Selected Responses

To, Is this letter about you?

FROM: David Lyons

Since I have been an assistant pastor, and even a Minister of Music and
Youth Pastor at the same time, I found your latest article on your web site
to be very interesting.

First of all, since you said that this was a real situation, it sounds to
me like the one to blame is the Senior Pastor, not the Assistant. In our
denomination, Nazarene, the assistants basically work for the Senior
Pastor, not the board. When an assistant is hired, the Senior Pastor needs
to explain clearly what will be required, and what it is that the Pastor
wants the assistant to accomplish.

I have been an assistant three times, once doing both leading the music
(playing the piano at the same time) and being the Youth Pastor, and twice
being mainly the Youth Pastor, but also being involved in the music. In
each case, I was willing to do things the way that the Senior Pastor
wanted. I had no problem with this, and feel that it is the only way to
really work correctly. This answers your question of "What would you
suggest these students consider in their personal code?"

Even though an assistant may be the Minister of Music, I believe that the
Senior Pastor is still the Worship Leader. Though I was given lots of
freedom to do my jobs, the Pastors made it clear what it was they wanted,
and I worked within that framework. When changes needed made, or if they
weren't satisfied with something, they let me know. In each case, we
worked as a team.

How do we lead congregations to change their patterns of worship? Well,
this is something that I have dealt with more as the Senior Pastor than
when I was an assistant. I have two ideas about this. First, it is
possible to make major changes at the very beginning of a pastorate, in
some cases. Of course, sometimes this can really be trouble. Second, and
my basic premise, changes should be made only when necessary, and should be
done gradually.

For instance, I think it is too drastic a change to go from four or five
hymns in a service to only one hymn and five to seven choruses. The real
question is whether worship is really happening or not. In my home church,
which was also my first pastorate, we only used a few choruses, but had
mostly hymns. The worship was out of this world. What is wrong with
that? It worked well.

When leading worship, we do need to realize that there are lots of
different styles and methods, and not think that only "college-style" is
real. A better decision is to make sure that the worship team rehearses
the music, so that the music is done very well, no matter what the style
might be.

I think pastors and congregations and music leaders all need to have
realistic expectations of what will actually take place during worship.
--David Lyons

How sad. Why is it that we are so prone to think that what we like is
equal to what God wants ?
In my church we have some 'older' saints who are just as selfish as the
young man in the letter.
One dear saint said to me one day, "If you want to get me out of this
church just try having that
contemporary music. It will be my lst Sunday, I promise you that." What
did Jesus say, "He who would be greatest must be servant of all." Where
are our servant hearts.?

Dwight Eldeen, Pastor
First Baptist
Hanover, Pa.

FROM: Jonathan White

The accusations don't sound unique to worship ministry. The same things
could be said about 90% of all young, male pastors, be they Worship
Pastors, Youth Pastors, Senior Pastors, "Solo" Pastors, or Pastors of any
other sort of stripe. Young pastors are egocentric, opinionated,
underdeveloped in people skills, visionary in a purely personal way, and
generally obnoxious. It is not because they are pastors, but because they
are young. Lay people generally aren't put into major leadership positions
at such any early age--they have to "earn their spurs," so the comparison
of a 22 year-old pastor with a 35 year-old lay leader is inherently
unfair. What was the layman doing when he was 22? He almost certainly was
not under the spiritual microscope to the same degree that this worship
leader is. The college can't make young people grow up faster than God
designed them to mature. Getting married, having kids, and generally
experiencing life is what using shapes us. Lay people shouldn't hire young
people if they aren't prepared to handle some immaturity........but. Young
pastors need to get it through their heads that those lay people aren't all
stupid simply because they don't have (in some cases) the college diploma
that the recent grad possesses. The diploma isn't a key that unlocks every
door. Young pastors need to understand that with the paycheck comes
accountability. The problem lies on both ends.
Jon

FROM: Bob Younce
This letter is tragic on so many levels...

The real tragedy is that our ministers, students, and our congregations are
so concerned with worship "style" that they have failed to develop a sound
theology of worship.

I'll admit off the bat that I'm an advocate of "word and table" worship, so
that you know where I'm coming from. I'm also laity, so that adds another
dimension.

You've written before about the importance of public reading of Scripture,
for example; But it is commonplace in our Wesleyan churches to get maybe
half a dozen verses before a sermon, and that's it! That's all of the
Bible we get for the whole service! Unless our pastor is a true Biblical
scholar, in which case we also get 3 or 4 proof-text verses thrown in
(depending on how many points are in the sermon.)

The answer to the worship wars is not agreeing on style; it is coming to a
consensus about the theology of worship! We cannot answer "how" as regards
worship until we answer "why", or perhaps more importantly, "Who". The
fighting between advocates of Fanny Crosby vs. the Gaithers vs. group-based
"Gen-X" choruses will always be a standoff until we re-think the meaning of
worship. My hunch is that there is a place for all of those (plus even
folks like me with old-fashioned tastes like Charles Wesley and Isaac
Watts) in the next generation of the church; My prayer is that the
discussions will be moot, and they can be, once we get to the task of
thinking through worship, rather than just defending our own pallate.

Grace and Peace,

Bob Younce

The major problem I see with the passion-filled and sometimes self-absorbed
framework many of our graduates have is simple: They can't have their cake
and eat it too!

If they truly believe that they've "got the most relevant way to worship" and
that "this authentic style is the way to reach the younger generations" then
why don't they follow God's call and take some risks and try to go out and do
it. The letter's point on evangelism hypocrisy was the firmest.

I have no problem with these kids' passion -- they just need to direct it
into church planting or missions or bi-vocational work or some place where
they are not "Hired" by and existing church that already has a ministry.
They are big on learning how to "lead change" as you are teaching--but small
on trying to "learn what needs changed" to which they would reply "everything
that I'm not already doing." They would rather lead change combatively than
lead something new with a new framework. And this generation of grad will
not change the world as long as they want to eat their "paradigm cake" and
have their "paycheck security cake" too!

Why go out and try to change these churches from within to start to worship
like they do in an IWU Chapel? Why not go out and try to reach the millions
of people who are college age that may best relate to their "style"???

WHY???? because they are not able to take the risks necessary to reach out
and think of the harvest that is ripe rather than "how they will make a
living."

I echo the near-resentment that the letter-writer had--and I'm still in my
twenties. It's not a generational thing--It's and attitude and calling thing
that a lot of people are learning once they get out there and their
"ministries" crumble.

The youth guys are the ones that are making it--because they can "do their
own thing" and get away with it. Self-absorption often times grows a youth
ministry in today's twisted world. But any minister who has to work with
anyone over 20 is getting messed up big-time with this attitude.

that's my 2 cents...

David Drury, church planter

I thought the letter was interesting and insightful. While my blood was
boiling through most of it, I think that it gives us as Worship Pastors
something to think about. I have gone through a similar situation and have
heard similar statements about "new worship" and implementing a more
contemporary style of worship in the services. However, I was instructed to
implement the new worship style by the Senior Pastor and the Church Board
because the worship style used before I got there got very "comfortable" to
the congregation. I was called in to reform because the congregation was
not worshiping. I think we have to really be careful reading lay letters
because they may not be communicating the full truth. I am sure this one
was legitimate, but just a warning. The laity sometimes feels things and
they don't get confirmation from the Senior Pastor that their feeling are
what really is happening. I don't really want you to post this whole e-mail
because of the bad English, but maybe you could take some points out of it
and use them.


God Bless

Joshua Delph- Worship Pastor
Central Church of the Nazarene
Omaha NE