I’m ashamed to say it, but I don’t enjoy music as much as I used to.
I used to get lost on my piano for hours, zoning out in my creativity. I used to hang out with my guitar and experiment with new sounds. It was a language I once spoke and I’ve forgotten how to communicate.
I know that sounds bleak, but I’m commited to recapturing the joy of music.
If you’re a worship leader, you know what I’m talking about. Music has become business. As long as we can pull Sunday off and lead worship with music, that’s all the time we have to invest in it.
We use music as a means to an end, rather than a joy in itself.
But that makes sense, right? We’ve been conditioned that “worship isn’t about music”. We’re become so afraid of music becoming our idol that we nearly neglect it.
But guess what? That’s a bad idea. The more you can get lost in music, love it, recapture creative time, the stronger your ministry will be.
Musical Creativity Matters
Here’s what I mean:
As a child of God, you are filled with the Holy Spirit. All of your life – talents, strengths, and weaknesses – are used by God for His glory. He is (right now, this moment) using your life to reveal His love to others.
When you develop yourself – say, with something like your musical skill and creativity – you are giving the Holy Spirit another avenue of ministry.
When I exercise my hands to be more agile and faster on the keys, I’m giving the Holy Spirit something new to work with.
When I explore new sounds and tones with my guitar, I’m giving the Holy Spirit something new to work with.
When I pick up a new instrument, I’m giving the Holy Spirit something new to work with.
When I pull out that metronome and practice my scales or rudiments, I’m giving the Holy Spirit something new to work with.
And what is the Holy Spirit doing? Calling the prodigals home, saving the lost, awakening the dead, strengthening the weak, revealing Jesus…And that, my friend can happen through your music.
But if you stop learning, stop growing, stop developing, you’ll dry up. Developing our creativity is one way as musicians we can “show ourselves approved unto God (2 Tim. 2:15).”
Believe me – I’m not just hyping this up. This is why I’ve chosen to make music for God for the rest of my life. I want people to catch a vision of His glory through my creations – because I know if I can lead people to Him, they can be satisfied for eternity.
OK, worship leaders. Let’s hear it.
What steps do you need to take to recapture the joy of music again?
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
I think that many times, we lose the “joy of music” when life happens. Our careers, spouses and children begin to take priority, and our personal music time starts to become a luxury and gets less and less of our attention. We may even feel guilty for spending time with our music, and that is definitely a “joy” killer. I like what you said about the Holy Spirit using our music time to develop our abilities and creativity. I think as artists and worship leaders, we MUST set aside that time, not as a distraction from our families and responsibilities, but as an investment in our musicianship that God will use for His glory and to further His kingdom. Serving our God, what greater joy is there than that? Thanks for sharing this today, David!
Mike, I’m glad you shared that. There’s a lot of musicians and artists that feel this way – guilty to pursue their craft because of the weight of responsibility on their shoulders. I think with some careful planning, it can definitely happen. We just need to get creative with our schedules 🙂 Thanks man!
I agree whole heartedly with this David. You have to continue to explore your instrument/instruments…continue to develop your craft. We have to work on scales, metronome timing, tone, technique, ect… These things can never stop or music will get stale. Music is always evolving and so should we. I like to just have a little improv session at the front of my rehearsals, so that my band can just enjoy a simple progression and really get into the music. It helps to create an open and more positive mindset for the rest of our rehearsal. Thanks David…
Jemar, this is a great idea that I implement as well. Have you guys written songs out of this improvising?
I was at a conference last fall that honed in on this very topic. I came away with a challenge to create for no reason. I know when I am creating, writing, playing, learning, then I am much more likely to listen to and hear His still small voice. When I create on demand only, I find my sight become narrower and my hearing not working very well. So, my response to this has been to give myself a ‘no reason to create’ challenge – every week of the year, I am writing a song and making a demo that I post each Monday on my blog (http://christopherames.wordpress.com/). So far, some songs have been worship, others confessional, one was even an attempt at writing a TV theme song…
Chris, I love your idea. What are you learning from this process?
Hey David…great post. For guys like me, who have spent most of life in an occupation other than music I saw music as a side gig. It was something to do and hopefully one day move me from my 6 – 3 furniture job to rock stardom. We made very little money, though we had a lot of fun. When I became a full time worship guy, I was still carrying the weekend mindset with me. I struggle feeling guilty to play during the day because that was something you did after work, not for work. You can feel guilty that you are waisting time rather than actually working on your gifting. I think also that sometimes all these new worship albums( as they say in my generation) sometimes discourage local artists. If you’re not on a label folks don’t always respect your music or gifting.This can create discouragement or possibly make worship leaders feel that their music is inadequate. I believe we have to get back to the fact that God created musicians to love music. That is our gifting from our Father. Just like in the movie ‘Chariots of Fire’, Eric Liddell said that when he ran he felt the joy of God. We need to feel God’s joy when we play and create.
Jeff, some great stuff here. This sparks a whole ‘nother conversation about arts in the church. How prominent should it be? How much time should we devote our paid staff to artistic work? Would practicing guitar quality as a part of a job description? What are your thoughts on that?
(Also facebook and twitter) Sharing an experience… This week Pastor Jay had us sing ♫ Open up the doors let the music play, let the streets resound with singing! Songs that bring you hope, Songs that bring you joy! Dancers who dance upon injustice! ♫ And you would know the verses. We had some planned baptisms some spontaneous! Over 20 were baptised! It was very joyful. It would have been joyful without the baptisms too. It would have been joyful without the sound ppl and lighting ppl, with moe or less ppl….. ect follow me? It starts with that decision to believe what you are singing and to set your focus. Life was not all rosey this week, but, however, when is it allllllways! A decision to take 2-3 hours to focus on “worth” ship or worship is just that a decision and it was the right move this Sunday – it was a good decision. It really sets the pace each day to be in prayer, to read the bible, to be thankful for the good things that you’ve got. Excuse my rant (testimony) being long! Really liked the post – bless you for listening and choosing to write it 🙂
Thanks, Vicki. Sounds like you had a great weekend!