"Worship,” Jack Hayford once wrote, “changes the worshiper into the image of the One worshiped." That transformational ability of worship—to mature and conform us to the image of Christ—is too often forgotten.
What replaces formation varies. For the liturgical, rote recitations may be accepted in place of transformation. For low-church Christians, perhaps the temptation is to the quiet familiar. For the attractional church, it may be bright lights and slick videos. For the missional, the temptation becomes focusing as much on the where of worship as on the Who. For Charismatics, it’s the ever-elusive experience of God, the high of divine encounter.
There are many ways we are drawn away from worship’s core ability to make us more like Jesus. But if that is true, might not there be many more ways to embrace and experience acts of worship as opportunities for pastoral transformation?
It’s in answer to that unspoken question that author and veteran worship pastor Zac Hicks (Canon for Worship and Liturgy at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama) offers a new book: The Worship Pastor: A call to ministry for worship leaders and teams. The book is an extended, well-resourced invitation to remember and implement the potent possibilities of worship as grounded, intentional pastoral work. If it is true that worship changes the worshiper, then Hicks asks us to do that on purpose, with open eyes and a shepherd’s heart.
The introduction to The Worship Pastor simply argues for thinking of worship leadership as a pastoral role. “Dear Worship Leader: you have an extraordinary job with grand stakes and grand opportunities. … Whether you know it or not, you are pastoring… .” In historical context, of course, Hicks’ point is accurate (what are the Christian traditions of chant or iconography if not pastoral art, practiced by the leaders of the people?), but in modern context they carry a blend of surprise and, for the worship leader, deep affirmation. Yes! This is more than just singing!
Ours is a culture uniquely contrary to the demands of historic Christian worship. From the beginning of our movement, Christian worship has been much more than communal singing—it has included everything from the renunciation of demonic forces to the presentation and consecration of sacred art and architecture. But for most Christians, the heart of communal worship happens in the Sunday service, and it happens through song. It is wonderful. It is powerful. It is, or should be, what being pastored feels like. “Be the shepherd you are,” urges Hicks, and that exhortation is welcome. Worship—in many ways the work of ministry. In many more, the means of ministry. Bad habits persist in isolation. Expanding our vision for worship and the role of the congregational leader as a resourced and able pastor, is compelling.
To illustrate that work and those means, Hicks spends most of the book expanding our vision of a worship leader’s pastoral vocation through 17 metaphorical job descriptions for the worship leader. These are the roles such a person plays in the life of a congregation, ranging from the concrete—“The Worship Pastor as Caregiver”—to the erudite, even abstract, such as the Worship Pastor “… as Doxological Philosopher,” or “… as Theological Dietician.”
Each of these categories include a vital element of the corporate worshiping life, many of them rarely thought of as part of the worship leader’s vocation—or so much assumed to be part of it as to be taken for granted.
Hicks dives quite deep in each of these categories. Diagrams and metaphors abound, but they are grounded and directly illustrative of the larger point he’s making in a given section. Worship as the heart that fuels the circulatory system of the world was one unique image I will carry with me from this book; Hicks’ insightful graphs of the patterns of the major Christian traditions (as a “Liturgical Architect”) will be another.
Perhaps the most refreshing thing about The Worship Pastor is its “big-tent” emphasis. It is obvious that Hicks’ own integrative experiences as a worship pastor draw from deep wells, in actuality, not just appearance. There is not a trendy liturgical veneer laid here over standard Evangelical habits, nor is the Spirit’s work and role in worship gatherings paid simple lip service. Nor is this dismissive of common or conservative forms of worship. Hicks finds something to love in all of the divergent expressions of Christianity, and it is obvious that his own life and pastoral work have benefitted from them.
This wide draw into practical worship theology is a meaningful example of the best kind of pastoral work that a worship leader can attempt—forging deep connections between their local body to Christ’s corporate Body, the church on the corner joining as one with the Church who stands, as Lewis wrote, “spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.”
It is not beyond imagining Pentecostals drawing from the deep wells of the Orthodox, Roman Catholics finding life in Methodist hymns, and Baptists raising their hands in invitation, calling upon the Spirit to fall afresh.
This book will be of wide benefit to church leaders and staff members—well beyond the worship team. Hicks offers a vision of worship and corporate spiritual life that all from senior pastor to pew-sitter would do well to embrace—the fact that the Spirit of God gifts and empowers leaders among his people gifted to invite, cultivate, and respond to God’s presence.
Senior pastoral staff will appreciate the holistic vision of worship as a formational and theological element of church life, and Hicks’ thoughts on worship life will elegantly dovetail with conversations about discipleship, church events, spiritual formation, and arts in church life.
Hicks has given a thoughtful, accessible offering that will ignite thought and prompt rich worship. Worship leaders who read this book will come away thoroughly affirmed in their pastoral vocation, with better language for their work, and renewed passion for the congregations that they shepherd.
That’s something to sing about.
Paul J. Pastor is a contributing editor to CTPastors.com, Deacon of Formation at Theophilus Church in Portland, Oregon, and author of The Face of the Deep: Exploring the mysterious person of the Holy Spirit (David C. Cook, 2016).
