[Worship] Re:Gods Glory or Self

["Steve Cobb" <steve@worshipfulheart.com>]

To all interested,
I think that at the heart of the issue is a lack of spiritual and 
musical maturity. A spiritually mature person has the humble heart of 
a servant and does not want to bring glory upon himself/herself with 
unnecessary musical dynamics. A musically mature person knows that 
for most situations less is more. They realize that they are there to 
compliment the rest of the band....not override them. Have I ever 
experienced this? Who hasn't? :) Let's face it.....musically gifted 
people struggle more with pride and a 'need' for attention (hence our 
critical spirit of other musicians...we tend to think we could do it 
better). This creates lots of issues with submission and lack of 
unity. My greatest struggle with this was with a youth worship team. 
My friend (who was at that time their youth leader) asked me to come 
and take over the music so he could focus more on the rest of the 
program. The team consisted of high school aged youth and the 
majority were ok with being 'guided' in the right direction. There 
was one who wasn't. Of course he was the 'lead' electric guitar 
player. He was not saved, didn't care about God, and had no interest 
in learning. Did we kick him out? No. Did I tell him when he was 
playing too loud and too much? Yes. We had a Bible study each week 
(most weeks we had one....I failed to prepare some of those weeks) 
and it helped to develop the team and to plant seeds. This lead 
guitarist eventually resigned. My feeling is that he figured out that 
he was not going to be allowed to show off and that the worship time 
was not a time for a concert. I only hope that good seeds were 
planted. Should I have kicked him out? Only in an extreme situation 
and with God inspired reasons. I think your reaction to this 
situation would change from church to church and situation to 
situation. In general, I would think that this problem could be 
helped with an emphasis on spiritual and musical training. Of 
course....we as humans tend to stay in our sinful ruts for a long 
time. Grace is always required when working with a human being (even 
when we deal with ourselves) :) This is a good topic! This is 
something we will always deal with. I still deal with it from time to 
time with my current band. 
-- 
Steve Cobb
Worshipful Heart Ministries
www.worshipfulheart.com

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