Finding the Grace Gates - Christianity Today

A Leadership Interview

The sanctuary is packed. Ushers wedge latecomers into the few empty seats scattered across the long, low room. When those seats are full, they open clattering doors to overflow rooms on the sides. There’s no holy hush in this place. Even the quiet moments are accompanied by electronic instruments and punctuated by whispers.

At times the service is more like the Promise Keepers rallies that have brought Joseph Garlington to prominence (he led worship at the mammoth 1998 Stand in the Gap event in Washington, D.C.).

The congregation cheers as people approach the altar area to signify their commitment to Christ, and (amazingly) they cheered just as enthusiastically when it was time to pass the offering baskets (“It’s a privilege to give!”). But throughout was a sense that something holy—sometimes exuberant, sometimes tender, always spontaneous—something holy is happening here.

Welcome to Covenant Church of Pittsburgh, where Garlington is pastor and, as he puts it, “lead worshiper.” He guides worshipers through a seamless mix of praying and singing, old songs and new sounds. It’s a style that draws on his eclectic background.

His congregation is multi-racial—60 percent African-American—and so is the staff. Over the heads of this gathering are colorful flags from many nations, banners festooned with the names of Jesus, and signs bearing the word and definition of Garlington’s present emphasis in worship—”repristinate.”

The day after this service, Leadership editors Marshall Shelley and Eric Reed sat with Pastor Garlington to talk about leading people into an awareness of God’s presence.

Why do you have the word “repristinate” posted around your sanctuary?

I found this concept in a book on leadership, Certain Trumpets by Garry Wills. In order for a tradition to be worth passing to another generation, Wills says, you must repristinate it, “restore it to its original state or condition.”

He quotes G.K. Chesterton: “Conservativism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone, you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone, you leave it to a torrent of changes. If you leave a white (fence) post alone, it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white, you must be always painting it again. Briefly, if you want the old white post, you must have a new white post.”

What people celebrate as tradition is usually a thing that’s been blackened by time. “All things that resist change are changed by that resistance in ways undesired and undesirable,” says Wills. “The tradition must be repristinated if it is to be worth following.”

This really had an impact on me—the church must not move through life without repristinating what we hand down.

How is worship repristinated?

We were selecting songs for an upcoming PK album. The musicians were telling me that one of the songs college groups are singing all around the country is “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”

The composer describes his backsliding—”prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.” My friend said, “Man, the kids are really singing this song.” And so it catches on again, 250 years after it was written, because it says something about the reality of who we are today. Some things don’t change.

“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is a powerful song right now. I’ve watched guys sing that song at PK events. You start it with a pipe organ sound. And then all of a sudden the drums come in and that song takes off and the guys are singing it, some yelling almost. I think this is what Luther had in mind. We should not say that a song can only be sung a certain way. Luther put incredibly sound theological words to a tavern song. He gave new meaning to something everybody was familiar with.

So that’s painting the post?

Yes. I believe a hymn can maintain its freshness if you keep that hymn exposed to fresh expressions. But it’s more than just the music. The people have to be repristinated.

I taught recently from Luke 5. Jesus uses the analogy of old wine skins and new wine. He used two different Greek words for “new.”

Some translations say “new” twice—new wine must be put in new wine skins. But I like the NAS translation, new wine must be put in fresh wine skins. Some people wonder, “Because we’re old wine skins, does that mean we can’t handle new stuff?” That isn’t what Jesus is saying at all.

I say if you’ve got an old wine skin, get it repristinated, restored to its original condition.

I see some people who stay fresh from season to season. They were involved 20 years ago. Something fresh is still going on now, and 20 years from now they’ll still be here. Somehow they’re able to refresh their wine skins, so that when something godly and wonderful and fresh comes along they say, “Hey, that’s great!”

When you lead worship, what are you trying to accomplish?

My first task is to be a worshiper. When I stand on the platform, I want to be authentic. And my authenticity isn’t determined by how effectively I sing, because I honestly don’t believe singing is worship. Singing is an expression of that which is internal. Worship takes place in my spirit.

repristinate—(v.) to restore to an original state or condition

Second, I try not to get in the way. And the best way to stay out of the way is not telling people to do something but simply doing it myself. I don’t think worship leading is so much of what I do with my hands, but worship leading is what I do in my spirit.

The lead worshiper (and that to me is a better term) is the pastor.

Pastors often shrink back from that because a pastor thinks he or she has to know music or be a great singer. That’s not true. Ultimately a pastor has to be the one who models something. If pastors want people to worship, especially men, they’re going to have to give them a model to follow.

I want people to see me doing what I expect them to do. As lead worshiper, I give people permission to do what I do. We lead by example.

French priest Teilhard de Chardin said, “We’re not just human beings having a temporary spiritual experience. But we’re spiritual beings having a temporary human experience.” When I speak to people in worship, I’m not appealing to the human being; I’m appealing to the innate person inside, that new creature who does want to worship. And I’m showing him how.

How do you prepare to model worship?

I remain a student of worship. I don’t want to become an expert on it. I want to be learning, so I’m listening. I listen to worship songs. I have an ongoing dialogue with God.

Worship is a conversation in progress. Worship is not just a gathering of people at a certain time around a certain idea. Worship is the joining of our spirits with anyone in the universe who is worshiping. It’s like plugging into a current that’s always on.

Worship enables me to gaze at the unseen, at the eternal. And in that, something happens in my heart that doesn’t happen when I’m not worshiping.

So when I come to the platform to lead worship, the experience is a continuation of what’s happening every other day of the week.

If I worship only on Sunday, I won’t recognize the moment of God’s presence when it comes.

There was a moment yesterday when you said, “Let’s not rush past this; this is the moment for which we’ve prayed, the moment we long for.” You seemed to be especially aware of God’s presence. How do you know that moment?

Sensing moments like that has a whole lot to do with experience. An old sea captain who has no barometers or scientific equipment looks out and says, “I think a storm is brewing.” You don’t argue with him.

Some of this sounds so subjective. But there’s a way of sensing something and knowing whether it’s right or not. Some of this you learn only by experience.

The guys at Promise Keepers tell me, “If you sense a moment like that, no matter what’s going on in the program, don’t worry about our timeline.” And we have a pretty tight schedule. But that element is more precious to us than anything, because the one thing we can’t program is true awareness of God’s presence. You can only pray and wait until it happens, your “eureka” moment, in which anybody can say, “This is a God moment.”

We have lingered over moments in which the worship was so crisp and so real that I never got to preach.

I think churches have visitation moments in which God comes, but we don’t plan well for the unexpected. In school, at least, we plan for fire drills. We rehearse for them. But is there anything in the plan of our worship for a moment in which God breaks through?

A God drill?

Yes, a God drill. When he does show up, we are either so unaccustomed to that or so unprepared for it that we don’t know how to steward the moment. We should become “guardians of the moment.” This moment is to be treasured. It is not to be wasted. This is what we’re waiting for.

What does a God moment look like?

C. S. Lewis in his Space Trilogy tells of the first time Ransom goes to a certain planet. Ransom is trying to figure out where he is, and he’s evaluating the terrain based upon things that he’s seen elsewhere. He doesn’t realize that there is no comparison for this place. He says at first it looks like an umbrella, and then it looks like an umbrella blown inside out. Then it looks like organ pipes. He names several things.

Then Lewis makes this incredible observation. “It’s hard to see things if you don’t roughly know what they look like.”

It’s hard to see a God moment if you don’t roughly know what it looks like. But once you do, you will see it everywhere.

A comparable experience would be some years ago when my wife and I bought a car. The salesman said, “It’s a Toyota Camry.” I’d never noticed a Camry before.

We weren’t off the lot five minutes before we saw another Camry. Before I got home, I’d seen at least three of them. One was the same color as ours. They’d been on the street all the time, but I’d not seen one.

Some people can’t see worship because they’ve not really had a worship experience.

Does everybody in the room always recognize the moment?

No. That’s the job of the lead worshiper. Worship leading, to me, involves an ability to recognize something so that you can lead people to it.

How do you do that?

I try to help people identify what I call “grace gates.” The term comes from a series of messages that I preached from 2 Corinthians 12. Paul recounts his experience of being caught up into heaven. He’s frustrated that he can’t get rid of this issue that’s bugged him ever since he’s been in the presence of God, his thorn in the flesh. The thorn makes Paul conscious of his humanity, his limitation. And so God responds, “My grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in your weakness.”

When I am most conscious of my inadequacy, my dependence upon God, and upon his sufficiency, that’s when I have “a grace gate”—the inrush of the grace of God for me for a particular reason, a particular season in my life.

But not many have Paul’s dramatic experience.

No, but ordinary events also can point you to God’s grace.

For instance, if I have an argument with my wife before church and no time to get it resolved. I go to the platform and I pray, “God, this is a real mess. I’ve got to speak to your people, and I really need you to help me.” I can’t say to the congregation “Excuse me. I’ve got to get something settled with my wife.”

In my experience, it’s the moments I have cried out to God for help, when I felt I least deserved it, that the moment of dependency became for me a grace gate.

How do your feelings affect your ability to lead worship?

Well for me, I don’t have to limit my worship to high moments in God. Worship is just as valid when I’m feeling my absolute worst, even when I have conflict in my life.

In fact, the writer of Hebrews says there’s no point in staying away. You need to come, he says. And when you come you need to know that all things are bare and laid open before God. So come with confidence to the throne of grace that you might find help in the time of need.

When I am most conscious of my dependency on God and his sufficiency, that’s a grace gate.

So part of my time of preparation may be lying on my face here in my office, just saying to God, “I really can’t do this without you.” And sometimes coming to a place of weeping in dependence and vulnerability. Even coming in a consciousness that I’ve sinned and I’ve failed God can be in itself an act of worship.

My responsibility as lead worshiper is to help my congregation find the gate. You get a thousand people in a room, and there’s somebody out there who’s broken the law. And there’s somebody else who’s had the best week ever, and there’s everything in between.

I have to get these people to understand that they all have access to the presence of God. The entrance is by the blood of Jesus Christ.

How do you shape worship so people can experience grace gates?

The grace of God can be seen more readily when people are focused on God through worship, through vertical songs that speak to him and address his majesty.

A friend, Helena Barrington, calls them “earth to heaven” songs—”Come Thou Fount,” for instance. There are also “earth to earth” songs, where we sing to one another—”Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine.” The psalms will often move from horizontal to vertical. But there are also “heaven to earth” songs—I’m talking to you, then I am addressing God, and all of a sudden, God seems to be addressing us. When heaven sings to earth, suddenly we’re aware that God is addressing us, and the song is grace.

How much of guiding people in worship is technique, turning the right knobs?

There are moments in which people need to be told what to do. But it’s not cheerleading, the rah-rah-rah stuff: Clap a little faster. Stomp a little harder. Shout a little louder.

Technique involves introducing people to biblically valid expressions of worship. And it seems to me that there are a lot more noisy Scriptures than quiet ones.

Some people need help with that. They can’t see certain things as worship because they’ve never experienced it that way before. Some guys come to a PK rally and see an expression of worship that they’ve never seen in their own settings. They find that expression in Scripture—kneeling, or raising hands—and suddenly it becomes worship to them.

Essentially we get real clear with people—this isn’t optional stuff that we’re talking about here. Worship is a command.

Some would say this borders on manipulation.

Manipulation begins when I want to see certain outward things happen. There is a difference between manipulating a person, I think, and releasing people to express their worship.

I can say, “Look, some of us might be a little uncomfortable with this expression, but it’s biblical.”

In a PK setting, I simply say, “Some guys really need to let sorrow break their hearts.” Until they’re really sorry about something that’s gone wrong, they’re not going to change. “Godly sorrow works repentance,” Paul says.

Worshiping is the joining of spirits with anyone in the universe who is worshiping at that time.

If my goal is to get you to feel sorrow, I can, but I don’t believe I can manipulate true repentance. Some leaders may contrive acts associated with worship, but worship itself can’t be manipulated.

You’re very comfortable expressing emotion in worship, more so than most people.

This is one of the greatest fears today. Somehow the American church fears emotion or what people will say is emotionalism.

But there’s a big difference between the valid expressions of emotion and emotionalism. The Scriptures are filled with people who are called to a place of worship and come with weeping. And yet, when that happens here, we express our embarrassment by shoving hankies into people’s hands and saying, “Here, dry up.” We need to get beyond our discomfort so that people can be freed to express valid, godly emotion.

How do you get people to try something new in worship?

People need to be shown how and encouraged to do it. Jesus said let the children lead.

For instance, on Palm Sunday, have the small children sing a song and wave palm branches. As the adults come into the service, give them palm branches, too. When the kids begin to sing, the worship leader can say to the congregation, “Come on, let’s join them and wave the branches in celebration.” And everybody wants to join in.

There’s something about children that releases adults from self-consciousness. I’ve done more stupid things with my grandkids than I would ever do on my own. “Pop-pops, make funny faces.” And so there I am, making funny faces. Kids can get us to do things. Kids can take us somewhere. And you don’t have to coerce kids to do acts of worship—”Come on, kids, love Jesus.” They just do it.

What we don’t realize is that growing up in the kingdom of God isn’t becoming more reserved. Maturity isn’t being more stiff. It’s becoming less aware of myself and more aware who God is.

My goal isn’t to get you to do things you haven’t done before. My goal is to get you to worship. And I have found that for me the best way to move people to a place of worship is to worship God myself.