A while back at one of our Worship Team gatherings I talked about three important merges that must be true of Pathway Worship.

•Technology and Authenticity

•Variety and Community

•Creativity and Simplicity 

These merges will contribute to the health, growth, relevance and unity of our ministry. The following is a “refresh” on that vision and a continued exploration of each merge.

Technology and Authenticity.

One of the great things about having technologically smart people on your staff is the continued growth of tech in the ministry. Pathway Worship has seen much improvement in so many areas. The quality of our videos, the presence on the web, the development of our lighting, the upgrades in our in-ear monitor systems — I could keep going!  Using technology for the betterment of ministry has been a long-standing reality for Pathway Worship and for our church as a whole. Rather than resist it, we embrace that reality and choose to use our resources for the glory of God.

It’s not quite that simple though, is it? You and I both know that the increase of one good thing can bring about challenges for other good things. One major challenge we face with the increase of technology is the possibility of maintaining authenticity as worshippers. This is not a new concern, for sure.

Let me ask you, can our congregation be distracted by what they see and miss connecting with us as worship leaders? Can they miss connecting with God? I think we’d all agree the answer is yes — absolutely! But, that can happen with anything. It can be the temperature of the room, the color of the pastor’s sweater, the coziness of the chairs, or the lack of power outlets to charge their smart phones. Those things can distract too! Distractions on their own can never be the sole reason to avoid technology. As long as we believe we are doing it for the right reasons we are not going to stop pursuing good technology. Our hope is that technology is used as a tool, a pathway per se, to create more inviting places of authentic worship and service and shine the spotlight on who God is and what He’s doing in the process.

But what if that is hard to see?  What do you and I do if we perceive that technology is less a tool and more a roadblock to authentic worship?

First, we need to ask ourselves what role we play in bringing about real authenticity. If we believe that technology is a distraction, if we are not careful we might wind up blaming technology itself for a lack of authenticity. But a DMX lighting cable is as authentic (and inauthentic) as a DMX lighting cable is ever going to be. Authenticity always comes back to you and me. We are the best evidences of authentic worship at Pathway.

True authenticity is demonstrated in our relationships with one another, with the congregation we lead and with the church at large. Authenticity begins in our hearts and is who we are before God, no matter what kind of light is shining on us. Proverbs 27:19 says, “As in water face reflects face, so a man’s heart reveals the man.”

What does your heart say about you and your authenticity as a worship leader? How are you asking God to help you become a more authentic worship leader?

Let us strive to use technology as a tool to bring glory to God and, at the same time, give Him glory through the authenticity of our worship.

Variety and Community.

“The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.” — William Somerset Maugham

Recently I had the opportunity to visit all of our worship venues, and walked away feeling incredibly blessed to work with such talented people. Our church is a growing, expanding worship community and I thank each one of you for being on the frontline of that growth. I also thank you for contributing to the variety that Pathway Worship fosters every weekend. Variety within our list of musicians, represented by different ages and unique talents. And variety within our sets of music, represented by the songs sung and the sounds of the band.

These factors and more contribute to us being able to offer a variety of worship expressions to our God, which are expressions represented by our different venues. God has led Pathway to grow as one church expressed in a variety of venues. Until we sense Him leading us differently, we will continue to embrace this type of variety and see it as a way to bring our unique blends of worship before Him.

The challenge with living out this variety is maintaining a healthy and vibrant community. About three years ago we discussed this before launching our Moon Campus. I still believe it is a challenge as we see people serving in each venue, sometimes going weeks without seeing some others in our ministry. This doesn’t mean we stop pursuing unity, however. We need to make every effort to grow with, and alongside, one another.

This year we will have different opportunities to come together outside of the normal weekend routines. Please join us for those gatherings. I also want to encourage you to connect in ways outside of the large gatherings. Take somebody to lunch, have a family over for dinner, foster the worship team community in your own ways. You might have creative ideas yourself. If you have the time, shoot me your ideas and we can continue to grow as we merge Variety and Community.

Our worship ministry will be more beautiful when we can find unity in the midst of our variety.

Creativity and Simplicity.

This last Monday night I watched some of the Grammy Awards. I’m in the music business so I feel like it’s part of the job. Say what you will about the show and some of the performers, but  one thing is certain — there are very creative people behind the scenes in what happens on that stage. I often wonder what I need to do be creative like that.

I wonder that about us, too.

What would it look like if Pathway Church were one of the most creative places in our community?

What if our community thought of Pathway as the best place to find creative solutions to problems or moving demonstrations of art?

What if Pathway Church were recognized as a place and a people who took creativity seriously; seeing it as more than just an option for ministry but a requirement of doing business?

What would our worship ministry look like if this were true of us? Is creativity really even that important for our ministry? I believe it is.

Creativity is crucial, and not just because the stale and bland is undesirable. Creativity is important because our Creator God is a creating God and as people made in His image, we should be a creating people. When we creatively do ministry in fresh and new ways, we are communicating to others that we believe God is a God who makes things new. We sing new songs and tell new stories and create new art because God makes things new.  And specifically, He makes us new. Creativity is a value as we move forward because we believe creativity reveals the heart of God when it is used to tell His story.

The problem is, when creativity is not combined with clarity, you just wind up with a fresh mess. I don’t want to be another fresh mess with no real substance. This is why creativity in our ministry should always be merged with the value of simplicity. The value of simplicity sharpens our message and positively constrains it to what we are all about, the Gospel of Jesus. Creativity can bring about dancing poodles and juggling trapeze artists but without the simple message of Jesus it can easily distract from the message we are trying to communicate. Our creativity should help us worship Jesus rather than distract us from worshiping Him. Simplicity keeps the main thing the main thing and helps us stay on the right course.

Last week’s message from Pastor Matt spoke to the heart of keeping it simple when he noted: “There is extraordinary potential in ordinary priorities.” 

Valuing simplicity in our lives and in our ministry will enable us to see the potential of extraordinarily creative things. As a ministry let’s strive to make sure we are merging both creativity and simplicity.

“Creativity is more than just being different… making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creative.”  — Charles Mingus Jr. (jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader)