[Worship Mythbusters is a series of posts debunking possibly damaging thinking about worship, worship leading and art/creativity/music in the church]

MYTH: Artist types cannot lead and what they do is not leadership–especially in the church.

Worship leaders seem to fit the profiling for the most part of being artistic types. This seems to be conventional wisdom in the church world, but for those of you scratching your head because you do not see the bubble of Evangelical Christian subculture please bear with me.

Obviously, in today’s society artists are leaders and what they do leads and for one very clear reason. Artists create culture. What does that mean? Artists express our stories. Artists critique our power structures. Artists build things that are bigger than themselves and if true art last longer as well. Look at Bono of U2 for example. How many filmmakers have influenced people’s daily lives the past 50 years?

Let me define who I think are “artists” today. Musicians, filmmakers, painters and performers of all type fit in this. But, there of course are audio engineers, lighting designers, graphic artists and photographers as well as others. I would even put computer programmers as artists to some degree since they create language!

While working at a very large church, I remember being stereotyped as one who because I was an artist could not lead well or especially manage well. What is interesting is that it seemed it was not the results always in question but the process. “Rich, you get to the right conclusions but seem to think backwards.” Artists think differently. We think globally, rather than everything being in a straight line.

When it comes to classic management, I think some may have a point. Management is a science. Use the psychology of pressure and manipulation and you can move people to a point. Leadership is art. Inspire a vision, picture and direction and you can succeed in moving people to a point as well. You might even inspire lives to change, not just seasonal behaviors.

If we define management as a science or the sociology of getting people to align with institutional goals, then leadership should be defined as influence that inspires not from the outside but works inside out of people. This is exactly what great art does!

This is why artists are scary to church leaders and when in the leadership cause some to shudder. The gift to move people inside out is indeed powerful. The irony is that there is an insatiable hunger to pragmatically employ the powerful gifting of artists in the church while shying away from developing and including them as viable thinkers and leaders in church leadership circles.

Here is a point for discussion. Do you agree or disagree that artists are leaders and why?

WMB is a series of posts here on my blog.

The Myth of Proposition over Experience in Worship

Why is it that in our evangelical church culture we seem to put the beauty of music, art and other expression of our faith and worship below reason? Where in scripture does this occur? In reading the Psalms and other poetry of the Bible we see imagery and drama as part of our expression of faith and yes, even theology.

This does not mean we put beauty and story above reason and proposition, however. There must be a better way of explaining the longing in our hearts when pulled to the mystical side that experience offers without repressing this part of our humanity. In other words, perhaps it is not an indication of a fallen nature or a danger of being captivated by that nature to be moved by the beautiful. It is human.

At the cre:ate 2009 conference, we had a lecture by Steven Guthrie, who delivered a lecture similar to his Worship Leader Magazine article earlier this year (Music and Lyrics, WL Magazine, pgs. 25-30). What Guthrie described was a man with two halves which he says is derived from Augustine. What we take from Augustine is a fear of the music drawing us to a “lower” nature. So, why not subjugate music to reason, which is a higher form of faith? We seem to face that in our worship expression often in the evangelical church.

Postmoderns, as Guthrie described to us at cre:ate flip the same logic of Augustine and argue for making story, beauty and so forth higher than reason and proposition. May it never be! To deny the propositions such as the substitutional atonement and other pillars of faith to some fuzzy narrative is just plain stupid. We are talking about our eternal destiny here, not how we feel a movie moves us to a place of experience or how  Coldplay reveals universal truth that we can explain away as relative. Proposition is still important.

I would suggest, as Guthrie does far better than I can, that we are not two people as he states the idea of having two halves. This is, as he says, an “unbiblical anthropology.” We are both people of reason and emotion. To pit parts of humanity against each other seems heretical, actually. How could we truly worship if “Spirit and Truth” are not employed and if we do not sing “with our mind” and “with our spirit” as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 14.

At another cre:ate conference we talked with author Kurt Bruner about his book, The Divne Drama. Bruner’s assertion of a “both and” of “proposition and story” when talking about the gospel. The Bible is indeed made up both of narrative as well as proposition. Should we think these are ranked, or do we accept all scripture as “God-breathed” and authoritative?

For the sake of discussion, I wonder how many readers would agree with this idea or not agree. Should we put reason above beauty, story, mystery or are both sides of us who we are?

Happy New Year to my friends, family and readers of RKWL! What a whirlwind 2008 has been as the first year in our new southern California life as a family. From 2008 the following is a snapshot…

• Kids finish first time being homeschooled for the 2007-08 and enter public schooling. So far so good.
• Both kids get braces. Ouch. Ouch.
• We sell our house of five years we owned in Redding, CA for a decent price in this economy. Miracle.
• I become even more geeky. We have router issues at home now.
• My wife starts a business, or two.
• I  pass my 4oth year in 2008! Ouch.
• Blogging favorites like Worship Mythbusters and a new blog at Tehilla Music started.
• I performed the wedding for my good friend Zach Tanksley.
• My daughter entered High School, and now leads worship with me.
• We are “post minivan” now as a family.
• Cigars are nice. Ahhh.
• iPhones are nice, too.
• 20th year in ministry passed me by. Wow.
• New friends. Missing old friends.
• A quiet small family Christmas.
• Need for long sleeves reduced to half. New sandals, anyone?

For 2009? Let’s roll…

WMB is a series and this is Part 3, a final wrap up for  Monday’s post & Wednesday’s post…

The Myth of a painless offering of worship.

I believe that worship, speaking even of and specifically about our weekend gatherings, is not painless. Of course I do not mean that it is “painful” but that it is a myth to think we are entitled to worship without cost.  Yeah, I used the word “painless” as a way to address our demand in our culture for ease.  The goal it seems is to ease our lives, when sometimes things we do that cause pain actually advance us.  Exercise is a perfect example of this.

As far are our weekend gathering, we would do well to have a different opinion about our experience on the days when things make us uncomfortable and even perhaps in pain.  If we are having heart burn about a point in the message, distressed over the volume of the music, dissatisfied with the glum faced people around us it does not negate a worship experience–it makes that experience a sacrifice.  The best example of this is to offering a sacrifice of praise during the most hurtful times in life.  Our decision to offer praise and worship regardless of our pain, might actually be what allows us to find some healing from that pain.

On this point, read Psalm after Psalm and you will find a process of despair, grief and hope all sandwiched with praise for who God is and for what He has done in the past.  The exercise of choosing to worship and praise God reminds me of Paul and Silas in prison.  It appears that their singing of worship opened the doors and loosened their shackles–both literally and figuratively.

Your thought, please.  Should we decide to praise God even when things go south for us or when we feel hurt?

WMB is a series and this is Part 2 from Monday’s post…

The myth of a painless offering of worship

If worship is perhaps not a “painless offering” than it is not…

• three easy payments
• about feeling good all the time
• without cost
• all my favorite songs
• without using my brain
• always convenient
• about my preferences
• something for me but from me

Anything else we can add to the list?