Love God. Love People.

I recently attended "The Worship Summit" satellite simulcast led by Integrity Artists like Paul Baloche, Lincoln Brewster, Brian Doerksen & Ross Parsley. In short it was fabulous and I took lots of notes. So if you were there and you see some thoughts here in this blog that sound familiar from time to time you know why! One thing several of them talked about is exactly our theme in church right now:

What's the greatest commandment? In Matthew 22:34-40 Jesus lays it out as simply as possible. Love God. Then love people. That sums it up. This is the basis for all of our worship leading too. Life complicates. But we have to keep coming back to the simple basics as worship leaders. Love God and love His people. 

LOVE GOD

To LEAD worship we have to, ourselves, worship and love God. A leader leads from out-front, modeling the way and calling others to follow. We wade into deep waters and beckon others to join us. We don't stand on the shore and prod others to go swimming while we cheerlead. And all of this service comes because He loved us first in a way we could never repay but spend our lives as if to try.

LOVE PEOPLE

We have the privilege of SERVING God's people by leading them in worship. This is not a power-position but a chance to bless God by blessing those created in His image. We get the opportunity to take people to Jesus - who loves them even more than we ever could. So we make our decisions based not on what strokes our egos and will feel good; but what is best for the people of God. What do they need? What does God want for them? How can we facilitate the meeting of heaven and earth today for sake of God, for the sake of His people, because we love them both?

What are we focused on?

Musical excellence? 

A perfectly programmed production? 

Or blessing God and His people?

One this is for sure: In our churches, we will eventually get what we focus on.