What We Need In A Worship Pastor Or Any Pastor:

It is no secret we are looking for someone to be our Worship Pastor - we have had some great men in the last several weeks leading us in singing praises to our King. Our choir has been phenomenal and the entire body of Trinity has been so gracious as we have had different guests filling in during our Worship. So what should we look for in a Worship Pastor? Is it a wonderful voice? I know many men that have a great voice but I would not want to serve with them. Is it musical knowledge? Certainly one needs to know music to be a Worship Pastor but is that the first thing we should look for? Is it good platform presence? It is always great to be able to stand before a congregation and lead them in worship and in a smooth manner, but a man with the ability to lead a congregation but can’t lead his home would certainly not be our choice. Well, let me tell you how I was convicted not too long ago. If our Ministerial staff is what we consider to be our “Elders,” then I believe we find our primary qualifications in 1st Tim. 3:1-7. Now we have all heard these qualifications preached on, so I will not rehash them here, but I will share with you how I have gone about the process of this search. As we have had the honor of having these wonderful, godly men help us in leading out in worship, in addition I have not only met with each of them and their spouses on a personal level, but I have sat down with, or met over the phone with some other very gifted men with a heart for God. So, how do we know what we need? Well, there is a wonderful book that I am going through as I sit down and write this blog entitled Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin. This dear brother in Christ, is one of the few Worship Pastors I have ever encountered that really “gets it!” He describes the importance of a Worship Pastor as being able to handle the Word of God, to read theological books and being able to understand and articulate doctrine. Well, that would exclude most Worship Pastors I know, in fact it would exclude many pastors of “anything else” I know. We are in a culture that doesn’t want to deal with doctrine at all, but as Kauflin says: “When we are dodgy about our theology, we’re really saying we want our own Jesus. But worship isn’t based on people’s personal opinions, ideas or best guesses about Jesus. Nor should we base our understanding of Him on anyone’s individual experiences.” Guys we base this on the Word of God. So my first qualification is not singing, or what music school or Seminary they graduated from if any - my desire was to spend time with them and try to get to know their heart for our Savior. Then, it was to listen to what books they have read or were reading, what Preachers they enjoy, listen to their theology, see how they were growing their family and only then - to watch them help lead in our worship. I wasn’t looking for a certain age, certain look, certain style - I am looking first for a man who has a heart for God, and will worship in “Spirit and truth” - and if a Worship Pastor can’t articulate truth, he will not know the importance of singing truth, and will have the attitude of “if it sounds pretty let’s sing it.” We must have a man who desires to put God on display, to show Him as the big God that He is. We need someone who understands that our Worship Service should be driven to produce Worship Servants!

So I am only posting once this week. I want this to stay up until Monday. I want as many people as possible to know how the Lord is working in this situation. I am sure of all the men we have had lead us you have picked your “Trinity Idol” and you would text your vote for him several times if that were the way this was working. But we are moving towards a decision prayerfully - asking and expecting God to work and lead. Remember, anyone can have an opinion after a few hours of watching a man sing, smile and wave his hand. But some of the staff and myself have spent several hours with some of these men and their family. We have seen, heard, and discussed the way the Lord is working in their life and listened to their passion for the Lord. When both the potential Worship Pastor and I believe this is what the Lord is leading us to do, I will then let him take further steps – I would want him to spend more time with the choir, I will allow him to speak with our Personnel Team and share with them as well as with our deacons how we arrived at this decision, and then we will share and celebrate with the entire Church family. Regardless of whom the Lord sends, if Trinity is just Trinity and loves this Worship Pastor the way you have loved me and loved Bro. Jeff Summers since we have been here, he will be a blessed man!

A Prayer Request

I am asking for your prayers as your Pastor. I long for them and need them every week as I have the awe inspiring task of delivering the Word of God. However, through God’s amazing providence I have been given an astounding opportunity: for about two to three hours a week I have the opportunity to go into a local business and serve as their chaplain. What this means is simply walking through and talking and developing relationships in short snippets of time, knowing that as good times or difficult times come there will be a need for counsel. The beauty of this is that there is only one way I know to counsel and that is through the Word of God - there is only one good thing I can offer and that is saving message of Christ. It is very interesting - I can not carry the Bible and I can not initiate a conversation regarding salvation, but I can be there to offer whatever I have at my disposal when a need arises. I can recommend a church, I can recommend a place for counseling, I can even set up a time so that they can come by the church office to meet with me… I am asking you to pray for many opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, pray for receptive hearts, pray that this opportunity will last and we will see a great harvest come into the Kingdom!

The Pastor's Picks

It seems that since we have been going through our “Heavenly Home” series, I have been bombarded with requests to recommend some resources that you could get your hands on that will help you. I have given you some recommendations on this blog at least a couple of times: once for family devotions and once for marriage. As I was giving recommendations, I knew that many of these books would be ones that you either have to order, or go into a local Christian book store and they would have to order them. Sometimes in the world we live in, the idea of ordering precious resources seems to get lost in the hustle and bustle of life. My desire is for you to grow deeper in your devotion and dedication to our Savior - because of that we are going to be offering a book table after our services to those in our congregation. Every book on that table has been reviewed by me (with one exception and it was highly recommended by Bro. Jeff Summers), and I can promise you that you will be hard pressed to find books that are more Biblically based than these. You will find that there is probably a book for every major area of your life.

We will have two parenting books: Shepherding A Child’s Heart and The Heart of Anger. I must confess that no book has made the impact on my life as a father and even a pastor as Shepherding A Child’s Heart.

We will have some marriage books and Biblical role books. Most of those have been recommended on this blog and will be pretty easy to recognize.

We will have a book on finances and real Biblical stewardship - Money, Possessions and Eternity. This book will give you a Biblical perspective on money and consumerism like you have never seen.

Finding and doing God’s will - Decisions, Decisions. The only book I have ever read that goes through discerning the will of God, without relying on “just a feeling” or “you just know.” It is extremely Bible based.

Last but maybe most importantly - The Peace Maker - if you want to know what we will be studying in Sunday School beginning in August and what I will be preaching on beginning in August, this is it! How to handle conflict in your marriage, at your work, in your family or in your church - this is the book! One of the most practical, Biblical reads you will ever put your hands on!

Please take advantage of this opportunity!

Sunday night I walked in and said to my wife: “While there are people I miss in Georgia and Florida, I have never had more joy and felt more like we were at home - than at Trinity.” As the Spirit of God is working, people are being saved, families are joining & that causes my heart to rejoice… but that is not the source of my joy. When we had a discussion in staff meeting this week about opening up new nursery rooms (because we had almost 100 children ages 3 and under Sunday), my heart rejoiced! I was thrilled by the way the choir and orchestra blessed us Sunday, and the way Bro. Rob Thomas led us in worship, but none of these things are the source of my joy. While these things are exciting - they are not what causes Trinity to feel like a place we must plant our life. I can sum up the goal of my preaching each and every time I step behind the pulpit - it comes from a Puritan Prayer that says this: “Thus my end in preaching is to know Christ, and impart His truth; my principle in preaching is Christ Himself, whom I trust, for in Him is fullness of spirit and strength; my comfort in preaching is to do all for Him.” Obviously, the source of my joy is Christ, but what makes my heart leap is the way our people are getting God’s truth. From the group of husbands that recently went away and prayed and spent time discussing Disciplines Of A Godly Man, to the receptivity of our men on Sunday evenings humbling themselves under the Word of God. I see so much growth and desire! When I walk in the door to spend time with our folks before the service, the encouragement and exhortation is for me to “Preach the Word!” – you are not desiring some pep talk, not desiring a shallow “encouraging word” but desiring the Word that brings with it exhortation. That has been a refreshing theme. You come in expecting the Word of God to reveal something for you to work on this week. This is sanctification at work by the grace and Word of God. This is what we all need - the closer I get to God, the greater His grace becomes - not because I feel better about me, but because I better understand His holiness and my wretchedness. Man hates this talk! I don’t want anyone to tell me how wretched I am, but how “blessed” I am. I want to be reminded of all that the Lord has done by giving me my wife and children, by providing my home, etc….While it is true that we are a blessed people, when I see my sin and His grace, I should understand my true blessings are found in His salvation and work in my life. Oh, I would gladly die a thousand deaths rather than harm come to my family, but I am aware that unless the Lord returns, death will separate us one day. When I think of the blessings in my life, my mind should first run to the cross, where mercy and grace took me. The wrath of God was turned and His righteousness was given to me! I guess all that to say thank you for “gladly receiving” the Word of God - by that you have been a blessing and joy to proclaim God’s truth to each week!

Well, I am thrilled to say that I am finally done preaching to our men specifically! What a relief for us huh, guys? I have been greatly encouraged by your feedback and the reports that many of our men have given regarding how this series has helped their marriage, things they are doing to better lead their home and how they are growing spiritually. I have been asked about some books that will serve as resources for you in the coming days. Below you will find some very good books on the biblical role of manhood as well as marriage. I hope they serve as great blessings to you:

The Complete Husband by Lou Priolo: In my opinion, this is the best book on the biblical role of husbands by far. Now I must warn you, it is very convicting, and it is for the believer who desires to know and behave the Word of God.

The Exemplary Husband by Stuart Scott: Another excellent book on the role of husbands - but it certainly isn’t any better than the book above. For those of us that make reading a discipline in our life…Priolo’s book is shorter. 

Love That Lasts by Gary and Betsy Ricucci: This is a book about marriage but it has a section on the roles of men and women. It is gospel focused, and covers multiple facets of marriage.

I also would recommend anything by Steve Farrar, John MacArthur, John Piper on any subject - but they have several books and articles that cover roles. A good website that you can find book reviews and much more information on is http://www.cbmw.org/

Comment if you have any questions or additions.

Society CANNOT Dictate To The Church!

Now this is one of the times I feel it necessary to speak on a particular subject and, while I am sure it sparks some debate from well meaning Believers, obviously that has never stopped me before. Now before I go into this blog, I must make a disclaimer: I am not a fan of Rick Warren – I appreciate some of the things that he has done, and have read some of his books. I do not see Pastor Warren as an adversary to the true Gospel, the way I see Joel Osteen as one, but I do see him as a man who misses the biblical idea of church and handles scripture “fast and loose.” But to review all the “Purpose Driven ________” books is certainly not my purpose here. If you want a very good review on it, here is a link: http://www.biblebb.com/files/tonyqa/tc03-148.htm . But, regardless of what one may believe about his books, his church and so on, one can not deny the problem with Pastor Warren attempting to withdraw his support from Proposition 8. I admired his stand in the face adversity on marriage and I thought he did an incredible job interviewing the Presidential Candidates - but he is allowing society to dictate how the Church should respond, and that is far from what we are called to do as believers!

If you will read this http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=481280 you will find Pastor Warren expresses regret concerning his backing on Prop 8. If we as God’s people can’t be crystal clear on what is wrong, we can’t be clear on what is right! For us to not stand by the biblical definition of marriage, is to give a message of doctrinal heresy. Marriage was God’s idea - all one has to do is look at Ephesians 5 and they will see that it is a picture of the relationship Christ has with His Church. For us to not clearly stand on the biblical concept of marriage is to in many ways deny the relationship God has with His Church. If a Pastor does not have the back bone to speak clearly where the Bible speaks, then how can we speak clearly on anything? Pastor Warren says that he didn’t want to “comment or criticize” the Iowa Supreme Court Decision to legalize same sex marriages because it was “not his agenda” - to that I say, what should our agenda be? If we are to be light, we should take a stand where Scripture is clear - we should do this with love, we should do this trumpeting the Gospel, we should do this with the goal of seeing people come to Christ, but WE MUST DO THIS!

The Word of God makes it clear that real love should hope the best. To hope the best or believe the best about Pastor Warren I guess would say that his desire was to appear humble before people, but humility never compromises the Word of God it submits. I have found recently that this tactic is now the major attack from those seemingly ignorant or disobedient to the Word of God. I googled the word “arrogant” with men like Mac Brunson, Mark Dever, John Piper, John MacArthur and several other strong biblically based men and of course each of them were accused in that way. I was amazed, then I began to read and realized that what Mark Dever said is true: "God's been really clear in the Bible. So for us to be vague on something God has been clear about, that's not humble. That's arrogant. It's arrogant of us to put our own ideas as if they're better than God's... Really believing the truth is humble of us, it's surrendering ourselves to Him." Most “church people” will not argue with Scripture, they will attack the man that is holding to Scripture. They will throw accusations, all the while he is upholding truth. We must humbly hold to truth, and only God knows our heart. But we must boldly proclaim truth- I have come to the conclusion that in a lost world with many lost church members, many had rather be popular than stand on truth. I believe this will be the trend in the days ahead by countless churches and pastors, but let me assure you that we will speak where the Bible speaks and we stand because we love regardless of the consequences. Rest assured we serve a Savior who will judge. That my friend should encourage everyone of us to HOLD TO TRUTH!

So, should it be our agenda to speak for the unborn? To stand against adultery? (Many in churches disagree with this), To allow unhealthy senior adults to be killed when they are deemed no longer useful to society? To stand for a marriage between a woman and a man for a lifetime? I ask for you to think - I ask Pastor Warren to think, that if this is not important enough to be part of our “agenda,” what is? If we do not speak on this matter, then we must be silent on all matters. I implore you Believer, to stand where the Word of God stands. You may be a fan of Pastor Warren, but you cannot have biblical convictions if you are a fan of where he now stands! This is not even close to an area of preference, this is a commitment to the Word!

Thankful

I have been blessed in so many ways! I could spend several blogs on all the blessings I have been given! From my family at home to my family at Trinity, I am a blessed man. However, I want take a moment to share with you just how blessed WE ARE. This is one of those things I know - and many of you are already finding out. For over 13 years, I have had the opportunity to serve with Jeff Summers… during that time he has served as Minister of Education to Minister of Children - to an “all other specified duties” Minister. Through all of that time I have watched him love people, love his family and love his Savior. I have known many ministers, but there are none that I would want my children under any more than Bro. Jeff Summers. We have served through mountains and through valleys but, regardless of the situation I have been able to watch him display the grace of God, and I have watched him stand boldly in the face of adversity. He is not the Christian Captain Kangaroo (I know I’m showing my age), and he is not the Children’s activities man. He is a minister of the Gospel, who teaches our children, but also teaches our parents how to impart the Word of God to their children. He understands that his calling is to equip parents to give their children doctrine. He understands that children are not the “Church of Tomorrow” but they are part of the Church of Today. He expects the entire church to minister to our children, whether you have any in your home now or not. In the coming days we will need more nursery workers, AWANA helpers, and just smiling faces who will welcome babies. We are not doing this simply for our church we are ministering to the “least of these” among us for our Savior

All of this to say, I am excited about what God is doing at Trinity, but I am excited about the team God is constructing for His Glory. Bro. Jeff is a friend, he has served as a counselor to me, he has served as a man that I can beat at tennis and feel so much better about myself (okay easy cheap shot, but it’s my blog!) - but most of all he is my brother in Christ who I count it a great honor to serve with at Trinity.

Serving without Thanks....

Nothing in our life happens by accident or chance! This was never demonstrated more clearly than Sunday night when we asked all of our mothers who had children 10 years and younger to come to the altar - I must confess I was blown away and excited. I saw a swarm of sweet ladies gathering at the altar with ladies that had grown children praying for them. This is a glimpse of what Church looks like. While I had no idea the number of young moms we had, I knew we were going to have a fun skit that night which would emphasize our nursery drive and I simply wanted our Church to see who we were ministering to through our nursery....

God has blessed us at Trinity with many young families and plenty with precious children. While they are under the parents’ authority, in many ways they are all of ours at Trinity. We all bear some responsibility for them and their parents. Remember, this is what being a Church is all about, being responsible for one another. For years, our practice at Trinity has been to keep the nursery on Sunday morning, but pay others to do so the remainder of the services. This has been very helpful, but there are two problems with this. (1) We have grown to a point that we have MANY more children in the nursery than before. (2) We as a church are missing ministry opportunities. I think I would be safe in saying that there is not a more humbling way to minister than in the nursery. When I preach I have the joy of hearing and seeing people respond, when the choir sings they will hear “amen’s” and even get standing ovations. Our Sunday School Teachers teach and listen as those in their class see a truth or give them personal testimony of what the lesson meant. As I think about it, there are few things less rewarding than nursery. No two year old will take you by the hand and say: “Well dear sir, thank you for taking me to the potty and spending your valuable time watching me snatch a toy from my playfellow and hit him over head with it, I am forever indebted to you.” Truly it is a thankless job, but it is a ministry that should make our minds run to Matthew 25 where the Scriptures say those who are naked and imprisoned and all those who are helpless – then our King says in VERSE 40: “…inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me.” According to the Word of God, when I minister to those who are the most needy, those who can give the least amount of visible thanks, and when I do so with a loving heart, it is like I am ministering to Christ. This is one of the ministries any one could do, and every member should do, but the possible rewards in eternity are invaluable. I want to encourage you and your family to take advantage of this incredible opportunity! I love and appreciate you and look forward to serving alongside you at Trinity this Sunday!