David Zimmer: Hello and welcome to the Sound Plus Doctrine Podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
Bob Kauflin: My name is Bob Kauflin. And what a joy it is to be together.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: We have a great topic today, at least we think it is. And hopefully the people listening will as well.
DZ: Same, yeah.
BK: We’ve had the opportunity to do a couple of seminars on this over the years at WorshipGod Conferences. I did one at the Sing! conference, it’s just called “Worshiping a Big God in a Small Church”.
DZ: Which are most churches.
BK: Which are most churches. That’s right. If you were in a big group at a conference or something, you ask how many people your church is, 200 or less, 80% of the people.
DZ: Oh, yeah.
BK: Maybe 50. A lot of people… Surely below 500. But most churches are below 200. So you get this idea, you get it from a number of places, this feeling of, oh, what am I doing? Certainly when you go to a conference, everything’s done so well, so polished, so seamless.
DZ: My musicians don’t sound like this.
BK: No, no.
DZ: My projectionists can’t get their words right.
BK: No. Or I’m the only musician in my church, and…
DZ: Totally.
BK: So you feel like it can almost be a deflating feeling to come back from a conference or even sometimes visiting another church or seeing another church. You know, you scroll on YouTube and you just see…
DZ: Oh, my.
BK: Man, these churches look so good. So we wanted to put this on the podcast just to make it available, because we want to encourage anyone who is feeling like they don’t have enough to bring God glory in their church that you do.
DZ: Yeah, right, true.
BK: So we’ll be covering three things related to Worshiping a Big God in a Small Church. Our aims, our needs, and our response. We want to make sure we’re aiming for the right things. We want to be aware of the resources God has given us, and we want to know some next steps to take, both whether it might be in our hearts or in our church. So first is aims. You know, all of us have aims when we are standing up in front of a congregation leading. It could be, I want people to like me. It could be, I want people to sing loud. Whether or not we think we have those aims, we have them. And the question is, are they the same as God’s? And here’s how… Here’s one way you can know your aims just by whether it’s a joy for you to step up and lead or sit down and lead or whatever, or are there other things going on in your heart and some of the temptations that are commonly faced, I’m going to name three, is comparison. We are tempted to compare ourselves with bigger churches that have more musicians in better locations, better leaders, more money.
BK: And in that case, our aim is to be bigger and better. That’s what we’re striving for, that’s what we’re aiming at. There’s another temptation we face and that is just self pity. We’re just thinking, my standard for Sunday morning is I just don’t wanna be embarrassed. I just don’t want people to walk out. I want just a couple of people to sing. And we just feel, we feel so bad because we just don’t feel like we… No one’s noticing what we’re doing. And that’s our aim is to be noticed, to be appreciated. That’s not why we do what we do. And then a third temptation is just weariness, which is understandable. You’ve been serving at your church for 10 years, there are 63 people coming, most on a good Sunday. And there are still that… You never break that 70 cap. It’s just… And no musicians seem to know about your church. God has seen fit to tell musicians, don’t go to that church. So we get weary. And I’d say the aim there is just to find an easier way, to find a way out and you may have thought about… Someone’s probably listening to this podcast thinking, yeah, I have thought about quitting, I’ve thought about just stopping because I don’t wanna do this anymore.
BK: We pray by the power of God’s spirit that this podcast will encourage you to stay where you are and to believe God for bigger and better things. Because here’s the deal, the aims for big churches are the same as aims for small churches because we don’t find them from our experience. We don’t find them from YouTube, we don’t find them from TikTok or Instagram or the latest and greatest software we heard about or a conference. We find them from God’s word. So that’s what we’re going to look at. So the aims of what we’re doing when we’re getting together. Well, Hebrews 10:24-25 talks about how we’re to meet together, to stir up one another, to love and good works. So to encourage one another. And that’s what it says. “Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” Can you encourage one another in a church of 70? Yeah, you can. Colossians 3:16, “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Well, there you got the aim of meeting and singing is to have the word of Christ dwelling in us richly. Singing psalms and hymns, spiritual songs, being thankful. Can we do that with 70 people?
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Yeah, we can. Or 700 or 7,000 aims the same. Here’s one. Psalm 105:1-2, “give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds.” Can you do those things in a small church? Giving thanks to the Lord, calling on his name, making known his deeds. “Sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wondrous works.” Can you tell of his wondrous works?
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Yeah, you can… Go ahead.
DZ: I didn’t mean to interrupt. But what’s great, even in the verses you’ve quoted right here, it’s always an outward aim.
BK: Yes.
DZ: You talk… You just shared, maybe our temptation is towards self pity or comparison. Yet all these passages are showing you letting the word of Christ dwelling in us richly, to admonish each other.
BK: Yes, yes. That’s right.
DZ: To encourage each other to look outside of your own. I think that’s what happens is we have like those… What are those horse blinders that they use at the Derby? It’s like I can only see what’s right in front of me.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Yet I don’t have an awareness of what’s around me.
BK: Yeah. We gather for a reason and that is to benefit from all those that we’re with. It’s not about me having my own little experience apart from whoever’s there. We have it together. And so all these verses speak to that. In fact, 1st Peter 2:4- 5, “when we gather, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” We’ll come back to that later. But we’re being built up as a spiritual house.
DZ: All of us.
BK: All of us proclaiming the Lord’s excellencies. A little later in 1st Peter 2:9. “You’re a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” Why “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Have you been caught out of darkness into his marvelous light? Yes, I have. Can you proclaim it? Yes, I can. How many people do you need for that? You know, it just gets almost embarrassingly obvious.
DZ: That’s good.
BK: Speaking to one another. Ephesians 5 talks about addressing one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, sharing the Lord’s Supper. As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. You don’t need hundreds and hundreds of people to do that.
DZ: Right, right, right.
BK: And then anticipating Christ’s return, waiting… This is Titus 2:13-14. “Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” Can we gather together to remember that we are waiting for the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ?
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Yes, we can.
DZ: Yeah. And we gather to spur one another on because so often we are so tempted to think so temporally, you know?
BK: Yeah. Just right now.
DZ: Right now, whatever is happening right now in front of us and lose sight of the reality that you’re joining in, in an earthly sense, in an eternal worship service. That’s stunning.
BK: Well, and the writer to Hebrews… I didn’t have this in my notes, but the writer of Hebrews talks about it, when we come together, he talks about the difference between coming to Mount Zion and coming to… I’m sorry, coming to the blazing fire of Mount Sinai.
DZ: Oh yeah.
BK: And what we’re doing in verse, Hebrews 12:22, “you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” This is what’s happening when we are gathering “to innumerable angels in festival gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” So we are gathered with the hosts of heaven. As we gather with our little church. That’s very compelling. That’s very, very encouraging.
DZ: Totally.
BK: So in light of those things, a few years ago I tried to come up with a brief summation of what we’re trying to do and our aim when we’re gathering. So I said Christian worship is the God enabled response of his redeemed people to his self revelation. So that’s God’s doing it in us, that exalts God’s glory in Christ, in our minds and affections and wills, in the power of his Holy Spirit. It doesn’t take a big group to do that.
DZ: Right.
BK: And then Devin, my son came up with a similar definition, which I love because it’s a little more expansive. “Corporate worship is God’s spirit enabled and word governed gift.” It’s a gift. It’s not a labor, it’s not a burden, it’s not a show. “It’s a gift initiated by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ for his covenant people, those he’s redeemed, to gratefully assemble in space and time to witness to the worth and work of God in Christ by the Spirit through proclamation, prayer, singing, and the sacraments as they receive from Christ, act in him and long for him to come again.” It’s beautiful, we’ll put those in the notes.
DZ: Both of those are so excellent. [laughter]
BK: We’re not aiming to be like the church down the street or the conference we recently attended or what we find on YouTube.
DZ: Right.
BK: We are aiming to fulfill those things that we just read about, because those are God’s priorities.
DZ: Yeah. And just to encourage, maybe you are a weary pastor listening to this podcast, to encourage you that I love what Dev said here. A covenant people gratefully assembling in space and time. This people, this time, this space. I think a pastor can be weary to go, well, I just would relocate, find new people.
BK: Find another place.
DZ: Find a different place. Find a different time. But I think, man, if God has called you, again, granted you’re in prayer and accountability, but if God has called you to these people, these are the people he’s bringing you.
BK: Yes.
DZ: These are the musicians you have. These are the elders you have. So just to encourage you, this is what God is orchestrating.
BK: Yeah. And this is just not to say, we try to do these podcasts in a focused way. This is not to say there wouldn’t be times that you are in the wrong place.
DZ: Yes, yes, absolutely.
BK: But assuming you are in the right place, God’s put you in this church. He has something for you to do for his glory through Christ, through the power of spirit. So that’s what we’re speaking of. Because always, we’re not aiming to be a production company. We’re not aiming to be defined by lighting and video and staging.
DZ: Yeah. Followers, fans, whatever.
BK: Yes, yes. The church is the place where the treasure of Jesus Christ, this is 2nd Corinthians 4:7, shines forth through jars of clay, where our confidence rests in the demonstration of the Spirit’s power, not on our own abilities.
DZ: Which is good news.
BK: It is…
DZ: It’s freeing.
BK: We don’t have to prove that we’re jars of clay. We are. [laughter] That’s what God calls us. You don’t have to intentionally make mistakes…
DZ: Or that we’re gold chalices.
[laughter]
BK: Yes. That’s what we are. God calls us jars of clay so that it may be evident that the all surpassing power is from God and not from us.
DZ: Right.
BK: Everywhere, always in the New Testament, the point, the purpose and the power of the gathered church is witnessing to and experiencing God’s presence among his people, manifested through his Word, the gospel, the sacraments and spiritual gifts.
DZ: Yes. Amen.
BK: One is hard pressed to find anywhere in the New Testament that says music is to be a draw for the church or the most exciting part of the meeting or the reason we meet with the church.
DZ: Right.
BK: It’s a part of it. It’s just not the main thing.
DZ: Wow, that’s such… That’s so counterintuitive to what we see.
BK: It is counterintuitive.
DZ: Isn’t that crazy to think about? Like, you see more worship groups in churches than you do preaching in churches. You know, I think it’s that draw. But… And I think pastors can be tempted.
BK: Oh…
DZ: Oh well, if this is better, then this will come. And what you’re saying… What we’re saying is, no, we have those flipped. The Bible has those flipped.
BK: Still, we’re commanded to sing to the Lord, so we’re commanded to make melody to the Lord with our hearts. So what do we need to do that well? So let’s talk about needs. We’ve talked about aims. Want to talk about needs. Here are a few things you don’t need, ultimately, to sing in a way that pleases the Lord and edifies his people. A leader with a great voice. I should know that because I’ve been leading for 50 years and I do not have great voice.
DZ: That’s not true.
BK: Musicians who can play, it’s nice to have them. You don’t need them. Musicians who just show up, nice to have them, don’t need them.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: A great choir director. You don’t need a great sound system and a great sound engineer to run it, although it’s nice when those go together. You don’t need to sing the latest songs at the top of the CCLI charts or praise charts or wherever you go. You don’t need more money for musicians, sound equipment and lighting. You know, some of us are thinking, man, if I just had more money for better equipment, we could just do so great here. We’d blow the roof off. Maybe, but I’m not sure that’s what the Lord wants for you.
DZ: Right, right.
BK: What we need has to be defined biblically as everything we do is. Certainly we want to do what we do in a cultural context. We do it in a cultural context, but we’re always evaluating it against God’s word. So what does God say every church needs for Christ’s exalting God glorifying spirit empowered congregational worship? Four things at least. First, God’s word. Not to be… Not to state the obvious, but…
[laughter]
DZ: Sadly I think you do need to state the obvious.
BK: I’ve asked the question, you know, would Paul have been more effective if he was a musician? Like, if he was a traveling musician, a worship artist?
DZ: Wow.
BK: I mean, he did sing hymns at midnight with Paul, you know, Silas. And so maybe he was a musician. I don’t think so. I think he just sang after being beaten. Would Peter have done a better job? How about Jesus? Jesus meets with the woman at the well in John 4. It’s one of the most often repeated stories, quoted stories about worship in the Bible. This is what he says in John 4:23, “the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” and with drums and guitars. “For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship” with a choir and with a great keyboard pad. [laughter] And that’s how we read it, you know.
DZ: Yeah, you’re right.
BK: “Must worship him in spirit with the Holy Spirit’s enabling power and in truth, who is Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life.” Why didn’t Jesus say anything about music? Because music is not central to what is needed as we gather to bring God glory, to edify one another. It is his Word. Paul tells Timothy, 2nd Timothy 3:16, “all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” I love the verse in 1st Thessalonians 2:13, where Paul says that the Thessalonians accepted his Word “not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God which is at work in you believers.”
DZ: Yes.
BK: So it’s the word of God that performs its work in believers.
DZ: Amen.
BK: Jesus quoted Deuteronomy to Satan in Matthew 4:4 when he said, “it is written, man shall not live by bread alone,” nor by music alone, didn’t say that, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
DZ: Yes.
BK: So this is a hard one, because this isn’t saying anything against skill, against musical proficiency, against rehearsals, against practice. All of those are helpful, can be useful. And it’s better to have a guitar that’s in tune than one that’s out of tune. But we’re talking about needs, what God needs to be glorified.
DZ: Right.
BK: However polished or sophisticated or impressive our music is, apart from God’s word, it’s not able to serve people in the way God intends it to. However faltering or out of sync or unimpressive our music is, it can still carry the word of God. And we want to make sure it’s carrying the word of God and that we’re using the word of God around it to show people that it’s not just the songs we’re singing, it’s the word of God that they spring from.
DZ: Absolutely wonderful.
BK: So that’s the first need. Second is God’s gospel. And this is so overlooked that every week we gather, we have this explosive news to share with people that we tend to think, oh, no, that’s just for, like, new Christians, you know, the gospel, it’s… We’re going to spend eternity glorying in Christ and what he’s done for us. Eternity. You know, we’ll never run out of affection. We’ll never run out of words to say. We’ll never run out of time. It’ll be great. The power and the effectiveness and the fruitfulness of what we do ultimately comes not from what we do or the music we use to proclaim the gospel, but from the gospel we proclaim.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So Paul says in 1st Corinthians 2:1, “when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.” So you could say there, with musical proficiency and multi-tracks. “I decided to do nothing among you except Jesus Christ in him crucified.” He says in 1st Corinthians 1:18, the gospel is to us for being saved. “It is the power of God.” So then he says in 1st Thessalonians 2, 3, and 4, “our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive. But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.”
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So we are also singing and playing not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. So while musical proficiency has its place, we’re first accountable to stewarding the mysteries of God, which is the gospel.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: In his book, ‘The Cross and Christian Ministry’, DA Carson, I think came out in the ’90s. Wonderful book.
DZ: Great book.
BK: He asked some probing questions. He says, “has the smoothness of the performance become more important to us than the fear of the Lord?” Oh, man.
DZ: Yeah. Yeah.
BK: “Do we even fear the Lord? Are we even thinking about it? Has polish one of the modern equivalents of ancient rhetoric displaced substance? Have professional competence and smooth showmanship become more valuable than sober reckoning over what it means to focus on Christ crucified?” And then he says this. “We’ve become so performance oriented that it is hard to see how compromised we are.”
DZ: I mean, across the board, worship leaders, artists, preachers. I mean, he’s writing to preachers. But as you’re saying, this is… Our focus is off. We’ve compromised. If we’ve made it… If we’ve made the aim anything other than Christ being known.
BK: Yes, yes. Christ in him crucified.
DZ: And the glory of his gospel being known.
BK: And you don’t have to be a part of a big church to struggle with this.
DZ: Yeah, definitely.
BK: You can be in a small church and want it.
DZ: Definitely.
BK: And live with this sense of nagging disappointment that, man, we don’t have what we really need. Good news. You do have what you really need.
DZ: Yeah, and tempted to say the gospel’s not enough.
BK: That’s what we’re saying.
DZ: You do have it. Yeah. You do have all you need.
BK: All right, so third point. God’s spirit. We have God’s word. We have God’s gospel and we have God’s spirit. The first thing we need to sing in a God pleasing, church edifying way is the spirit of God. Again, going to God’s word. 1st Thessalonians 1:4. “We know brothers, loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” And then he says in 1st Corinthians 2:3, “I was with you in weakness and fear. Much trembling in my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” Could say so that your faith may not rest in the amazing arrangements we gave you or the incredible riffs we sang for you, or in the seamless way we tied all the songs together, but in the power of God. So again, quoting DA Carson. “It is idiotic, that is not too strong a word to extol the world’s perspective and secretly lust after its limited vision. That is what the Corinthians were apparently doing. That is what we are in danger of doing every time we adopt our world’s shibboleths, dote on its heroes, admire its transient stars, seek its admiration and play to its applause.” Man, he takes no prisoners.
DZ: Woo.
BK: And it’s important to realize there’s a…
DZ: Wow.
BK: There’s a difference between what God can use and what God desires.
DZ: Right.
BK: He can use all those things in the right way, but it’s about what he desires. He can use planning and staging and technology and scale and production and rehearsals and design and sound systems. But apart from God’s spirit, all of those can easily become attempts to manufacture what God wants to give us as a gift. Remember years ago, there was a church that talked about wanting to have wow moments in the service. We need a wow moment. That’s manufacturing. We can’t predict… I bet, I think people would be affected by something, hopefully by the glory of God in Jesus Christ. We can’t manufacture those. We can simply be faithful with God’s word, God’s gospel, depending on God’s spirit. And then the fourth thing we need is God’s people. Because we should be not so much interested in production as we are in participation.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: The church comes together, it’s not a concert where gifted performers do their thing while everybody else kind of watches.
DZ: Right, right, right.
BK: It’s the place we talked about earlier, where the glory of the Gospel of Christ shines through jars of clay. That includes everybody. Everybody in the room. You know, we’re all doing this together and where our confidence is not in what we’re doing, but in what God has already done for us in Christ and how that he has poured out his spirit in our midst. And so we are benefiting from the gift he’s given us rather than thinking that we have to make something happen.
DZ: Right.
BK: Because that power is shown primarily through the weakness of our preaching and our musicianship, not the glitziness of our productions.
DZ: Yeah. So this is so helpful. How did… Just to pause for a second, and I think you might get here. How do you blend the discipline and the rigorous work it takes to Sunday plan and to think through your liturgy and to put together a rehearsal that serves people and to preach the Word and to faithfully study and hold that independence. Hold that, not independence. Hold that all…
BK: Dependently.
DZ: With dependence.
[laughter]
BK: Yeah. We’re all trying to be independent here. That is a great question. I think that moves us into next steps. Because that last section was just saying we have what we need for God to be glorified in our churches. We don’t need the latest and the greatest. We don’t need the best. That does not mean we just sit back and do nothing. Because that produces an expectation, a faith, a desire to pursue, a way to do these things with excellence. But what do you mean when we say excellence. Here’s where Harold Best, his book, ‘Music Through the Eyes of Faith’, shares a definition of excellence I’ve used for 30 years now. “Excellence is the process.” Note that word, process, “of becoming better than I once was. I am not to become better than someone else is or even like someone else. Excelling is simply and radically the process of improving over yesterday or in the apostle Paul’s words, pressing on.” I love that. And then he said this, “while we move from good to better to best, while we endeavor to become better than we were, while we excel, Christ perfects our excelling and presents it to the Father.”
DZ: Amazing.
BK: “This is grace. This is atonement. This is powerful. This is wonderfully comforting. And this is the way it is.” I’m affected every time I read that.
DZ: Wow.
BK: Because what it’s saying is, you’re not trying to improve so that God will finally look down and say, okay, okay, great. Finally.
DZ: Now I can use you. [laughter]
BK: Now I can use you. We are seeking to improve out of grace.
DZ: Oh, yeah.
BK: We have all we need, and God wants this to be an edifying experience for everyone gathered. So we’re looking for ways to make the things that we really need, God’s word, God’s gospel, God’s spirit, God’s people, the most predominant things.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So how do you do that? Well, I’m glad you asked. So this is next steps. First, be aware and involved. I mean, you probably already are, but don’t get so discouraged. You think, well, I can’t do anything. No, you can. Leading congregational worship is a pastoral function before it’s a musical one. And you want to provide leadership that helps your people understand what the purpose of your singing is. So while a sermon is the primary way people are fed, they’re also being fed through the songs that your church is singing. And sadly, most people remember the lyrics to songs more than they’ll remember the sermons that were taught. So what an opportunity to teach them. So that means being aware of how people are receiving things, being aware of what kinds of songs you’re singing, just being observant and aware. Are we focusing on the right things? Number two, model the engagement you want for your congregation. A congregation rarely rises above the engagement of its leaders. So that could be just a physical engagement, physical expression, attentiveness. That applies to pastors as well as those who are on the platform, musicians. What you don’t want to be is too far out in front of your congregation where you’re like, yeah, Jesus, we love you, and everybody else is just kind of staring at you. Is kind of, what is he doing? You know, you’re just one step ahead. And we want to make sure that people understand music isn’t just a warm up for the sermon.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: It’s not something we have to labor through. It’s not we’re hoping one day we’ll have such great music that we draw crowds. And it’s not a platform displaying talent. It’s a means of pointing to Christ and what he’s done, not to us and what we’re doing.
DZ: Right.
BK: So we want to model that kind of engagement that says, you know what? I am being moved and affected as we sing these songs. Number three, be intentional about your song diet.
DZ: Definitely.
BK: Yeah, this should be an obvious one. But…
DZ: We have multiple podcasts on this.
BK: Don’t sing the latest and greatest songs. I mean, just flat out. They weren’t written necessarily for your church. Sing songs that are easy to sing, familiar songs, songs that people will… Or songs that are easy to learn. Because if you, just say familiar songs, well, that kind of limits your vocabulary. Sing songs that contain both objective and subjective truth. So the truth of God’s words, who he is, what he said, what he’s done, and then how we respond to them. Because we’re giving words to our people to sing. They should make sense. They should be the ones that God wants to use to change their lives, to prepare them to live, to prepare them to die.
DZ: Totally.
BK: And do a smaller number. If you’re in a small church, do a smaller number of really, really good songs. And as they learn those, increase the number.
DZ: Definitely.
BK: And just expand their vocabulary. Number four, encourage the sound of your congregation. And that would just be sing acappella. And maybe you’re saying, we do sing acappella every Sunday. Great. Use that as an opportunity to point people what really matters when we sing, and you’ll be surprised at what happens. I talked to a pastor one time. That was his situation. He said, should I use YouTube or Spotify, or? And yes, you can use those things. Just have the congregation sing along. But I said, what if you taught the people that God’s interested in hearing our voices, so let’s just sing. We’re going to sing this hymn. It’s not the flashiest most up to date, coolest, slickest thing on this… On the block, but it is God’s people doing what he’s called them to do in the power of his spirit.
DZ: Definitely.
BK: So, yeah, encourage that sound. Don’t overpower them with the sound of your instruments. Yeah. Invest. Number five, invest in your musicians if you have any. Go to conferences, read books together. Express your gratefulness to them.
DZ: Yeah. Encourage them. Yeah.
BK: Encourage them anyway. Six, view technology as a tool, not a tyrant, a servant, not a slave master. And by that I mean don’t… There are limits to what technology can do on a Sunday morning.
DZ: Right.
BK: There are times when it becomes so present, so predominant, that you lose the message it’s trying to convey.
DZ: Yeah. And you can isolate your people.
BK: Yes. Fill that out.
DZ: So you can isolate… People feel like, I think sometimes in tech where, you’ve unintentionally created this large barrier between you and your congregation.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Maybe it’s the music you’re doing or the effects that you have going on, or just a lot of the distractions that feel more like a production than it does. I think it can isolate you when you’re really just trying to bring people together. You know, I think it can have a tendency to do that.
BK: And I would say the same thing is true in a big church. What happens in big churches is, you create such a distance between what you’re doing to serve the congregation and what the congregation is actually doing. I got to follow this note. I got to do this thing. I do this and that, and you’re not even aware of anything that’s happening.
DZ: True. Also, at its worst, it can turn your congregation into consumers.
BK: Yes.
DZ: So if your production is so dialed and they’re just coming to watch and leave, you’re not really sowing into the gathering.
BK: Yeah, yeah. Got to make them happy.
DZ: The corporate gathering. Yeah.
BK: All right, so number seven, pray for God’s strength to be shown in our weakness. That’s a hard one, but it’s a good one. It’s a really joyful one when you recognize that our limitations are what God uses to show his unlimited grace and power. So, I mean, I love to think about Acts 16:25-26, where Paul and Silas are singing in the prison. They’ve been beaten with rods. I mean, they’ve got open wounds. It’s midnight. They’re singing hymns to God. It says “the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly” someone said, hey, do you have any, like, projection for this? Or can you turn up the reverb? [laughter] And it says, and “suddenly there was a great earthquake. So that the foundations of the prison were shaken and the doors were open.” Everyone’s bonds were unfastened. I love to think of that metaphorically, for what happens when we gather as the church. We’re singing. We’re singing together, and doors are being opened, and bonds are being unfastened. I think we should think of it that way.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So benefits of a small church, you know who’s in your church, you know who’s there. You can rejoice with them and weep with them as they’re singing. You can cultivate a more biblical understanding of excellence. It’s not multi-tracked. It’s not professionalism production. It’s genuine spirit, empowered praise coming from those that Christ has redeemed. It can be easier, really, in a small church to gather around the right things because you’re weak. That’s a good thing. Number eight. Pray for God’s strength to be shown in your weakness. Don’t aim to do everything you can, but everything you should. And don’t be afraid to ask others for help. You know, I’ve talked to leaders who just feel like, oh, I got to get the projection, I got to get the instrumentation, I got to get the charts. I got to get… Just do what you can. It’s going to be okay. You know, we… Again, technology is not a tyrant. And that would include even chord charts for everybody. Well, just, it’s okay. Just do the songs, you know, I mean, if someone forgot to print them, just okay, we’re gonna do this song. It’s okay.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Nine, pray for God to supply musicians. That’s okay. It’s not wrong to pray for humble, faithful, skilled musicians, in that order. Humble… [laughter] Don’t add a proud musician to your team. Faithful, they’re ready to serve, eager to serve, and skilled, that’s certainly important. But don’t be quick to add someone to your team just because they’re breathing and they can play an instrument. It’s better to wait. Get with them in other contexts. Hang out with other context. Hey, let’s play. And don’t make any promises. You want to be sure that they’re humble and they’re faithful before you latch onto their skill and say, yeah, we need you.
DZ: Yeah, good.
BK: Remember, we don’t need that. God can use it. And then lastly, just be patient. And someone’s heard that and said, oh, yeah, great, thanks a lot. [laughter] Oh, no, no, no. James talks about that when he says, “count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,” like serving in a small church “for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4) It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
DZ: Right.
BK: And the biblical metaphors are always agriculture, agricultural, not technological. There aren’t buttons to push.
DZ: Quick fixes.
BK: That’s right. There’s no shortcuts. Just faithful sowing, and that’s what you’re doing. And as we aim to make much of God’s glory in Christ through the power of his Spirit in our minds and hearts and wills, we will see God do amazing things. We will see him do things we just didn’t expect because he’s God and we’re not. And he’s already given us what we need, his word, his gospel, his spirit, his people. So who knows what God is going to do this Sunday and the Sunday after that, and the Sunday after that. In the heads and hearts of your people as you gather, let’s expect great things of a great God. You might be worshiping in a small church, but you’re worshiping a big God. And we have a big Savior and his spirit is with us. So we should be encouraged.
DZ: Yeah. Amen. Amen. Yep.
BK: It’s good news. It’s good news.
DZ: It’s great news.
BK: And we pray that this has been encouraging to you, helpful to you, and we hope to see…
DZ: Keep serving. Yeah, keep serving.
BK: Keep serving. Trusting the Lord’s going to use you.
DZ: Amen.
BK: Thanks for joining us.
DZ: Thanks.
