Play What You Feel

I'm a perfectionist, but not a very good one.

I didn't know it until I signed up to play in a worship band. I'd been in bands before. I knew the drill—get the sheet music, take it home and practice until it was perfect. But this band leader was different. His bluegrass background meant he thought it was perfectly reasonable to hand a flute player a chord chart and say, "Just play what you feel."

For years in orchestra I'd been told, "Stop tapping your toes!" Feeling wasn't even mentioned.

So I took home those chord charts and carefully made notes of every run and trill so that my "improvisations" would be seamless. But little by little I found myself straying from the notes. The music started coming from a new place until one Sunday morning I found myself, gazing at the rafters and playing with all my heart. Frantically I searched for my place on the page, wondering how long I'd been floating away from the safety of the precious notes on my music stand. Fear flashed through me as I realized I had no idea what note was next. But I began to learn a totally new kind of music. Rather than simply being about accurately performing music written by someone else, I was learning how to express something from inside me.

Controlling every note made my performances consistently adequate. Improvising meant risking catastrophe for the sake of inspiration.

Free style

I soon found that this new freedom trickled into other areas of my life. I hadn't made art in years because my detailed, careful work was never good enough. In the past, the blank page taunted me.

Will it be good? If not, why bother even starting?

And so, whenever the time came to make art, I had fearfully taken a pencil with a fine point (paint was much too messy) and made something small and afraid. And somehow both it and I felt less for its creation.

But now, with my newfound risky flute skills, I set aside my pointed pencils, picked up a fat house-painting brush, and slapped paint all over a canvas. Not only did my heart learn to paint, my paintings were better than ever before.

Yet as strong as it was for my growth as an artist, it almost stopped me from following God's call into ministry. Have you ever seen an artist as lead pastor? Neither had I. When I was called to step into the lead pastor role, my fear of failure and my lack of role models sent me running back to the security of perfection and control. The blank canvas of the empty space called "Mandy's Way of Being Lead Pastor" mocked me with the old question:

"Will it be good? If not, why bother even starting?"

And then that question multiplied:

Will you, as a soft-spoken artist, be able to gain respect in important meetings? Will you be able to lead with authority (and without tears)? Will you, as someone who loves emotion and color, be able to deal with budgets? Will you, as a dreamer, be able to make quick decisions? Will you, as a feeler, be able to handle conflict?

If not, why bother even starting?

So I almost didn't start. I almost let those questions cripple me. But God was kind enough to remind me of the lessons I'd already learned:

Don't count beats and be ruled by tiny black dots on five little lines. Set aside the hard copy. Feel the beat in your chest and listen to how your heart resonates and soon you'll be wrapped in joy. Don't wonder if it could hang in the Louvre. Don't even try to imagine what this will be when it's done because by then both you and it will be something new. Just begin where you are.

A spontaneous servant

These lessons all found new application as I prepared to interview for the lead pastor role. As I rehearsed my resume and a feeble five-year plan, my heart, after worshipping with this community for years, looked on all my posturing and simply said, "I just love this place." A reassurance, which I believe was from above, simply said, "Go with that." So I did. And I do.

There are still plans to be made, meetings to be led, budgets to be balanced, and sermons to be written. But I'm learning not to let their blankness taunt. That question—Will it be good? If not, why bother even starting—turns me inward, makes me focus on what others think of me, makes my congregation the enemy to protect myself from, the audience to perform for. How can that possibly be a place of generosity or service?

Instead, I'm learning to look at any blankness before me, any new challenge or question, any unknowable or uncontrollable thing, and turn inward just long enough to see what I have there to share. It may be as simple and unimpressive as love or hope or faith. It feels childish and vulnerable and unprofessional, like proudly producing a shiny stone from my pocket and saying "Look!" But it's how Jesus led. He invited people into his joy, and we can too.

And so, when I arrive to lead staff meeting late because of a family argument, instead of putting on a performance, I begin with "This hasn't been a great morning, but I'm here to say even church leaders have family conflicts, but God is good." As we're looking over offering figures and they don't match the bills, and I want to swoop in with a fund-raising solution, instead I begin with "I don't know what God will do but I know what he can do." In small group when someone raises a question that scares me, and I want to give a quick answer just to make the question go away, I try to say "Hmm, that's a hard question. Let's take some time on that one." On the Sunday morning when I want to wow people with my perfectly-worded, effortlessly-delivered teaching, instead I choose to tell a story. This is not about setting aside skill or training or professionalism but about adding to them humanity, heart, and presence.

If we want our leadership to connect with real, live human beings, we have to be willing to let them see our own humanity. If we want them to be transformed by Jesus, we have to let them see how he's transforming us. If we want them know Jesus in his fullness, we have to let him be shown even in our weakness. We work hard to be good at what we do, but our most memorable lessons and leadership often emerge when we're out of our depth. It's then that we're forced to lean on him. After all, shouldn't we, as pastors, be the most comfortable of all with things we can't control? Our inability to know and control can make us small and afraid. Or it can open us up to creativity and a joy which, if we allow it, will more than make up all our inadequacy. And when we learn to, with a kind of childlike abandon, give ourselves over to that power, we'll find that what we've made together is so much bigger and braver and more beautiful than we were trying to make alone.

Losing control

Here are a few methods I've found helpful to step into this messy but meaningful place:

Instead of fully developing an idea in your ministry before you present it to others, try this: say "I don't know where it's headed, but I've got this idea and I'm excited about it. Let's discuss this and see where it leads us!"
Stretch yourself. I feel out of my depth when I don't have everything I need while traveling so I purposefully under-pack to learn how resourceful and flexible I can be. The idea of perfect hair appeals to me, so it's good to find that the world hardly notices when I spend less time on it. I hate being put on the spot, so at a recent conference (before I could talk myself out of it) I volunteered to do a role-play exercise in front of 30 peers. I want to have a perfectly polished presentation for every time I speak in front of people so I purposefully skip the final step of polishing to keep on my toes. I love finishing tasks so I purposely leave one task unfinished so I can do it the next day. It almost kills me, but it also brings me life. What would this look like for you?
Take a day off (and make it Sunday). See if you can share the power with your staff and volunteers. The bigger question is if we can share power with God.
Remember how you played as a child and find ways to express that same joy in your adult life. There may be more ways than you'd expect that ministry can flow from that place of childlike delight. Allow the children or animals in your life to invite you to play or dance. Stepping out of control in a physical sense will have spiritual benefits.

Originally from Australia, Mandy Smith serves as lead pastor at University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is the creator of The Collect, a citywide trash-to-art project and a regular presenter at Epic Fail Pastors' Events (www.epicfailevents.com). Mandy's latest book, Making a Mess and Meeting God: Unruly Ideas and Everyday Experiments for Worship is available at www.standardpub.com/makingamess