4 Things My Music Minister Does Well

At my small church we are blessed with a crew of strong ministers with good ideas and strong ministries. I previously mentioned my pastor as someone from whom other ministers can learn, but my music minister is quite worthy of emulation, as well.

Here are four reason why:

1 - He's smart. Really smart.

One day, I casually mentioned Irenaeus' view on original sin and my music minister chimed in and compared it to other parts of Irenaeus' theology. Not many people can do that. We've discussed late medieval mystics like John of the Cross and more modern writers like Watchman Nee. (Note: I'm not saying that he does or does not endorse all of these writings - I'm just saying that he's familiar with them.) He leads modern worship with an acoustic guitar, but he's not a frustrated rock star trying to use the church as his concert hall.

Man, that was the weirdest version ever of "His banner over me is love." We were all glad when John was done going through his "Greek" phase.

2 - He listens and tries new things

If no one at church responds to certain songs than he considers getting rid of them - there's no reason to lead songs no one wants to hear. He's not a pushover or a crowd pleaser, mind you, he's just wise about interpreting feedback. There are a lot of songs out there and there's no reason not to pick songs that send the right message that are also enjoyable for the audience.

3 - He reads my blog

That's all that matters. Just kidding. But he makes an effort to keep up with what's going on. Which probably involves reading my blog.

"Now, we've never met before, have we?" (John regularly incorporated magic tricks into the service until the pastor preached on Simon the Magician. Things got awkward.)

4 - Content. Content. Content.

My music minister is not interested in winning awards or recording worship CDs that will be the "cutting edge" of Christian music - he is interested in pastoring a flock through music. Theology is learned through songs as well as sermons and, thus, music ministry is not a responsibility to be taken lightly. A wise music minister does not ask his church to sing a song with weak theology just because it sounds good or happens to go along with the other songs well. And if the music minister at my church can't find a tune that adequately teaches a certain point, he simply writes a new song of his own - which is awesome.