One Body – Many Parts

Did you know Spence has written a book for your worship team?  Check it out here!

Some of the greatest memories of my childhood come from different experiences and lessons I learned playing sports. You see, I didn’t grow up with music as an interest. I was not in band or any other organization like theatre where music was a vital part. Rather, I was on the field or on the court. From as early as I can remember, I was playing sports. Baseball and basketball were my two favorites until high school where I was forced to realize that a skinny guy with mediocre skills just wasn’t going to cut it on the court. So, baseball became my focus and to be honest… I was pretty good at it. Not great, but pretty good. Anyway, as I look back on the teams that I was on and the accomplishments we made such as winning the Dixie Boys World Series in 1996 and making it to the final 4 my junior year and the elite 8 my senior year, I am reminded of so many lessons. Some of which are the importance of discipline, teamwork, dedication, focus, encouragement, critique, knowing your strengths, understanding your weaknesses, and how they push you to become better. You see, the main lesson that I learned is that you can accomplish so much more with a team than you can on your own. I also learned (and accepted) that there are people who are better than me at certain things. Playing sports taught me to not just accept this fact, but to celebrate it. Here is the reality: I would have never gotten the opportunity to be on the best 11 and 12 year-old team in all of the 12 southeastern states if some of my teammates weren’t better than me in some areas. Some were great pitchers… I wasn’t. Some were great hitters… I wasn’t. In fact, I was the only one on the team who never got a hit during the World Series. Some were really fast runners… I wasn’t. But together… we were great! We were great because we worked as hard as we could and we realized that we won as a team and not as individuals. No one person got the glory for anything. We were better together than we were on our own.

These are lessons I will always keep with me. I believe the same applies to our worship teams today. I believe where the tension is with music is that it is an individual discipline and passion. When you put these individual passions in a band context, they must submit to others and learn to play a supportive role as opposed to the lead role. If the individuals possessing these gifts and operating these instruments don’t understand the “team” dynamic, our worship ministries can reek of competition and jealousy. We will begin to size each other up and point out other’s weaknesses instead of coming along side of them to help them become better. Ultimately we will seek after the praise and adoration of our peers and our audience even if it means tearing down or showing up one of our teammates. Being on a worship team is just that:  a team that uses their gifts to lead others (and each other) in a greater awareness, appreciation, and response of Jesus. If we want our worship teams to be healthy and be a place of fruitful ministry, everyone must understand that being a part of a team is about decreasing… not increasing (John 3:30). Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you serve on a worship team.

Know your skills

In other words, know your strengths and your weaknesses. If you are not sure, take a deep breath and swallow your pride and ask those who serve with you to graciously give you their assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. (warning: use wisdom here as some will see this as an opportunity to tear you down and not build you up.) However, knowing your strengths will help you to focus on them and find and understand your specific role within the team. On the same note, knowing your weaknesses will help you know when and how to seek help from others around you. For example, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t the greatest hitter or fastest runner, but I was pretty solid on defense. So when I was put in the line up (which wasn’t much), I knew that I was being put in there to make plays in the field and keep the other team from getting on base and scoring. I did everything I could to help the team out on defense with my glove. I also did not try to hit home runs when I got the opportunity to hit. That was not my strength. I just wanted to get on base for the other guys to drive me in and we could score more runs. It is very important for us to know and understand our strengths and weaknesses for they will enable us to be a better asset to the team. We all must understand that God has given us our gifts and abilities. We don’t get to choose what He gives us, but we do get to choose what we do with it. We must be found trustworthy as stewards (1 Cor. 4:2) and seek to make the most of the talents with which we have been entrusted (Matt. 25:21).

Know your role

Go ahead and get out the fork and knife and prepare to take a big ole’ bite of “humble pie”! We each have different functions that must be preformed to make the band work much like the body has many parts that must work together to function properly. 1 Corinthians 12:14 says, “For the body does not consist of one member but of many.” Every part plays a vital and different role for the body to work properly. Just because these roles are different and some parts may seem to be more influential or important than others doesn’t mean the other parts are any less important. Think about this… am I any less a part of the body of Christ because my name is Spence and not Paul, Peter, Abraham, Moses, or David? No! I am just as much a part of the body as they are. They might have played a more important role in establishing the body than I did, but I am still a part of the body and I have roles that God has specifically given me to accomplish for Him. I am not contributing if I spend all my time wishing I was someone different with different responsibilities. Whether you are out in front leading or leading from the shadows. Whether you are singing every week or just once every 2 months. Whether you are playing for Sunday morning or the Student ministry. Know your role and perform it to the best of your ability and be thankful that you have been given an opportunity many others have not. You are a vital part of the team and the team needs you to function as long as you are playing the role that you have been given.

Know your heart

Our heart is the most important instrument that we have because it can affect and infect everything else that we do. Our hearts need our full attention. Left unchecked, our heart will begin to whisper lies of inadequacy and insecurity that will only diminish our ability to be a productive asset to the body, or team. Our heart will begin to cause us to look at others on the team and envy their roles and functions while neglecting to accomplish our own. When that happens, the team becomes dysfunctional and eventually disabled. We should watch over our hearts like a mother deer would watch over her fawn in the presence of a lion. At any moment, the lion can turn and devour the fawn. Listen to what Jeremiah says about the heart in chapter 17 verse 9. He says, “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Your heart can and will affect your motivations, and your motivations will either breath life into your efforts or suck the life out of them. Back in my athletic days, I wanted the team to win more than I wanted myself to win. You see, if it meant me not getting the game winning hit, then that was fine. If it meant me not even playing at all… fine. I was still a part of the team and therefore, I would be a part of the win. This gave me the attitude I needed to be a great team player and perform when I needed to, and encourage when I needed to.

The first and greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And the second greatest is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Simply put: Love God and Love People. This is at the heart of the Gospel. It is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry and work on the cross. It was at the heart of the apostles as they shared the love of Jesus to many and began to establish the church amidst much persecution. It is at the heart of Paul’s ministry of discipleship and church planting and it should be at the heart of our ministry. All these people accomplished more with others than they ever could by themselves, all because their goal was to decrease while the greater purpose, the Gospel, increased. This is where our hearts need to be as we serve on our worship teams. We are better together than we are separate and we can accomplish more together than we can on our own. “Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.” 1 Corinthians 10:24