CHAPTER EIGHT – MUSIC AND OTHER MINISTRIES
Rick Warren is adamant that you produce top quality Christian music for your church from the get-go. I agree, not only because good music is great to listen to, but is an important way of thanking and praising God: which are essential habits of an effective Christian. Everybody loves good music, and King David was always singing to God with well-organized bands with harps, stringed instruments and cymbals. David had a group of 4,000 singers and musicians at the temple with 288 experts to train and supervise them.288 That is a sure sign that God loves us praising and worshipping Him through music. In heaven, “spirit creatures play figurative harps and sing praises around Jehovah's [God’s] throne.”289 Therefore, I recommend you employ a good quality Christian band for your services if and when finances allow. I don’t believe God is after absolute perfection in the musical area, so if you can only play recorded music, use the best equipment you can afford.
'Eddie edge-trimmer' church projected music lyrics onto a screen like a teleprompter. But too often, the teleprompter played up so everyone had to stop singing. It ruined the rhythm and pleasure of the song. I prefer to have music sheets or books for everyone in the congregation just like in the old church organ days. I know there is no perfect system, but music sheets are much more reliable. I don’t make any fuss over the style of music as long as it is praising, worshipping and thanking God. When I attended churches in the late 1970s and early 80s, churches had highly skilled choirs who played the older style of music to a church organ. But over the past thirty years, Australia has been blessed with the development of Christian music in the modern rock format. Hillsong Church is the leader in modern Christian music. Their lyrics are easy to follow, and full of thanks, worship, and praise. Some of my favorite Hillsong songs synthesize rock music with the old church organ. I find that very stirring because I grew up with both church organ music and rock and roll. So it hits the spot for me personally.
I believe youth groups are excellent ministries because I was involved in two during my late teens. They provide excellent opportunity for young Christians to get together for fun, healthy activities. Some churches call Bible Study Groups, Home Groups. I urge you to call them Bible Study Groups to remind everyone that the Bible is the center of our teaching because it contains everything you need to know about Christ (TAS, The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, 86-93, 102). And yes, I’ll nag you to death and repeat: Jesus Christ is the center of EVERYTHING.290 So keep Him there.291
Most churches have a Sunday school for the children which I believe is essential because children need to be taught at a different pace and in different ways than adults. But, please ensure you teach about Christ, even to children. I was not brought up in a Christian family. But my family had me christened in the Lauderdale (Tasmania) Church of England on June 11, 1967. That is the date written on the inside of my C of E Common Prayer Book my aunty and uncle gave me. That was the only time I went to church as a child. For some strange reason I remember the topic of the Sunday school that day was the book of Ruth. Of course, the story went straight over my head because all I got out of it was a couple of ladies picking up some leftovers from some crops in a field. That was quite strange to me, and that is probably why I remembered it!!!!
But, the first page of the Common Prayer Book has a full page picture of a man carrying an old-fashioned lamp, knocking on a door with the words "The Light of the World" written directly underneath. I never knew who the man was or his name, and it never occurred to me to ask anyone because I was a very quiet kid. What an opportunity lost on a little boy like me. If only the Sunday school had told me that this was Jesus Christ, and given me a basic outline of Who He is, what He has done, and how to worship Him, I may have connected with Christ earlier in my life. We must never, ever, ever, lose even one opportunity to let children know about Christ and how to worship Him.
I am not too sure about having a Men’s Ministry and a Women’s Ministry. There is nothing wrong with them, but I see more value in doing everything as family units, not separating men and women. As Christians mingle in their family groups, different people will gravitate together at different times when they find topics in common. As TAS says, the Devil is trying extremely hard and succeeding in attacking the family unit because God places extreme importance on the family (TAS, The Greatness and Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, 11). So, build family, family, family in everything you do.
If you can identify any tangible, measurable evidence that having men’s and women’s ministries will result in greater Christian growth, then go for it.292 But remember what I keep saying: Jesus C …………. is the C ……. of E …………..293 Church fetes are another thing I am not too sure about. How does a church fete result in an increase of Christ among church members or the community?294 I have attended a few church fetes throughout my life, but, I could not discern the slightest piece of evidence that would see an increase of Christ in the church or the community. I believe most communities like the concept of the traditional church fete, simply because they are brought up with them. You could say that the church fete results in direct contact between Christians and the community, and a possible spin-off is that some members of the community might attend your church? But, is there any evidence at all that this has ever occurred? If you can find any correlation, go for it.
At a church I attended, a member donated some plants to be sold at the church fete. When the member saw her plants on the stall at the fete, she told the stall holders (fellow Christians) not to ‘give the plants away’ for too low a price. Apparently, the stall holders were upset by the lady’s tone of voice: (Devil 1 … Church 0). At another church fete, a record player was left unattended and one of the regular teenage boys who attended the church inserted a disk of non-Christian music and turned it up loud. Who was responsible for ensuring everything ran smoothly at the fete?
I am not too sure about prayer ministries. Some churches have a prayer night at the church during the week. There is nothing wrong with this at all, but having a prayer ministry for the sake of it is another strange one (TAS, The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, 102; Long, 48-49). A church I attended started a weekly prayer meeting on a weeknight. I attended one session only. Neither the pastor nor other senior members of the church were there. It was unstructured and nobody led us in prayer worship. There were no written or verbal instructions or guide on what topics we could or should pray about. We gravitated into a few small groups and some of us uttered general prayers along the lines of asking God to spiritually protect our church and its leaders. But I did not attend again because I was not advised of any particular prayer topics for the church. I was a new Christian and didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do.
Maybe some churches have well-structured prayer nights run by senior members of the church who lead attendees in prayers about particular church issues and goals, and also prayer for attendees who are going through something major such as illness, impending birth, death in the family etc. That type of prayer night is excellent. Church leaders are TOTALLY responsible for ensuring any church ministry is run effectively and in a professional and informative manner. Why should anyone, including Christians, interrupt a weeknight for a disorganized church ministry? As TAS says, "… there is all the difference between praying and a prayer meeting. You can have a prayer meeting without praying in the true spiritual sense …" (TAS, The Cross, the Church, and the Kingdom, 37-38)
This is the reason I recommend teaching the congregation to pray not only for their own individual growth and protection, BUT, ask them to include prayer for the spiritual growth and spiritual protection of the church and its leaders in their daily prayers.295 You see, my goal from the first week a church opens, is to involve the congregation in EVERY part of the church so that they can become outstanding Christian leaders sooner rather than later.296 Remember, this is the thrust of my 2012 essay on servant leadership at the end of this book. You should not be running a church simply because
you want to run a church; otherwise you will be a glorified Christian club.297
Granted, TAS appears to say God uses disorganized or dysfunctional churches to do some good for Christianity,298 but in Christ’s letters to the seven churches in Asia (Revelation Chapters 2 and 3), our Lord and Savior expected much more from EVERY one of those churches.299 Why? Because God wants EVERY Christian to reach full maturity in Christ because we will “… occupy a heavenly position for heavenly government with Christ …” and “… you cannot have such a calling and such a vocation … without the Lord being very exact …”300 And "… because of the greatness of that calling, this Church must behave itself accordingly 'I beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called' (Eph 4:1). Conduct has to be adjusted to calling. Oh, that Christian people behaved correspondingly to their calling …" (TAS, The Gospel According to Paul, 59-60)
God has been absolutely thorough in everything He has done from creation through to redemption, therefore EVERY Christian has “… got to mean business to reach that goal and obtain that prize …”301 If your church is not fully occupied with Christ as its object, God will “… allow disaster to overtake things upon which our hearts have been set … allows those things to break down … and other people to disappoint us …” to get us to open our spiritual eyes in the hope that we will repent and recover spiritual power by making the Lord Jesus Christ “… the supreme and all-governing Object of His people’s life. Not the things of the Lord, but the Lord Himself …” (TAS, The Recovery of Spiritual Power, 87)