While I appreciate the sentiment of choruses that call us to “forget about ourselves and magnify the Lord and worship him,” I also know that none of us worships in a vacuum.
When Isaiah saw the Lord, high and lifted up, he didn’t forget himself, he was immediately self-aware, overwhelmed with his own unworthiness.
Our circumstances become part of our worship; our mind, emotion, and will are gifts we bring to the Almighty.
Two weeks ago was my turn to experience what many of you experience regularly, I’m sure.
Our congregation’s regular worship leader was out of town, so I was filling in. As we were singing a medley of “All to Jesus I Surrender” and “There Is a Redeemer,” I was thinking about the words, but I was also scanning the faces in front of me, each a unique story.
Those stories included:
* the joy of a just completed adoption
* the oppression of mental illness
* the eager anticipation of childbirth
* the anger of divorce proceedings
* the satisfaction of a college athletic scholarship
* the uncertainty of a pending job transfer
* the excitement of newfound faith
* the anxieties of unemployment
and a couple hundred other situations both happy and sad.
My thoughts strayed to each of these folks while we sang, “Thank you, oh my Father, for giving us your Son, and leaving your Spirit till the work on earth is done.”
Later we sang, “Here I Am, Wholly Available,” and my mind wandered to the other activities of the day.
During the Sunday school hour, I’d helped lead a discussion in the young adult class to gather feedback for our Pastoral Search Committee.
The afternoon would include practicing with Canticle, our vocal ensemble, always a time of upbeat praise. Then an evening service featuring a report from missionaries.
That night, since no other pastors were available, I was asked to sit with a couple in a mortuary as they made arrangements for a loved one’s funeral.
Then, with Susan, my wife, we’d briefly visit the home of a long-time member in the final stages of cancer.
Were all these thoughts distractions preventing me from worship? Most pastors I know have Sundays (and minds) as filled as mine was that day. Are they unable to worship because of the press of ministry?
No, such opportunities are merely the context for worship, part of any church leader’s “reasonable service,” which is presented every week as a holy offering to God.
This issue of LEADERSHIP marks a time of transition. I’m happy to announce that Kevin Miller will become editor of the journal starting next issue.
Kevin knows LEADERSHIP well. He was associate editor from 1986 to 1990, writing on subjects as varied as “Vision and Reality” and “Fund-raising Consultants: Getting the Pros and Not the Con.”
For the past four years, he was editor of our highly respected, award-winning sister publication Christian History. He has also served as executive editor of “The Christian Reader,” a lively digest featuring articles showing everyday Christians living out their faith.
In addition to his professional experience as an editor, Kevin and his wife, Karen, are active lay ministers at the Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago, Illinois. There Kevin has preached, led worship, and coordinated a prayer ministry.
After working beside Kevin for eight years, I know you will enjoy his insight, foresight, and humor as he takes day-to-day responsibility for the content of LEADERSHIP.
As for me, I won’t be going far. I’ll oversee several of the magazines here at CTi, including LEADERSHIP, as executive editor, involved in planning, titling, and evaluating. You’ll see me contributing to “The Back Page.”
But I’ll also focus on some new projects, including a newsletter for pastors to use with their boards to help the whole leadership team work together more effectively. We hope to give you more information about this tool before the end of 1994.
Let me say a word about the rest of the LEADERSHIP editorial staff. All are deeply involved in the “reasonable service” of local church ministry.
Associate editor Rich Doebler leads a small group, teaches a Sunday school class, and helps train new leaders in workshops at Community Christian Church in Naperville, where his wife, Sharon, is on staff as director of elementary children’s ministries.
Assistant editor David Goetz and his wife, Jana, have led the singles ministry at Glen Ellyn Covenant Church, where Dave has also taught church history and culture in adult Sunday school classes and, says he, “taught Aquinas’s Summa Theologica with the help of Salerno Butter Cookies to the two-year-olds.”
Editorial administrator Bonnie Rice and her husband, John, have helped plant Creekside Free Methodist Church, where he is treasurer and a member of the pastor’s cabinet. And both have been active in music ministry and small group leadership.
Editorial assistant Cynthia Thomas hosted a church-planting Bible study in her home, and the newly formed Family in Faith Christian Church (Missouri Synod Lutheran) began Sunday services last October.
Among such ministry-minded people, it’s great working together to publish honest and hope-filled accounts of what we call “the first draft of next century’s church history.”
Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
