Nine Marks of a Healthy Worship Leader

My local church is in search of a worship leader.[1] To that end, our senior pastor cobbled together a group of twelve members for a Worship Leader Search Committee. Despite my musical ineptitude, I was among those asked to serve.

I suppose I’m equal parts grateful and terrified. After all, the title “worship leader” is nowhere in the New Testament. This fact tempts even the most levelheaded toward the subjective and superficial, where already drawn lines and white-knuckled commitments merely evidence what we’ve previously seen, known, or been comfortable with.

So I wanted to pass along a few thoughts I’ve developed as I’ve prayed through what my church is undertaking in the coming weeks, and what your church may be going through right now. I’ve unoriginally titled them “Nine Marks of a Healthy Worship Leader.”

NINE MARKS OF A HEALTHY WORSHIP LEADER

I’m convinced these nine things are must-haves for anyone leading a congregation in song week after week. Far from exhaustive, they are a set of traits, postures, and characteristics I believe are informed by Scripture and ought to transcend culture and denomination.

1. Your worship leader should meet the biblical qualifications of an elder.   Continue at Alex Duke

Is She Up for This? Questions for a Potential Pastor’s Wife

Before you pursue the office of pastor, you know that you need to be ready. But have you asked whether your wife is ready?

Formally, I don’t believe there should be extra expectations placed on a pastor’s wife. There is no office of “pastor’s wife” in the Bible. But practically, being married to a pastor is a tough role. Does your wife have what it takes? Is she up for it?

Those are the questions I want to help you ask in this article.

It is critical for you to ask such questions. Men preparing for the ministry can easily become blindly ambitious, even idolatrous, without realizing it. When that happens, we risk turning our wives into means to making much of ourselves. If they get in the way of our goals, we run them over. It’s therefore critical, as I say, to stop, loosen our grip on the ministry goals, and give real honest thought to our wives.

It has taken me a long time to realize how vulnerable our wives are to us. They take our name. They live with the consequences of our decisions. And they just might have to crawl under the pew—at least in my case—when we use poor grammar in a sermon.

So please be careful. And be careful in how you use this article. I am not proposing a new law for our wives: “Honey, read these eight points. You have to be these things!”

I just want to keep some people from trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. There are a variety of roles within the church. Knowing where you and your wife fit will bless you and the church.

My wife Cathi and I have been married for almost 30 years. Early on I discovered that I had punted beyond my coverage. No matter the situation, Cathi has been an incredible source of support, wisdom, and grace.

She never wanted to marry a pastor. She did not “feel called” to this role. But she was willing to follow me, and along the way God has proven her well suited to the position. For the last twenty-four years we have been members of one church where I have served as the senior pastor. Although she chooses not to be highly visible, she has a very important—and not easy—role.    Continue at Bob Johnson

Are You Really a Christian?

Are you really a Christian?

Goodness, that's a tough question to pose to someone who professes to be a believer. And handing them Mike McKinley's book Am I Really a Christian? can amount to that very thing.

I would not encourage you to knock on the door of every nominal believer you know and hand them this book, but can you think of one person who might be ready to RE-consider that question? Here's an encouraging story I received this weekend from a pastor:

Last night we had the privilege of baptizing Anne. Anne grew up in a legalistic church. In college, she was a diligent student but got caught up in the college scene and, having never truly trusted in Christ, fell into immorality.
  However, during the summer of 2011, she came to DC to do a summer internship on the Hill. While there, she lived with her brother and attended your church. She was struck by how many people she saw worshipping Christ, loving the gospel, and truly living for their faith. It was the first time she heard the gospel faithfully taught and applied.
  Here's where 9Marks comes in: when she left at the end of the summer, her brother gave her a copy of Am I Really a Christian? by Mike McKinley. Initially, Anne was frustrated with her brother, because she assumed she was a Christian, and she refused to give the book a look. But over Christmas break her mind changed. Intent upon proving him wrong, she read the book and realized she wasn't truly following Christ. 
  For some time she wrestled with the reality that she had no desire for Christ. But after much prayer and pleading from her brother and his wife, Anne ended up coming to our little church plant that her brother had found on the 9Marks Church Search map.  After a few weeks of attending our church, Anne emailed me to get together to talk about "the process of true conversion and repentance."

I know you see the gospel change people's hearts regularly, but if you're like me, your heart breaks for those who hear the good news of Jesus Christ and walk away seemingly unchanged. I just wanted to let you know how God used your church, 9Marks, and Mike McKinley's book to lead one home that may have appeared to get away. 

Can you think of just one friend who would benefit from Am I Really a Christian? 

HT:  Jonathan Leeman

Discipling When You Need to Be Discipled

[Ed. Note: For more articles like this one, check out the latest 9Marks Journal on Discipling in the Church.]

I was not sure what discipling was supposed to look like, but I was certain it did not look like what I was doing.

“I must have it all backwards,” I thought as I closed the door behind the poor sister who had given up an hour of her life to come and be discipled.

“I am a mess. I have no idea what I’m doing here. There certainly wasn’t any ‘teaching’ going on with my crazy hooligan children and my heart in a bad place toward my husband. I shouldn’t be teaching anyone. I’m the one who needs discipling! God, what would you have me do?”

I mumbled all this half aloud as I walked back into the kitchen to finish making dinner.

FINDING STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS

Little did I know how God would use this situation, along with many other similar ones, to teach me a great deal about his purposes in my life. Little did I know how God would turn my weaknesses into strength. During this season my husband and I, both in our thirties, found ourselves thrust into the category of “older people” in our church. I searched for a woman who might be able to encourage me spiritually as we muddled through some challenging times, but God had other plans.

Instead of granting this desire, he grew my passion for discipling. Gradually I learned that it was less about me doing the right thing and more about me obeying God’s command to “teach the younger women” (Tit. 2:4). I found God frequently brought women into my life who were younger in either age or spiritual maturity and who were desperate for someone to help them learn how to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deut. 6:4-9).    Continue at Erin Wheeler

New 9Marks eJournal

There’s a new 9Marks ejournal available focusing on making disciples in the local church.  From Leeman’s introduction to the issue:

Discipling is not a program. It is not a podcast preacher. It is not a one-size-fits-all information transfer.

It is life-on-life loving in word and deed.

Jesus told us to make disciples, which means it is a basic part of the Christian life. But we are not always sure how to get a handle on it, or what it looks like.

If you are a pastor or elder, you should be leading the way in discipling younger individuals in the faith. Your instruction and example should be helping to cultivate a culture of discipleship in your church. Does that sound intimidating? If it does, are you sure you are called to be an elder?

The contents:

Pastors Who Make Disciples

The Heart of a Disciple-Making Pastor
By Bobby Jamieson
What is the essential quality of a disciple-making pastor? Rejoicing in others’ ministry. Read more >

Discipling: More than a Podcast Preacher
By Jonathan Dodson
Podcast sermons can never replace in-person spiritual fathers. Here’s how to recover a relationally mediated gospel. Read more >

Elders—The Church’s Lead Disciple-Makers
By Jeramie Rinne
The goal of shepherding is the maturity of the members. Therefore, elders should be the church’s lead disciple-makers. Read more >

Continue at 9marks

Revisiting Baptism and Young Children

I’ve considered this question before. As Baptists, when should we baptize our children? A few blog posts recently give reasons why we should or should not delay baptism until our children are more mature (apx. ages 10-12).

First, Trevin Wax gave 4 points on his position relating to this question (which is that we should delay baptizing children until they are around 10 years old or so).

John Starke at The Gospel Coalition Blog then gave 4 reasons why we should baptize small children.

On the heels of these posts, Mike Gilbart-Smith at 9 Marks Blog posted his own “9 reasons why we should not baptize young children“. Keep Reading>>>

Protect the Flock by Excluding Visitors

Elders are called to protect the church from people who would do them spiritual harm (wolves among the sheep). One of the ways we try to do that in our church is by not allowing people to get very involved in the life of the congregation until they are members. 

So in our church, non-members are welcome to attend and participate in the public services of the church.  We are happy to have them in our Sunday morning gathering, our Sunday evening gathering, and our fellowship meals.

But we don't let people attend small groups or serve among the children or lead music until they are members.  In order to join the church, a person must be examined by the elders and approved by the congregation.  Once a person has been through that process, we feel reasonably comfortable that they are safe (that is to say, not a wolf). 

But until the point, we don't want to encourage people in the church to look to that person as a leader by putting them up in front of the congregation to lead singing.  We don't want them teaching the children of the church.  We don't want people to completely let their guard down and trust them in the way we ask members to trust each other in small groups.

People who are "regular attenders" but who haven't joined the church sometimes feel like our policy is exclusive.  But ultimately my responsibility is to the flock over which the Spirit has made me an overseer.  And besides, they are welcome to pursue church membership at any time.

And if you're looking for an awesome sermon on church membership, Jonathan Leeman preached one at my favorite church yesterday.

HT: 9marks

Deacons: Shock-Absorber Servants

Nine Marks Ministries, has a new e-journal up. The topic is deacons. I read through the articles and thought everything was very helpful.

Here’s an interesting quote. But you’ll want to go read the whole thing. The articles are fairly short but cover a lot of ground.

What Is The Gospel?

There are two things in particular that I think are particular dangers for evangelicals in this area. First, as I said above, there's a tendency simply to shove the cross out of the center of the gospel, to say something like, "Yes yes yes, of course the cross is important. But we need to understand that what the gospel is really about is [fill in the blank]." It could be "God's purpose to remake the world" or "God's invitation to us to join him in bringing about his kingdom" or "a declaration that Jesus is Lord over all" or any number of other things. So the center of the gospel becomes something other than the cross. I think that's a misunderstanding of the gospel.

Second, I think there's a tendency to re-think or re-understand the cross as something other than Jesus dying in the place of his people, taking the punishment they deserved for their sin. Read the rest HERE

Pragmatism, Pragmatism Everywhere!

EVANGELICAL PRAGMATISM: AN OLD PATH TO LIBERALISM

It should never be forgotten that a passion for evangelism, and a seemingly genuine desire for a relevant Christianity that “worked,” is what motivated Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of liberal Protestant theology. As best we can tell Schleiermacher did not labor away in some dark den of intrigue, intentionally plotting to ruin the faith of German Christians. No, his initial, 1799 publication was an evangelistic/apologetic book entitled, “On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers.”

In the introduction to the 1926 edition of that work, Rudolf Otto writes, “The intention of the work is crystal clear. It aimed to recapture the position that religion had lost in the intellectual world where it was threatened with total oblivion.”[7]

But in Scheiermacher’ s desperate efforts to rescue the work of the church and make the Christian religion relevant to modern intellectuals, he devised a system that placed the locus of authority in “experience” or “piety” rather than in God’s Word. He wanted an approach that would produce results among Enlightenment intellectuals. And it did work! His book was an instant sensation and many in his target people group responded visibly to his method. And the damage done to true biblical faith by this successful error has continued to cascade onward, wrecking souls and churches for more than two centuries now.

Would it not be ironic and deeply sad were we to discover years from now that many conservative evangelicals have, in regard to missions, unwittingly gotten onto a similar downgrade? So absolutizing the goal of immediate, visible results that our locus of authority is shifting? Read the rest HERE

See also Putting Contextualization in its Place