SOMETHING CLOSER

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with my friend, Kyle, about worship.

Kyle is a gifted vocalist and bass player, but his real passion is leading worship. As a college student, he gets a lot of opportunities to lead worship and he and I can spend hours talking about techniques and philosophy and song ideas and a whole host of other worship-related issues.

As we were talking, I was very passionately expressing the need for young worship leaders to watch other worship leaders. One of the most distressing things I come across in my worship travels is meeting young worship leaders who sit at home watching Passion DVDs or going to worship concerts by famous CCM/worship artists...unfortunately for a lot of young adults in worship, this is the only other worship they see (other than their own churches.)

My heart is to encourage young adult worship teams to branch out and experience Something Closer. The Passion DVDs are very cool and extremely moving. I love watching them. And I've been to more Paul Baloche concerts than I care to reveal. I get it...

But it's dangerous when our only exposure to worship leading is what I call "event worship." The dudes at Passion are great and so is Paul Baloche, but those things really aren't close to my life. And I believe that if I'm going to be excellent in what I do for my congregation, I need to find people who are good at it and who I can learn from. I'm talking about everyday folks from the church down the road or the worship leader at my parents' church - somebody that I can call on the phone and ask questions...somebody who's leading week in and week out, knowing his or her congregation and ministering as a pastor to them.

And then I realized that, for guys like Kyle, there's not always Something Closer.

Are there great worship leaders in your town? If you told young worship leaders to get out in the community and learn from those pastoring their congregations in worship, would those kids even be able to find anybody?
It convicts me and it should. I need to remember that, in addition to all of the main reasons why I should be good at my job, there's another side. To be Something Closer for those kids out there; to make myself, my songs and my resources available to those next generation leaders that God is raising up.

I think we're always in a scary place when we have a generation of leaders who have learned all they know from edited, packaged and polished and controlled releases (CD, video, etc.)

Think about those kids out there in your crowd who the Lord is calling...and be Something Closer for them.