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BCMC JOURNAL 2005
Missions Moment: God's
Purposes in Worship and Missions
By Joe Crider
It is
indeed an honor to speak at this conference and
especially on behalf of the International Mission
Board. That honor for me is magnified simply because I
am not an International Mission Board missionary, nor have I ever served as a
full-time missionary. In my home church, Second Baptist
of Springfield, Missouri, missionaries are our heroes. So
to stand before you now in place of a "real life
missionary," I am truly honored.
I
remember driving to our church on a Friday night in
October over eight years ago. It was a dark, rainy night
just after the time change. I was irritated to say the
least. I hadn't seen much of my wife or my four kids
throughout the hectic fall kick-off season, and here I
was taking my only day off that week to go hear a guy
tell our church staff and lay leadership how missions
was going to transform our church. I was also upset
because I had left my dream job at a small Baptist
University to come to this church that I thought had
worship as the hub of all other ministries.
In
the months leading up to that meeting in October, a
visible change had occurred in our pastor and our
administrator. There was a focused intentionality about
them that was energizing and a little alarming all at
the same time. They began to voice a new mantra for
our church: "Missions is not something we do, it is who we
are."
At
that time, I wasn't smitten by the mission bug; honestly,
I was not interested in missions. Sure I would give to
Annie and Lottie, but my calling was not to missions it
was to lead worship. I soon realized that this mission
train driven by our pastor and the administrator would
stop for no one. Indeed, as this train continued down
the tracks, it picked up more and more steam.
The
meeting began, and Dr. Larry Reesor, from Global Focus,
began to speak. Initially, he told about some tribe in
a remote jungle that had gotten saved. He showed a
video called Etow, and even hard as my heart was, I
must admit being stirred to see on film an entire
village come to Christ at the same time.
And
then, he began to talk about worship. For the next
hour, worship, not missions, was the focus of the
discussion. I was mesmerized. He began
unleashing a salvo of questions and quotes about worship
and missions with an energy that still causes my heart
to race. On the screen he projected this
question:
"Why does God want the people of the world to know Him?
God's purpose is that all people should WORSHIP HIM!"
And
then he read this quote from John Piper's book, Let
the Nations Be Glad:
"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church.
Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is
ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the
countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces
before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It
is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever."
I
wept, and I couldn't stop weeping. I realized the
beautiful and essential common thread between missions
and worship. I have found that a heart for missions and
a heart for worship beat in perfect rhythm. I have
found that one cannot really exist to its fullest
potential without the other. I believe missions and
worship are married to one another.
As
our church did indeed begin the journey to make missions
"who we are" instead of simply "what we do," I began to
notice more active and authentic participation in
corporate worship of those people in and outside of the
choir and orchestra who went on mission trips. At
first, I thought it was simply the "afterglow" of the
mission trips on the faces of people who had witnessed
transformational life change in other people all over
the world. Then I began to notice the passionate
worship of our guest IMB missionaries during our Global
Impact Celebration worship events. They were not
focused on the mechanics or the methods of our
worship; they were focused on the motive behind
worship: Jesus Christ and Him glorified here and all over
the world, because He is worthy of our worship.
Throughout the years of having IMB missionaries come and
be with our congregation, that sole focus on Christ was
contagious for our people.
The
staff leaders in our mission endeavors called all of the
staff to be actively involved in missions, especially
mission projects that were not necessarily in our line
of duty. For example, I spent one mission trip being a
roofer for newly constructed homes in Nicaragua. It put
me in contact with people from our church that had
nothing to do with the music ministry, but everything to
do with corporate worship when we returned home.
Our
goal in the worship ministry at Second for a long time
has been to effectively move worship from the platform
to the pew. We have tried and continue to try so many
things to make that happen, but nothing has been more
effective than our people (in and out of the choir)
being actively involved in missions.
Serving and worshiping alongside of our own church
people in a non-musical environment to share the gospel
of Christ ties hearts and lives together. As those
people got to know my heart, and I theirs, the common
connections of serving and loving and proclaiming the
name of Jesus united our hearts in worship. Can you
imagine how missions has united the hearts of our teams
that have served together in music and worship
environments?
There
have been some major shifts in the philosophy of our
worship and music ministry because our church has become
a missions-focused church:
Worship is our
response to God; Missions is our desire for others to
respond to Him as well. Leading others to respond
to Him is an ultimate act of worship.
Because so much of
mission work is servant-based, our worship ministry
is built on the foundation of serving our people,
not performing for them or entertaining them. Music is
a creative art, and if art of any kind does not somehow
serve, it is frivolous art.
For us in this
entertainment-saturated culture, the artistic lines are
often fuzzy between serving and performing. The often-times messy work of missions has a way of separating
the performers from the servers. A person's true
colors often fly - or better yet, even change - in the less
than glamorous work of missions.
Effective worship
leadership is not contingent upon perfectly executed
music; effective worship leadership is based on our
people living a lifestyle of worship between Wednesday
and Sunday. Therefore, we encourage our choir and
orchestra members to be involved in as many mission and
ministry experiences as they feel led by God. In other
words, a choir member's effectiveness in serving our
people from the choir loft, is directly
proportional to how they serve outside the loft
and the church.
Some of the most
transformational moments of worship we as a people have
experienced have happened simply because we were
obedient to Christ's command to "go": on a beach
in Mexico, a bridge in China, at the foot of a volcano
in Guatemala, in the dry heat of Tanzania, the rolling
hills of Scotland, the humidity of Nicaragua, and the
thin mountain air of Nepal -- all where there was no
choir, no orchestra, no sound system, and often not a
note of music, just the spirit of the Living God among
His people. I can't think of a mission trip that our
people have taken when they haven't come back and said
something like, "God did amazing things." In other
words, God did things while they were obedient to His
call that they couldn't explain by their own efforts. When they came home, praising Him and worshiping Him in
spirit and truth was not only so much more meaningful,
it was their response to Him because of what they had
seen Him do!
We had to ask the
question, "How truthful are we when we sing some of the
songs we sing?" As Sally Morganthaler said, "It is time
that the world stops seeing such a huge disparity
between the boldness of our claims and the blandness of
our engagement with God." Being on mission engages
people with God.
Missions at Second Baptist Church has caused us in the
music and worship ministry to put our lives where our
mouths and voices are. Think of the multitude of songs,
hymns and spiritual songs, both ancient and modern, that
call us to act upon Christ's command to "Go." Our
effectiveness in leading worship is directly
proportional to our willingness to be obedient to all of
Christ's commands, and His call to go is a personal
call. Being intentional about missions will change
the way your church responds to God. May God use you
and bless you for His purposes as you lead your
ministries through His strength and for His glory.
Joe Crider is
Minister of Music, Second Baptist Church, Springfield,
Missouri.
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