Church and Jesus and Ministry and Theology and Worship Michael Krahn on 15 Jun 2009 12:13 pm
The Songleader as Servant
When we lead the music (or preach or teach), we are there primarily for the benefit of the other people in the room. What we are trying do at church is follow Jesus’ example, who “came to serve, not to be served.” Matthew 20:28
To do this, we partially put aside our preferences so that others can worship in a way that suits them. As a service to our fellow believers in Christ, we look out at them as we’re playing and we see when a song is hitting them and driving them to worship and when it is not.
Some people genuinely worship to Randy Travis and some worship to much louder music. Now, I don’t think many people would be served by us playing Randy Travis style every week, but there are also a lot of people who are not served by us playing with the volume at 10 and 5 electric guitars on stage. Somewhere in between those two is where we want to be.
Its a matter of serving the people in the room. If its all youth – give-’er, full out, they’ll love it! If its our Sunday morning crowd, which is a mixture of youth, seniors, young families, etc, then we look out and we adjust however we need to in order to serve them.
Servanthood can seem like a leash if you see it that way, but again, let’s look at Jesus example. Jesus gave up being in the presence of God in order to come to the earth, suffer, and die for us – as a servant. He did this so that people who didn’t know God could know God and have eternal life and so that people who already knew God could know him fully and enjoy him more.
As worship leaders, we are called to the same thing: we want people to meet Jesus, and we want people who already know Jesus to know him more. If we think of music as the vehicle for this, then ultimately we SHOULD be willing to play a style of music we hate every week if people are genuinely meeting Jesus and getting to know him better.
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Michael Krahn (michael.krahn@gmail.com) is a husband, father, Pastor, writer, and recording artist who enjoys books, theology, technology and the Ottawa Senators.
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