical precedent and that it is the conduit through which the Holy Spirit works to touch the lives and hearts of worshipers.

      Our modern-day ethos puts me—you—in the center of everything: We are the world! Be all you can be! You are the reason. When disorientation occurs about whom and what worship is for, battles erupt over music and worship style. And no one wins—not when discussions of worship begin and end by merely arguing personal preference. True worship renewal begins once congregants, pastors, and musicians agree that worship is for God, and when leaders and musicians begin making wise choices that flow from this basic premise. But the idea that worship is something first of all for God, not for me, sounds preposterous in a world of self-absorbed church shoppers.

      Nevertheless, it is our calling to point worshipers to God. I pray that this little book will be useful to all stewards of music as we strive to do this.

      ONE

      Words on Worship

      Come, we that love the Lord,

      And let our joys be known;

      Join in a song with sweet accord

      And thus surround the throne,

      And thus surround the throne.

      ISAAC WATTS

      WORK WORTHY OF ETERNITY

      One Wednesday evening after choir rehearsal Jon and Joy grabbed their two daughters from the church nursery and slumped into the seats of their minivan, exhausted and spent. Tomorrow was a school day, and the hour was late. Jon had gone to church directly from the office, skipping dinner. They had spent all evening at church. After a quick stop at Caribou Coffee on the way home, Jon muttered to Joy, Do you ever get tired of this? Frankly, this is one of those nights where I wonder whether it’s worth it all. Maybe we should cut back and drop out of choir.

      Joy was quick to respond. I know how you feel, and tonight’s not a good night to ask! But I came across an article this morning that helped change my whole attitude about music in church. The article pointed out that, in heaven, no earthly occupations will be needed, save one: church musicians. Think about it. In heaven doctors will have no clinics, for there will be only perfectly functioning and reenergized bodies. Lawyers and judges will have no reason to appear in court to settle disputes among people who are living together in peace. Even preachers will no longer need pulpits to win souls, for Christ will be living in the neighborhood, and we shall see Christ, and Christ shall be all in all!

      The article was right. For church musicians, earthly service comes with an implied eternal contract.

      Given such a momentous task, church musicians ought to learn to worship well and lead worship well, for our worship here is a warm-up for the everlasting worship of God that is to come.

      But what exactly is worship?

      ENTERTAINING GOD

      Worship is entertaining God. Worship celebrates God’s greatness and his love for us. Worship receives God’s word as it comes to us through the Bible, the sacraments (or ordinances), and Jesus Christ. It’s clear that God desires and enjoys our worship and that God created all things to praise. The Bible says that all creatures give glory to God and that everything has its unique voice and mode of praise. Thunder, cattle, crickets, fruitful trees, and birds give glory to God (see Psalm 148)! One day even the trees of the fields will clack their branches together as though they were hands applauding the premiere of God’s new creation. God delights in creation and in all of creation’s worship. Worship entertains God.

      Of all God’s creatures, humans were created with a special role. Biblical authors hardly know how to express just how valuable we are to God other than to say that we were crowned with glory and honor and made just below the angels (Psalm 8:5). As the blue-ribbon prize of creation, God made us breathing, living instruments of praise.

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