Focus People, Focus!

Have you ever listened to a speech, watched a movie, or driven a long distance in the car while wondering why in the world you agreed to listen to that speech, watch that movie, or taken that drive? Chances are the speech, movie, and drive all had the potential to be great if they were better planned out. If someone had taken the time to put themselves in the stadium, recliner, or passenger seat and understood how the communication of their message would be received, then chances are you wouldn't be wanting to pull your hair out strand by strand while counting the clicks of the clock on the wall while praying for it to end.

Nearly all of the great speeches and movies were first tested by focus groups so that the authors could get a preview of the outcome of their product. In addition, many travel sites give drivers and passengers a variety of things to do while enroute to make a trip more fun. So, while entities of the world spend endless hours and money developing a great product by focusing on effective communication, why is it that we Christians rarely take the time to really think about how we are communicating the greatest message? This conundrum is something that especially effects worship teams. Noland specifically states, "All artists need to know that communication [of their art] is just as important as technique" (Noland, 142).

As artists, we have the responsibility to acknowledge that our art form, when communicated effectively, can connect with people on a greater level than is possible to put down in words. Noland explains, "Art at its best stimulates the mind and moves the soul. If we in the local church don't get serious about how to communicate effectively, our art will move no one. No matter how accomplished or sophisticated we are, if thought is not given to communicating clearly, how are we going to reach people with our art? Paul has an interesting point in 1 Corinthians 14:7-9: "Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? So it is with you, unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air" (Noland, 142).

We have all experienced worship with phenomenal musicians who have failed to make our souls fill with worship. Conversely, we have all, also, experienced mediocre musicians bring down the house with their spirit. So, we must continually ask our self the question: "Are we spending as much time thinking about how our message will be received as practicing our technique?" We may be fantastic at our craft, but fail to lead worship.

In order to ensure that we are communicating effectively, we need to be intentional with our efforts. This means that we all should be discussing what sort of outcome we would like from every song or other art form. Since not everyone picks every song, we need to have those who picked the song explain to those who will be using the song as a catalyst to lead worship what the intent of the song is. That way, we may be unified in our efforts to clearly communicate the Message.

In addition, we need to practice using our whole body in worship during rehearsals. Noland illustrates that worshiping with our arms straight at our sides, eyes averted to our music, and blank faces seems unnatural and does not effectively communicate the love of God (Noland, 143). Since using our whole body to worship may be a bit uncomfortable at first, it is really important to practice it during rehearsal so that we will be comfortable and genuine when we worship with the congregation.

In case you haven't figured out the incredible importance of communicating with everything we have, Noland leaves us with one last point, "We in the church need to take communication seriously, because we've been given the charge to communicate the Good News" (Noland, 144).

Are you convinced that it's important for art in the church to communicate clearly? What should we do to make sure that we are communicating clearly? What will you do to make sure that you are communicating clearly through worship?

New Song

Throughout the Bible God celebrates creativity and unique ways to worship him. Continually, he reminds us that all things that are good are from him. We need this constant reminder because we often find ourselves creating rules and putting parameters on what we consider to be the best way or the only way to worship Him and provide worship opportunities for others to worship Him.

One example that Noland highlights is the way God explains how He wants the tabernacle made in Exodus 28:33. It gets interesting when God explains to the "artists" how to construct the priests' garments. These artists were "instructed to create blue, purple, and scarlet pomegranates" (Noland, 141). Isn't it interesting how pomegranates "can be purple and scarlet during various stages of their growth, but never blue. Imagine that - a blue pomegranate. In other words, the artists didn't have to make exact duplicates of nature. They could bring something new and refreshingly different to their work" (Noland, 141). This highlights the fact that we are given the freedom to bring our artistic gifts and creativity to how we worship.

Because there are so many pleasing ways to worship God, we may find that we do not agree with each other on the way that worship should be conducted. Some of us love the tradition of hymns and songs that we loved as children in the church. Others of us may want to experience Sunday worship by bringing down the house with joyful jubilee and professed hallelujahs. Then again, a portion of us may be thinking too much about what kind of worship is best without allowing for God's input or work on our spirit. How many of us have sat in the congregation on Sundays and spent more time thinking about the worship music than focusing on our own worship?

Noland emphasizes in this section that we need to embrace different kinds of worship, which means being open to the new and different. He states, "that's why God's Word encourages us to sing to the Lord a 'new song' (Ps 33:3) (Noland, 142). We need to be open to other forms of worship (not just musically) and feel that our worship community is open to our ideas of worship. (Spoiler alert: the next post will be about open communication...).

For this post, reflect upon a current worship method at our church that you love and/or you feel the congregation loves. Then, explain a worship style or practice that you would like to add to our current method.

Artistic Integrity

Up until this point, Noland has discussed the downfalls of perfectionism in great detail. Perfectionist tendencies are capable of ruining an artist and a worship environment. Yet, this doesn't mean that we now have the freedom to show up as an artist without putting any effort into our craft. Instead, we must learn to practice artistic integrity by taking the time to develop our skills in a way that honors God. This has the potential of being a really tricky line to walk because there is not very much space between artistic integrity and perfectionism. As artists, we need to be careful to become excellent at our craft without becoming a perfectionist.

First, we need to understand what artistic integrity is. Noland explains that we must not "strive to be perfect; instead [we must] try to perform or create skillfully. In other words, do the best [we] can with the talent [we've] been given. It doesn't glorify God to be mediocre."

Throughout the bible, God continually exhibits creativity and skillful artistry in his creations. He shows us that He delights in those who continually work on developing their gifts to honor Him. For example, in the Old Testament a man named Kenaniah was extremely skillful and was, thus, singled out for leadership. He achieved this leadership because he continually worked on developing his craft to its fullest potential while always remaining focused on God (1 Chron. 15:22). Clearly, he had artistic integrity.

By looking at the book of First Chronicals, we can see that the development of artistic skill is very important. These artists took numerous classes and lessons. They were highly trained. We need to become more like these artists and take the time to become excellent at our craft.

There is often a misconception that because we are practicing our craft in church we do not need to work as hard. Conversely, we should be doing the exact opposite! "For too long artistry in the church has been thrown together without much regard for quality. For too long we've muttered under our breath 'Aw, it's good enough for church,' and the result is that church art (especially music) has come to be associated with insipid mediocrity. Some of us only do enough to goet by. God deserves so much more than that. He deserves our very best" (Noland, 139). God gave each of us a specific talent and we are directly responsible for how we ust that talent. It must greatly grieve him to watch us barely putting effort into our worship when we put so much effort into other worldly passions. Schaeffer states that "Of all people, Christians should be addicted to quality and integrity in every area, not be looking for excuses for second-best."

This means that we need to become extremely intentional with our craft by working to continually better ourselves. We can do this by exposing ourselves to the great arts and learning from them. This doesn't mean that we only pay attention to Christian artists though. We can learn to become better artists through a plethora of mediums. Thus, "we should be attending exhibits, concerts, plays, movies, and musicals to broaden our artistic horizons" (Noland, 138). We need to expose ourselves to excellence in order to become excellent.

Don't be fooled though, artistic integrity means lots of hard work. "There is a price to be paid for excellence... This is no time for our artists in the church to be lazy. God is on the verge of using the arts in a mighty way. The days of us in the church producing art in a mediocre fashion are over. Being lazy with our talent is more a sign of being comfortable than being committed" (Noland, 139).

Noland states that we need to create artistic integrity by committing to becoming excellent at our craft. This means that we need to take time to practice, learn, and be open to coaching. As in anything that takes work, the best way to ensure that we are all taking the time to become better at our talents is by sharing what we are doing (or will be doing) with each other. For this post, share in the comment section what you are or will be doing to become more excellent at your craft.

Pursuing Excellence

Rory Noland has some awesome things to say about pursuing excellence that I believe needs to be heard without paraphrase. Why "recreate the wheel" when it's already said so well? Here is what he has to say: (You can find this passage on pages 136-137 of your Heart of Worship book)

By now some of you might be saying, "Now, wait a minute. Didn't the masters and the great artists of history have a perfectionistic streak that catapulted their art into greatness? Wasn't perfectionism part of their genius?" It's my observation that pursuing perfectionism is destructive to the artist and his or her art. Perfectionism is unhealthy. It inhibits performance and stifles creativity. I think the best artists pursue excellence, not perfection. In fact, I'd like to propose that perfectionism is more or less the evil twin of excellence. While perfectionism is destructive and man-centered, pursuing excellence is constructive and God-honoring. Instead of pursuing perfection, we need to pursue excellence.

Nancy Breach, our programming director here at Willow Creek, defines excellence as "doing the best you can with what you have." No matter how much or how little talent we've been given, we can all try to do our best. For all of you perfectionists out there, note the word TRY. God understands that we're not perfect. All He's asking us to do is to try. No matter where you are in your development as an artist, we can all try to do things with excellence. You don't have to be a professional to do the best you can with what you have. you don't even have to be an accomplished artist. you just have to be willing to try to do your best.

Pursuing excellence means we do our best with what we have, to the glory of God. He is worthy of our very best. We serve an ultimately creative God. When He created the world, He imbued it with breathtaking beauty and awe-inspiring majesty. God didn't just throw things together when He created the universe. He modeled creative excellence for us. Seven times during the Genesis account of creation, God stands back, looks at what He's created, and says, "It is good." It's obvious that we serve a God who delights in creativity and values doing things with excellence.

Excellence is also a powerful witness for Christ. Most non-Christians who ever end up in church expect the music to be lousy and outdated. They don't expect to be moved by drama or dance or the visual arts. Wouldn't it be great if they were to come expecting the worst but instead found the arts produced with creativity and excellence? Wouldn't it be great if the local church were leading the way in artistic excellence for our culture? Proverbs 22:29 says, "Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before Kings; he will not serve before obscure men." When we do things with excellence, the world will sit up and take notice, and we can point them to the God who created us, gifted us, and loves us.

Noland outlines several different points in the above passage that need some consideration:

1. Perfectionism is destructive and excellence is constructive and God honoring
2. We must always TRY for excellence no matter what
3. As Christian artists, we have a powerful tool at our fingertips that can engage non-believers and begin their Christ-centered conversations

Reflect on this passage by giving your insight on one of the major points. It would be valuable to hear how one of the points may be practiced in our worship team, how we may continue to move forward and be "current", or even personal success stories of how we have achieved one of the points.

Thank you for sharing!

The Big Picture

As we continually strive to honor God with our gifts of worship, we need to set realistic expectations. Even though we may desire perfectionism, we have to acknowledge the fact that we will never be perfect and that God does not expect us to be perfect. He can take our imperfections and use them for His good. What we really need to do, then, is understand that there is a greater purpose at work than ours; a "big picture" per se.

For a small portion of us, this realization that we don't need to shoulder the burden of making sure that we worship perfectly in order to bring about God's will is a great relief. For a larger portion of us, we need to work on the extremely difficult task of stepping back, becoming vulnerable, and allowing God to use our imperfections for His good.

The first step in this is realizing that our expectations need to come from God; not from our own prognosis of what we think worship should look, sound, or feel like. Noland states, "We need to give our expectations over to Him and exchange them for what He expects, not what we expect. We might be expecting artistic perfection, that might be the furthest thing from God's mind. Try to keep the big picture in mind. God cares about all the details of our artistic endeavors, but He's also in the business of saving souls. What's more important? That our efforts come off perfectly or that God's name be praised and that lost people come to know Him through our ministry? Try to keep things in His perspective" (Noland, 135).

Yet, this doesn't mean that we now get to play Parcheesi during rehearsals instead of working diligently through our worship music. Conversely, this means that we need to ever work harder on opening our ears to hear what the Lord is wanting of us and our spiritual gifts. "He expects us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Him (Mic. 6:8). God expects us to grow spiritually. The end result is His responsibility. Our job is to cooperate with the process. We put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect (the end product), when God is more concerned with the process (that we walk humbly with Him)" (Noland, 135).

There are countless examples of ways that we have become more concerned with the end result than with allowing God's process to work in our lives. Unfortunately, many of these examples come with some embarrassment of knowing that we caused the uncomfortable conundrum by not following God's direction. Sadly, many of these lessons were learned in hindsight. This prompts our reflection questions:

How do we know that we are following God's big picture of saving souls instead of our own unrealistic expectations?

What can we do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis to ensure that we are in a place to be able to hear what God is saying?