Tonight we had a team meeting where we got to share some concerns and questions.
Our 11 member team leaves for Burundi in about 2 months. In that time we will have to get our shots, visas, and finances in order.
I’m excited to be going with my son Zach.
Of course, some of my practical concerns revolve around managing cameras and technical gear, keeping batteries charged, and how pack efficiently.
Much of our team discussion however, revolved around hygiene, spiders, snakes, and access to water and electricity during the 10 day mission.
My personal desire is to bring back a story of our team interacting and coming along side the Batwa people. To show love and help enable them to maximize their quality of life. To show a real connection so that our church will see this more than just supporting a missionary somewhere.
We don’t have a lot of specifics and don’t know exactly what to expect when we arrive. We don’t have any experience with this particular organization and although some on our team did an exploratory visit last year, none of us have been in this particular area of Burundi. That’s why this leadership team was selected to go and learn and assess needs, to build relations with this outreach group, and to engage with the Batwa people.
My understanding is that we will be making connection with a new village that has not yet received any type of assistance. There are going to be a lot of unknown variables. Flexibility is the key.
What is attractive about the group we’re partnering with is that they have a mission to improve conditions thru education, agricultural training, building houses, and bringing hope thru scripture. It’s a combination of providing for immediate needs and enabling villages to become self-sufficient within a 5 year period or so.
Lots to process.
Just a quick note to start a thread about a trip I’ll be involved with this June (2013).
My son Zach and I will be part of a 11-member leadership team going to Burundi, Africa.
We will be coming alongside an organization called Harvest for Christ Burundi, a well-respected ministry led by a highly dedicated indigenous team of Christ-followers.
For a decade Burundi suffered a civil war that claimed up to 300,000 lives. Today the country is recovering from the genocide but has a long way to go. It is rated as one of the poorest & most food challenged countries in the world.
Our focus will be to serve the Ba-twa of northern Burundi. The Ba-twa are a shunned people group with an average life span of 27 years.
In addition to building living shelters, we will be listening, filming, and documenting this experience for the purpose of bringing back the story for future mission teams from our home church, The Chapel in Sandusky, Ohio.
Please keep us in your prayers. If you’d like to assist me financially, please contact me privately and we can discuss how you can become involved in this important journey. (Burundi_support)
Below is a link to a short video clip that gives insights into the back story and living conditions of this region.
As worship artists, we often say we value a “servant’s heart”. Does that mean we only serve God and people? Or are there other things/ areas that benefit from acts of humility and serving?
About 6-7 years ago I saw an interesting video interview with Kenny Aronoff on the now defunct rehearsals.com. Apparently Aronoff is a well-known studio musician who I understand played for bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd before getting a big break with John Mellencamp.
I remember him telling a story of how he had a great passion to play the drums and was very technically skillful. He graduated from an esteemed music school and was exceptionally creative. Needless to say he was a really good drummer. This is how I remember the gist of that video.
One day he gets this big opportunity to fill in on John Mellencamp’s tour after John’s drummer had to step down for some reason. Having a drum/ percussion degree, a passion for Jazz, and an arrogant attitude he auditions for Mellencamp thinking it can’t be too hard to play a bunch of pop songs. He lands the gig and after a number of shows he was let go. FIRED.
The main reason, as I recall, was he didn’t listen. He wasn’t a team player. He was skillfully proficient – better than most, but, as he explained, failed to really listen to the songs. How hard could it be right? I got the impression that, at the time, playing pop songs was somehow beneath him. He just wanted to show up and play awesome drums.
Later he somehow gets something that was unheard of – a second chance. My understanding was He met w/ Mellencamp and was told that those songs were written to be played a certain way, recorded a certain way. These were hits that sold a lot of records and neither the audience or Mellencamp wanted, or needed, new drum arrangements. And the band didn’t want or need a show-off player on the team.
Then Aronoff went on to make 2 points that have stuck with me as a technical artist – that he said radically changed the trajectory of his career.
- it’s all about serving
- that day he became a musician
Serving: what an odd thing for a secular musician to allude to as important.
We talk about it in church settings quite a bit. We serve with each other, we want servant attitudes, servant leadership, etc. It has a certain desirable air of humility. But in this context he went on to say that serving is crucial to successfully making great music in a band. I would go on to say it’s critical to functioning as a team. It’s about everyone caring and attending to the big picture. Of course he had to serve his boss but he also learned that it was important to serve the other band members, serve the song, serve the mix, serve the audience and serve the process. It was way beyond just getting his part down or being the best player. It all had to fit. What made him really valuable wasn’t necessarily his skill. There are thousands of good drummers (or sound engineers, guitar players, singers etc.) What later made him valuable was his ability to bring his art to something bigger than himself.
…he also learned that it was important to serve the other band members, serve the song,
serve the mix, serve the audience and serve the process. It was way beyond just getting his part down.
Before re-entering the studio with Mellencamp, Kenny listened to a lot of John’s old material. He met with the original drummers. He asked a lot of questions and took a lot of notes – not to duplicate note for note but to catch and internalize Mellencamp’s vision and style. What was the songwriter going after? How can he bring his great drum skills to the creative process? how can he make room for the other players in the arrangement? He practiced and prepared relentlessly. He didn’t compromise his art, he actually became a world-class musician. Aronoff went on to say that during that period he moved from being just a “drummer” to a “musician who plays the drums.” He brought that attitude to every opportunity thereafter. And there were many. He wasn’t just good, he had developed a reputation for serving. He was the guy you wanted on your record and on your tour.
After that period, I understand that Aronoff went on to chart several more hits with Mellencamp and become one of the most highly regarded and sought after live/session drummers in the country over the past 2 decades.
How about you?
- Are you just a “guitar player” or are you a musician who plays the guitar?
- Are you just a “sound guy” or are you a musician who mixes and serves the band?
- Are we part of a worship team that just “learns songs” or are we musical or technical artists who lead people toward and closer to God?
- Are we filling our spiritual tanks between weekends or is the weekend service just the creative outlet by which we feed our personal artistic needs?
- Does our art serve our mission and who we are in the eyes of God or do we get our identity, value, self worth solely from practicing our technical or musical craft?
- Is mixing or playing praise/worship choruses just a little beneath us as artists or is there a bigger purpose for which we bring our art to bear on the weekend?
When I act as a FOH engineer, I can say there’s a big difference in the rehearsal if I’ve downloaded the mp3s from Planningcenter and had a few conversations with the worship leader a week or so in advance. If I go in prepared and familiar, along with an understanding of the “flavor” of the weekend, I’m in a much better place to bring appropriate skills to the team and ultimately to the weekend experience. It takes a little effort and some time. But it matters … a lot.
The Kingdom benefits when we prepare and serve one another and the areas of ministry we’re called to influence.
If you regularly attend any of The Chapel Campuses and would like to get involved in serving in the Technical Arts please submit this form to get more information about a first-serve opportunity.
https://secure.jotform.us/form/21996272254157
-gary
So what makes a worship service “worshipful” ?
I’ve sat in many different types of services and found myself drawn into worship not because of the music style but because I entered that service with a desire and expectation that I will seek and find God there. I’m convinced that there’s no band, pastor, denomination, music style, teaching style (either highly polished/equipped or scaled back/ resourceful) that can dictate if I worship or not. (quite frankly, they just don’t wield that much influence.) My attitude, heart, and relationship with God however, does. And a gifted worship leader with a competent team will enhance that. Consequently, if leaders, players, signers, and tech artists (either large-scale or small-scale) are not actually skillful and not expressing themselves out of a heart for God, entering into worship is difficult at best and their presence on the platform can be utterly distracting at worst.
Sometimes we hear about those “mega” churches (apparently referring to those churches that are growing with people who actually look forward to going to church each week) being all about the “performance” or they “look like a rockshow” – as if to imply poorly presented music by singers who can’t sing, players who can’t play, (or unwilling to learn a couple songs and rehearse), with sound that can’t be heard or understood is somehow more Holy, spiritual, or authentic.
I’ve seen small worship teams that would probably consider themselves under-resourced, lead amazing worship experiences. They weren’t perfect but they played, sang, and sounded well, they loved God, they supported each other, and they put in real effort – as if what they did was being done unto the Lord. What made them effective was not, however, the fact they were small, unprepared, or lacked gear. What made them effective was they loved God, loved to worship, and they were gifted at what they were called to do. In short worship mattered. It was worth getting out of bed for, preparing and rehearsing for, equpping for, and doing well with the best possible level of excellence. It involved a worthwhile sacrafice of some time and energy.
Way too much credit (or blame) is placed on the music style or venue size to determine what is “worshipful” and not enough on the hearts of those called to use their gifts before a group of people seeking to encounter God. When in fact, that’s all that matters.
Here’s the thing – whenever musicians and singers are placed in front of a crowd, for whatever reason, it will by its very nature look like a performance. What is actually projected from any platform is the heart for God and the purpose of those called to play, sing, control tech and teach. And just because things like lights, sight lines, sound, relevancy, pitch, timing, tempo are actually taken seriously, by those who are gifted to take them seriously, does not necessarily make it a “rockshow”. The issue is much deeper than appearance, style (or even if a church is mega/ mini or traditional/modern etc.)
Worship that engages probably includes good music (or at least not poor music.) But If one’s heart is far from God, all they can and will ever get from any experience is just good music.
The bottom line is this. Assuming that the platform artists are in it for the love of God (and using their gifts to lead others closer to God), what really can make a service a rockshow or specticle is not the size of the room, style of the music, or relevancy of the technologies. It’s the attitude and heart of the listener. That’s what determines perception in churches large and small. If the listener does not have at least some “value for worship” and is seeking God whole-heartedly, then what goes on in any church service (tradtional/modern or large/small) can never be anything more than just music that is observed and critiqued (often based on little more than nostalgia, preference, and personal taste.) And in that respect it doesn’t have to look like a “rockshow” to not be worshipful.
Worship in any church is a function of the artist’s heart/attitude AND the listener’s heart/attitude. Without that it’s ALL just a “rockshow” and always has been. Because unlike rockshows or any rote church rituals, Worship, by it’s very nature, cannot occur as a spectator event. It starts with the heart of the listener.
What Matters Matters 