Beautiful Church

This morning I led my final song as interim worship director at our current church. As I drove home, companionably chatting with my two-year-old , I felt an up-welling of joy and gratitude.

I have been in a LOT of churches in my life. I grew up in an amazing, non-denominational, small church family in NY where church lunches were full of lasagna, holy kisses and boisterous laughter. In college, I flitted around a bit- from a Presbyterian church to an Assemblies of God to an international church in London, finally landing on a semi-Pentecostal church in inner city Richmond where I was one of very few white people with a LOT to learn. That's where I was first trained to be a worship leader and when I really started to think about race in the church. From a country church in North Carolina to helping plant an urban church to a few more wonderful places in my early 30's, it's been an adventure.

And with all our moving around, I've had a lot of chances to be ON worship teams.

This was the first time I've really led one for more than a Sunday or two.

A number of people over the last few months asked me if this job was stressful with raising 3 boys, preparing for a move across the country and dealing with the special challenges of our middle one.

I never had to hesitate when I answered.

Friends, this job was life-giving. It was like a long sip of water after a brutal trek across a dry land. The chance to come together with other rational adults two times a week doing one of the things I love to do best? Well, it was magical for me. The laughter, the camaraderie, the moments we truly were able to worship together as we led (and those who lead worship KNOW what I mean)...well, it's making it even harder to leave, to say the least. The opportunity to work more closely with our pastors, to see their heart for our congregation and our city, the chance to see myself and those around me grow in our gifts and take risks together has truly helped me see again WHY the church is so good and so necessary even in all it's messed up beauty.

And as I sat in the pew this morning, having just participated in my youngest son's baptism with my church family, listening to my pastor preach about being at peace with one another, listening to his stories about the Rodney King trial, white privilege and racism, I realized again just how unique this place is. It's not the first time I've heard things like this from our pulpit. In fact, justice is woven into the gospel effortlessly around here all the time. It would be strange NOT to hear words about God's call for reconciliation and healing in our world. To be blunt, that is not true of most of the churches of which I've been a part.

I am really going to miss this place. Like all the ones that have come before, it has shaped me in new ways, challenged me in others and helped me to give of my gifts.

Have I been hurt by churches? Sure. Pretty badly. Have I been loved by churches? Yep, more than I deserved. Is it easy to be a part of one? Nope.

But here's the thing. There is no perfect church because there are no perfect people.  You can't put a bunch of broken people into community with each other and expect things to go beautifully. We are defensive. We are passive-aggressive or, some of us, just plain aggressive for no good reason. We avoid conflict. We seek it out unnecessarily. We thrive on and create drama. We keep to ourselves and don't let anyone really know us. We mess up all the time.

So, we hurt each other. It's just going to happen.

But after 33 years of doing this church thing (my mom started bringing me when I was 4 years old) I can honestly say this: church is good. NOT because it has all the answers. NOT because it is always a safe place. NOT because I can show up and consume things that might make me feel good for awhile. NOT because we sit around and sing Kum-Ba-Yah all the time while holding hands and throwing wildflowers around.

Church is good because it can be people, created in the image of God, struggling to figure out what that looks like together...learning what grace means, steeped in forgiveness of self and one another, rejoicing and mourning with one another, breaking bread together, pushing ourselves to be able to truly become the person God has made us to be.

That, my friends, is a beautiful mess.

So, as we say goodbye again, I pause to thank God for this current body of people, for one more Sunday to worship with them, for the relationships I know will continue and for the ways they have prepared us to take this next step of faith as a family.

Thank you to this family for letting us be our crazy family, for letting us be who we are, for being family when we have been far away from our other family for three years. I couldn't be more thankful.

Why I Love the Worship Leaders Track

I can still remember my early years of worship leadership. I was totally clueless, nervous, had absolutely no idea how to put together a thoughtful set and just about zero confidence in leading a team.  I played intermittently for my home church, which, unlike most churches I've been a part of, had a serious dearth of any musical gifting aside from vocals.  This church was rhythmically-challenged and overwhelmingly thankful for almost any caliber of musical leadership. I had a few opportunities in college to sing and play guitar but remained relatively unskilled. I tended to grab leadership opportunities in any area other than worship leadership. 

Then, one morning I found myself at a church in the inner-city of Richmond. I was clearly a racial minority, I didn't know most of the music and I didn't know anybody there. And as I was singing (read, listening and enjoying) the new music I heard this voice calling out to the audience, "You look like somebody who wants to worship!"  She called this out a number of times until the man next to me finally poked me in the arm and informed me that I was the target of these exhortations.  I looked incredulously at her, shrunk into myself and smiled and then she beckoned me onstage. I shook my head no. She beckoned again. And for reasons that to this day I can still not decipher, I went. I was handed a microphone, invited to sing and, at the end of the service, promptly told that practice would be this coming Thursday at 7:30. Be there.

This was the start of my education. Abrupt, right? Again, against my own understanding, I showed up at this practice and became a member of that church. I spent two years learning at the feet of men and women from very different church, ethnic and worship leading backgrounds. I learned that when someone in the back yells "Saaaang, girl" that he is encouraging you to keep going, not telling you to stop and learn how to sing better. (I learned that one the awkward way, I'm not ashamed to admit.)  Two years that taught me to love gospel music, to ignore any sort of unbending order to each song, to sing from my gut and not my throat, to be sensitive to the fact that some days God might want us to sing one specific song for 20 minutes until we all "get it", to experience the joys of a spontaneous congregational electric slide in the middle of worship and to grow in my understanding of the themes of freedom, deliverance and dependence.  Two years that opened my eyes to a whole other view of God and how he can be worshiped that didn't replace what I knew but broadened and beautified it.

I came on staff after these two years of learning and leading.  I stepped into an evolving worship culture that was longing to grow in the same areas that I was longing for.  A place where lots of mistakes were being made but even in those mistakes, small steps were being taken to move forward.  One of those steps was the development of the Worship Leaders Track, a place where we could train student worship leaders from all over Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina each year.  So now, seven years into co-leading the Worship Leaders Track at our annual chapter camp and more than 10 years since that fateful morning I stepped into that church, I am humbled to look back on those early and, often embarrassing, beginnings.  To see how narrow my view of worship and God were and to rejoice in the things He has taught me, graciously, along with the help of new friends and churches and colleagues in my life over those years. 

I leave for camp in just 3 days. I have spent many days of the past year reflecting on camp from last year, tweaking, praying, dreaming with my co-leader, remembering what leading at camp felt like before this track even existed, feeling thankful that our regional director let us take the risk to train students in multiethnic worship.  As I make my final changes to talks and practice the songs that we'll be leading more than 800 students in this year, I think about how much potential this experience has for the students and staff who are coming.  That God might reveal himself in new and potentially broadening and deepening ways.  That my own education would continue, that I would see new facets of this good and beautiful God that I serve and worship.  That I would be humbled again by the incredible gifts that He has given these students in the arts and music and excited as I watch the Spirit grow them in confidence and humility, in skill and dependence.

That's why I love the worship track. In one short week, I see people change. I see their hearts grow in desire for authentic, faith-filled and spirit-driven worship.  I am reminded again that working with college students is a tremendous, life-giving privilege.  And I am humbled anew at the power of God and the beauty of His image reflected in people of every ethnicity and culture.