It's not about you.

This is the first sentence of Rick Warren's book, "The Purpose Driven Life". It also is the first thing I think every minister of music and church musician must realize. Our job often seems to be the one thing besides preaching that affects the weekly service the most. If we are skilled, anointed, and on the ball, God seems close and the service is high. If we have an off day, or worse, are ineffective, uninterested, and unspiritual, we can drag the service down. But this is all misleading from the entire point of worship.

No matter how much we link our human intuition and talent to the presence of God, we do not determine alone whether God shows up in our service. We are simply a part of the mechanism God uses to bring us into contact with his presence. Prayer, praise, and proclamation must all be present in order for a congregation to know the full presence of God, and music can not become a catch all or substitute for worship.


The good part for musicians is that you need not bear the blame every time the service fails to produce expected results. While we have a responsibility to worship God through music with a spirit of excellence, we must never make the mistake of lucifer and think that we are either the object or the main conduit of worship. It's most important that musicians have a private worship life that can be activated even without the accolades or congregational response. That way you are never unduly motivated to forget the purpose of corporate worship - to bring attention to
Christ and not to yourself, either negatively or positively.


Looking unto the hills,

miamimaestro