Music Is the Tool, Maturity is the Goal – (Conference Keynote)

Alex | 

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Worship Ministry Training podcast. My name is Alex and Fijian and so glad that you are here tuning in and investing in yourself. If you are a new listener, welcome. So glad you’re here. I encourage you to one subscribe whether you’re on YouTube or in your podcast app of choice, but two, if you’re a new listener, go back to the last eight years now of podcast episodes and hit the topics that are interesting and helpful to you in this season of your ministry. Because every episode is as on topic as possible and as in depth as possible. So go back and check out what we’ve already released because we’ve just celebrated our 8th birthday. I can’t believe it. We’re coming up on one decade of the Worship Ministry Training podcast. I know it’s still two years away, but let me celebrate early, okay? Eight years, you guys. Eight years. 6000 downloads. Over half a million downloads, thanks to you guys. So thank you so much. I have wanted to quit many times over the last eight years, but I’m so glad that the Lord has helped me to persevere and to push on.

Alex | 

So if you want to celebrate a happy birthday to us, you can just leave us a review on your Apple podcast app if you listen on Apple podcast, and even if you don’t listen on Apple podcast, just go there anyway and leave us a five star review and just tell us why you’ve been blessed by the podcast. Just super grateful for what God has done and grateful for you guys being a part of this journey. And just to be totally honest, I just got back from the Loop Community Conference, the Worship Innovators conference in Chicago in October. It was amazing. It pumped me up even more. It made me want to just carry on even more. And I actually now, you know, believe God really wants me to pursue this to the point where I’m gonna be crazy. And, you know, I think the Bible wants us to be bold for Jesus. I’m going to prayerfully. Ask the Lord to help Worship Ministry Training to serve 1000 churches in the next ten years. So, like I said, we’ve already had over half a million downloads, 600,000 downloads, and we just launched the academy. I’m asking the Lord, lord, I want to serve as many churches with these resources as possible.

Alex | 

So join us in that journey to 100,000 churches over the next ten years. That’s going to be a fun journey, but I just really believe God wants me to keep doing this. So excited for today’s episode. Actually, this month I’m going to give you a couple of episodes from the Loop Community Worship Innovators conference. So if you weren’t there, these were some of the things that I was a part of there. This first one that I’m giving you is actually the keynote talk that I gave called Music is the Tool, not the Point. And this is probably one of the most important talks that I could ever give in this cultural moment of worship culture that we find ourselves in, where everybody is making the metrics and the things that we measure for ministry success as the externals. That probably wasn’t a very clear sentence, but what I’m saying is we look at a church and we judge their success by the externals. The sound quality, the band quality, the stage presence, the lights, the Led wall. But what Jesus is measuring is a completely different metric. And so that’s what this talk is about.

Alex | 

It’s only an 18 minutes talk. I’m going to encourage you, one, to listen to it and two, to send it to as many worship leaders and to as many pastors as you can. Because I just think this is such an important topic in this moment of time. So please do me a favor for our 8th birthday. And one, leave a rating. And two, send this podcast to as many worship leader friends as you can possibly do, even to your own team. Send it to your own team members, even if they’re not worship leaders. I think everybody can benefit from this talk and this topic. So that’s this first episode this month and we have a couple of others coming. That’s it, let’s dive into it. I’ll talk to you at the very end.

Alex |

Is it super weird and ironic that at a conference on innovation I have paper and a three reminder? I feel like I’m back in 6th grade or something. But you know, I like paper, it doesn’t turn off. So like I said, my name is Alex, we’re semester, training, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Like who cares? But I just want to spend some time with you guys thinking about just one big question. And that is like, what if the target we’ve been aiming at is the wrong target? What if the goals we’ve been pursuing are not exactly the right goals? What if we’ve been spending all of our time and effort and energy moving towards the wrong objectives or measuring our success by the wrong metrics? What if great musicians, epic tech teams, by the way, can we give it up for our tech team because Julianne Jack Miller. Thank you guys. Wait. Thank you guys. But what if epic tech teams and amazing camera shots and perfect execution are actually not as important to Jesus as we think they might be? And what if maybe I’m just asking the question, what if they’re not important to him at all?

Alex |

Because the truth is, Jesus never said to make music. He said to make disciples. His last thing he said on planet Earth before he said it was go and make music. No. Go and make disciples and disciples. We’ve been commissioned. Yes. I’m not saying music is bad. You guys would throw stuff at me. Of course music and the Bible commands. It’s been easy. But specifically what Christ commissioned us, his disciples, to do is to make more disciples. And disciples are what Jesus cares about. Discipleship should be our primary goal. That should be the metric we’re measuring. At the end of the day, you could theoretically make the best music in the world in your church. But if you didn’t make disciples you will have an abject failure of ministry. It is and I don’t want to failure of ministry. I know you don’t want to have failure of ministry and so we need to have some mindset shifts because what’s been happening whether we’ve known it or not, it’s like you boil a frog just kind of in the water and the temperature goes up like they don’t notice. Well, social media, YouTube, Instagram, all these videos and visual mediums are showing us external success of ministry.

Alex |

They’re showing the success of worship ministry being a very external thing. And we’re shown that the things that matter are things like musical excellence, epic production, awesome lights, killer shots, clean stages, passionate stage presence, great songwriting. And again, don’t get me wrong, like all of those things are wonderful and all of those things are important in their own way but they’re just not of primary importance. They’re not the main thing. They’re not the primary thing that Jesus asked us to do. And in fact if we pursue those things. If we make an idol out of those things. Which many of us have and many of us do. And we struggle with that balance but if we pursue those things at the neglect of the maze thing. The central thing of making disciples. Then Jesus actually tells us that to him all of that music and all of that light show is noise. And if you look at Amen chapter five he says take away from me the noise of your songs and to the melody of your heart or to the raging electric guitars solo. I will not listen. I ain’t gonna listen to that.

Alex |

I’m not interested in that. Instead let justice roll down like raging waters and raging waters no. Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream. See, what Jesus cares about is not our songs and we all know this but I think it’s important to remind ourselves this he doesn’t care about our songs. He cares about our lives. He cares about our hearts. He cares about our holiness. He cares about our discipleship. He cares that we look more like him every day. And more importantly as shepherds in God’s church then we help our team members look more like Christ with each year that passes. That is our primary purpose is to help our teams look live and love like Jesus more every single year. That’s what he’s asking you to do. This is not in my notes, so sorry dianne but pretty much like all of the innovators that are here teaching at the conference. We’ve all been in pretty big churches with all the cool stuff we can tell you. It’s not all that. So don’t make that your aim. That is not your aid. Discipleship is your aid. People are your aim.

Alex |

Okay? So we want to help our people live, love, and look more like Jesus every year. That’s what he’s looking for, and that’s our primary objective. And yet, sadly, I think in many of our worship industries, it’s probably on our list of objectives, but it’s maybe down the list. Maybe for some of you, it’s not on the list at all, but it’s supposed to be number one on the list. It’s the main thing we’re called to do. It’s the metric Jesus is measuring. Are your people looking more like you every year? And so this is where you and I need to make this flip in our minds that says, I’m not here to make music. I’m here to make disciples. That is my role. I am not a musician. I am a minister. I am not a song leader. I am a shepherd. My primary purpose is to help these people, my team, the people God has entrusted into my care, to help them look more like Christ. And so we need to turn that corner in our mind and understand that music ministry, ironically, isn’t really about making music at all. It’s about forming people into the image of Christ.

Alex |

And music is just the excuse that we use or production it’s just the excuse that we use to gather with our people every week, to pour into them, to disciple them, to teach them God’s word, to exhort them, to challenge them, to love them, to shepherd them, to walk with them through the ups and downs and lives, the triumphs and the tragedies. We’re right there with them. The weekly rehearsal or the weekly Sunday in between service types. The purpose for that is discipleship. It’s just a great excuse to gather them because they probably all love to play music, like Jason was saying yesterday. And that is the point of our ministry. And if we fail at discipleship, we fail at everything. And it’s all noise to God. But again, like I said, social media has deceived us that success is based on how cool our church looks, how cool our church talented. And here’s another tangent. So sorry, Juan, but, like, seriously, guys, can we get past the copycatting each other? Like all the churches looking exactly the same and wearing the same style clothes. Like, God made you unique. God made your people unique.

Alex |

So let’s bring out the expression that he’s placed in us, too. So that’s just a little side handed. So anybody do that? Okay. Thank you, Steve. Up here hanging on my goal. But look again, all that stuff is cool, but it’s secondary. It’s secondary stuff. It’s not the point because we all know this verse, verse ten or 16. The Lord does not look at things like people looks at them. People look at the outward appearance of the Lord looks at the heart. And I just want to encourage some of you in this room who come to conferences like this, and you look at this stage and you’re like, oh, my gosh, I wish I had all that stuff in my church. My church is so dorky. My church is so late. I don’t know why you have an accent, but I’m just doing something. But listen, you might have the lamest dorkiest cheesiest hookiest villain. As you can see, that group, I got to go back to school. But you might have the lamest thing like it’s just you an abandoned layer and like a box, right? Listen, jumping aside, if the people in that industry look more like Jesus at the end of that year, you have been wildly successful in your role, okay?

Alex |

Not about all this stuff. It’s about thank you. Because that is the only metric Jesus is actually measuring. And so I want us to honestly obsess ask yourself, do your people look more like Jesus this year than they did last year? I really want you guys to assess that. Are their hearts closer to Him? Do they have a better grasp of His Word? Have their lives grown in holiness? Have they grown in their heart for the loss? Do they exhibit more in the fruit of the spirit in their daily lives? Or do they just have better guitars? Right? And we will say guitar. Guitar tone is important. Amen. Everybody knows bad guitar tone is bad. And you should all buy Brian’s patches on worship tutorials people immediately improve that side of it. But I’m just saying, if you spend more time dialing in your guitar tones than encouraging and discipling people, maybe something backward, okay? Just say it. And so don’t be deceived by all the things that social media is trying to sell you, of what a successful ministry is, of what you’re supposed to build. Because if we get the heart rock, we get everything else wrong.

Alex |

But with that said, the cool thing is if we get the cyclone ship right, we can still have all the other stuff as bonus. You can still do all the lighting at the production, but it shouldn’t be a focus. Don’t make an idol. It’s not the point. It’s a tool. Okay? And so I want to look at the features for more than with you. It’ll be on the screen. I’m just going to break it down quickly. It says, So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers, in other words, the church leaders, to equip his people for works of service. In other words, to help them play music or lead worship. That’s what they do. We help them do that. But that’s not the goal because look at the next verse. We help them do. That why? So that, so that, that’s why so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. So in other words, Ephesus four is saying that God gave you the church leader to the church to help them serve.

Alex |

That’s what they do. So that they become mature and like Christ. That is the goal. Becoming like Christ. Christ’s likeness is the goal. That’s the reason why you’re eating sweet. Music is the tool. Maturity is the goal. Music is the tool and maturity is the goal. So how are we doing it that guys, has your focus been on the tool or has your been focused been on the people? Have you been obsessing about excellence and tag and creativity and looking at sounding like all the other churches that you admire and forgetting that those are not the things that are actually the main point. Those are fun things and they have their good things in their proper place. That’s the key term, in their proper place. But they’re not the point. That’s not why guys put you and me in the street. And I just want to fast forward to the end of your life when you stand before Jesus and you have everything you’ve ever done on planet Earth and you’re like, here’s what I see. I’m going to be kind of like a little thinking about this. He’s not going to say how many banknotes did you keep?

Alex |

He’s not going to say what pixel didn’t fit to use your Led wall. He’s not going to say what keywords for now you use, which you should of course use payments second time. But he’s not going to ask her about that. He’s going to ask one thing, did you help your people follow me? Did you help your people look love and live like me? Did you teach them about me? Did you model it for me? And Amos Five showed us that if our lives don’t match our songs, that God calls it going, but if our lives match our songs, he calls it music, he calls it worship. He calls it discipleship. And we want our people to be worshippers, not just people who play worship music. And so my encouragement, guys, is let’s keep the proper focus. I’m so glad you’re here. We’re all so glad you’re here, Matt, so glad you’re here. We want you to learn about all of these things. That’s our job. That’s our goal. We’re supposed to excel in it, but we have to keep it in its proper place. We have to view running tracks through the lens of discipleship.

Alex |

We have to do everything through the lens of discipleship and ask ourselves, how can I use all of these activities to help my people fall more in love with Jesus? So I’m just going to rattle off a couple of examples that I think that’s kind of like, hey, I’m going to use like running cable cleanly as an opportunity to disciple TV, who is helping me about diligence, right? Or we’re going to get new keyboard software and learn how to use it so that we can learn about stewardship. Because you don’t just buy something, you actually want to learn how to use it the right way. That’s a stewardship issue because if we don’t use it to the full potential, we’re wasting our money. You’re using all of these cool things that we’re learning at this conference through the lens of discipleship. And so I just want to encourage all of us here, how can you shift your focus just slightly off of production and onto people? And if you need a shift today, just honestly just ask God to help you. Because James says if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God. He’s generously without approach.

Alex |

If you ask, he wants to bring this to fruition in your ministry. He wants to bring discipleship to fruition in your ministry. So like just take a pause today and just go outside and look like weirdo, like corner or whatever and just, Lord, show me how do I do this? I want to do this. This is what you care about. This is the only metric you’re measuring. And ask yourself that. And ask yourself, are you just making music or are you really making disciples? And if you need to like debrief this with your pastoral team or if you need to debrief this with your team here, like do it at lunch, grab a table, sit around the table and ask discipleship matters, are we doing this? Do our people look more like Jesus this year than they did last year? And if not, like, what can we tweak? What can we change? How can we start using everything as a discipleship tool? Because music is the tool, but discipleship is the goal. And so let’s make music to make sense. Yes. Amen. Okay, all right, this is what I want to pray and just ask God to give us this wisdom because it’s hard, guys, I know this is hard.

Alex |

I’m literally getting in you. Okay? So let’s pray and ask him about this. God, I’m so thankful just for this opportunity to encourage these amazing soldiers of yours, Lord, who are in the trenches every week with people dealing with their problems, dealing with their issues, God, and forgive us if any one of us has made music or production in an idol and it’s become our primary focus. Lord, we thank you for those gifts, we thank you for those tools, but help us not to put them in the wrong place. Help us to put you first, people second and all the other fun stuff third, Lord. So give us Windsor, give us your eyes to see how we can better shepherd our people and lord, may we get to the end of our lives and say, Lord, here’s what I have to offer you. It’s all these people who love you more. We actually do.

Alex | 

All right, well, hopefully this episode encouraged you, challenged you, maybe made you examine any idols in your heart. And again, I’m going to ask you to send this to as many people as you know that are in the worship space or in the church leadership space, including your senior pastor, and just have a dialogue with him about this or her. If you are in that type of a church, which God bless you. I don’t care, who cares? So that’s it for this month’s episode. I’m going to encourage you. If you like this kind of content and you want to take your craft and you’re calling seriously, check out the Worship Ministry Training Academy. It’s ten in depth courses on topics like set building, team building, musical excellence, administrative systems, I mean, all the stuff that you need to build a thriving worship ministry. We have live monthly trainings. We’re now doing weekly live coaching calls. With me, you can jump on a coaching call, ask whatever question your heart desires, and I will be there to talk you through whatever situation you’re facing. We have lots of resources for building your team, strengthening your team, and making sure your team is spiritually vibrant.

Alex | 

So you can try it all. For $1. Go to Worship Ministrytraining.com. $1 will get you 15 days full access. I hope to meet you inside of the academy, and yes, I will type you back if you join. All right, God bless you guys. I’ll see not next month. I’ll see you soon for another episode from the Worship Innovators conference.

Alex |

God bless.