an excerpt from: The Church Service

An excerpt from: The Church Service

“We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.’…May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”– Romans 15:1…7 (ESV)

Most everything I have tried to wrestle with so far has been from the perspective of what I hear the Bible teaching me regarding how I should live my everyday life in the arts in the recognition, strength, enjoyment, and to the praise of God, so that my joy may be full.

God is interested in my joy (Psalm 81:16). I have a life that is immersed in music and other art forms by the direct design of God. A life, as is your own, that is not a solo life, but rather, a part of all mankind, and even more specifically, a necessary part of the body of Christ, if we are indeed repentant and atoned for. Our necessity in the body is in no way on account of anything of our doing. Hear me artists, we have no ground or reason to boast in the part of the body that we are! We are an insufficient one of many.

Part of the body of Christ is made up of artists solely because of God’s counsel and pleasure, and to the praise of His wisdom! And the counsel of God is the only reason why anyone, even everyone, in the body of Christ is deemed necessary (I Cor. 12:22). It is this way because of the will of God (I Cor. 12).

When the body of Christ comes together to worship the Lord in one accord, meaning that all kinds of body parts with different designs and functions put aside their individual preferences for the joy of joining together to worship God, the members of the body will individually see a view of God that can only be seen when worshiping together as a whole. We should not be so immature as to let our artistic preference issues distract us from the pleasures of God that are known through corporately worshiping together.

Consider a soccer match. It sure is easy for masses of people to set aside personal preferences in order to experience the joy of rooting on their team in one accord, hoping to see a victory. I don’t get all bent out of shape if I don’t hear my style of music being played over the field PA system at a soccer match. Or a country & western theme over the PA does not distract me from focusing on the ball in play! I go to a soccer match because I desire to view soccer battled out live in the field, and there is a pleasure in joining along with other lovers of soccer in helping my team wrestle for a victory. I can set my individual music preferences aside in order to know that corporate pleasure of victory.

Do we go to church with the desire to be victorious in seeing and worshiping God? Can we set aside our artistic preferences for a kind of worship and view of God that is only found when the masses come together? The challenger to this goal of truly worshiping God at church is not the other church members, but the devil and his own. The devil is very sly. He knows that he can easily subvert a victory if he can just confuse the direction of the people. We’ve bought his lie when we exercise no self-control over our personal preferences in corporate worship. Our lack of self-control will only cost us a victory. We won’t see God, and that makes us the loser...

SHOULD WE SEEK A SOUND OR A BLESSING?

There is this deceptive notion that we all embrace to some degree, which I fear makes us miss out on what the Holy Spirit would have for us of God. We tend to assume that our music worship time should sound a certain way before we take stock of whom the Lord has put together in our local flock. We tend to look for a sound rather than for the blessing of God.

What if God didn’t give your flock the ability to play a piano and a bass but rather a fife and drum, or an accordion and a banjo, or some other initially unfamiliar Sunday morning mix? Do you first think that this instrumentation won’t do and that you must go and secure the “necessary” instrumentalists? Maybe even to the degree that you are willing to overlook the state of the musicians’ own heart for the sake of a certain sound? Would you hand over the responsibility of leading the people in the worship of God to someone who does not know or worship God himself? The Lord “does not take pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord favors those who fear Him…” (Psalm 147:10b-11a). God doesn’t say that He favors a certain sound or style, He’s made them all. He favors those who fear Him.

I can hear the objection presented that God is excellent and deserves nothing but our absolute best. And I answer:

Yes. He is excellent!

And yes, He is deserving of our very best!

God is deserving for sure, but do we know what God demands and delights in?

God could care less about our very best where our very best is not from faith. He says of Eliab to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (I Samuel 16:7). We need to be careful not to think as men think. That is really tough, being a man.

This issue of excellence is really an issue of faithfulness with what we have been given, it’s not about style selection. Excellence is an issue of faithfulness on the part of the leader as he works to discern what will be most helpful and not distracting to his people. Excellence is an issue of faithfulness on the part of the servant (musician, etc…) as he will have to give account to his Master on how he employed what was entrusted to him for the edification of the body. Excellence is an issue of faithfulness on the part of the worshiping heart in the pew not to entertain pride by thinking that God has granted godliness more or less upon certain musical forms of expressions, but rather to employ humility and sing to God. Regarding excellence, let’s, each one of us, apply excellence toward personally being faithful with our portion in the body and see if things don’t fall excellently into place.

Maybe we should first ask the Lord who the person is who has His blessing in leading the corporate worship time, and then listen for the sound that the Lord would compose? Since God put the body together as He desired, He should know best what the greatest blessing would be for that local flock.

We are so tempted to try to reproduce a sound that I’m afraid we often forfeit the tailored blessings the Lord would have for us when we presumptuously think we need to sound or look like what’s going on in the next county. The Lord is not shallow in grace or creativity. He knit your local body together just as He desired (1 Cor. 12:18), which may not be as your flesh desires, but will prove to be, if you yield, the means that you experience the fullness of God’s blessing for your flock. See whom He brings to your fold. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to sound as the popular. You will only be frustrated. In fact, if you find that you are currently frustrated, see if your heels are ensnared in this trap already.

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excerpt from The Affections of the Heart in Art - a wrestling for the full pleasures in art Jason Harms