Our Lost Voice of Worship

Praise & worship is a big part of my life. Not just during Sundays, but for each day of the week. If I'm not listening to worship songs, I'm either arranging, rehearsing or writing them, squeezing the most out of what time I have that is not consumed by office work.

I was weaned on Ron Kenoly, enjoying Abe Sr.'s sweet and melodic lows and Tom Brook's colorful and tasteful harmonies and progressions even before I had the guts to audition for the worship team of the Church I was with back then. I was amazed by the beauty of it all. It was progressive, it was cutting edge and it was acceptable in Church! 

Then came Israel Houghton. 

He just blew me away! The intricacies of the arrangement and how the band inter-plays with the vocals without becoming showy or overbearing is a sheer joy to listen to! His team is so talented and anointed, truly an encouragement and standard that should be aspired by a lot of the younger worship teams. 

I admit it. Musically, I am a very very big Tom Brooks/Israel Houghton fan. 

Lyrically, I just love the richness and the depth of the U.K. Song writers. Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Ben Cantelon & Al Gordon are among the list of worship leaders and songwriters whose lyrics are just overflowing with God's truth, artfully written without compromising the theology behind it. Nikki Fletcher is an Australian worship leader whose song writing was refined in and through the community of UK worship songwriters. 

These are people that are full of God's anointing, yet are so humble. They worship fully and abandoned, in their own way, in their own tongue. 

They worship in their own voice.

We are recognized world wide as excellent musicians. Filipino musical talent can be found sailing the seven seas, in the nightlife of Asia and all over the internet. Our variety and entertainment bands are among the best in the world when it comes to doing covers. 

As Filipino Christians caught in the crux of Globalization, we find ourselves surrounded with so many amazing (and not so amazing) worship leaders, song writers and artists. And we continue doing what we have been doing outside the Church: cover. 

The beautiful thing globalization has done for the church is that it has opened us up to so many different songs and songwriters, making resources readily available for study. The adverse effect, though, is that we tend to be content to just copy. As musically talented as we are, we end up playing whatever song is dominating the Christian charts. 

And that really isn't a bad thing.

What I do find sad is that we have settled to just sing the songs of other people; songs of their nation. God has blessed us with the gift of music. I believe it is time we add our own voice to the mix of nations who praise God. It is time we offer our own song and sing our own heart cry unto the Lord. It is time we strive for a higher level of excellence in our worship teams, not just in the music we play but equally so in the lives we live.

Please hear me out: I am not against using the songs of other people to worship. We should. That is part of what it means to worship as God's people. But I think that it's about time that we also add our own songs, and bring it to the level that other nations will be blessed by it as well. We are part of the body of Christ. We can also bless others by singing our own worship experiences to the Lord. 

I really believe that every tribe, tongue and nation will worship the Lord. Every culture and people will praise Yahweh with their own songs. Why? Because each nation has had it's own spiritual journey, which makes it's own voice of worship distinct and unique.

As we continue to embrace the heart cries of our fellow brother and sisters from around the world, I pray that may we also find the courage, excellence, humility & dependency on God to lift our own voices to sing our own songs; that we may exalt the Lord in the way He has called our nation to. And I believe that if we remain faithful in this pursuit, the voice of the worship of our country will come to light and join the beautiful harmonies and symphonies of the voices of worship of our brethren around the world.

May you find your personal voice in worship as our people journey to find our lost voice of worship.

Shalom.

-M-

On Excellence

When I am asked why I tell the Building Bridges team to do excellently rather than to be the best, here are my reasons:

Being the best is all about us. How we are better than others, How we were able to do it based on our own strength. 

Being excellent is all about others. How effective we are in leading them in worship; how efficient and good we were at serving them.

Being the Best is about me. Being Excellence is about them.

I believe worship teams, worship leaders and music ministries shouldn't compete. Worship was never a competition. The metric we are called to be isn't how better we are over other people, but rather how capable, effective and efficient we are at serving others.

Yes we rehearse, study, improve our skill & arrange. But we are greatly misled if we do this to show to other teams, churches or people that we are better than them; that we can execute the harder songs cleaner; that we have better equipment and that we can read notes on the fly; Or that we can play a passage after listening to it just once. It begs the question, what is your motivation to improve? 

We improve to serve the King of kings better. We improve because after you encounter the love of God, how can you not give your all? In the same way that when you've met the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you find yourself improving what you do and how you look; you find yourself upping your game so to speak. Not because that was asked of you. It is because you believe the person deserves a better you. 

Besides, God doesn't deserve something half baked.

We improve because we want to show even better usher other people into the presence of God and point them much more clearly towards Christ and not to us. It is true that when we play poorly, it can and does distract people from worship. I mean, c'mon, let's face it, worshipping with an out of tune singer can be very challenging and distracting. We aim to excel so that others may worship and focus on the Lord more. 

Being the best points towards me and the team, on how good we pulled it off. Being Excellent points towards God and you, on how good we were able to serve you. How effective and efficient have we been at executing our craft well so that you can focus on the Lord.

Maybe some would disagree with how I define Best and Excellence. Im not here to tell you that you should embrace my definitions. All Im saying is that, in the team I lead at least, we differentiate our motivation of action this way. It gives us a clear and defined word to use as a guide post.

But let us not forget that at the end of the day, the main posture of the worship team should always be a position of humility based on the truth of Christ & the Cross. This is a fundamental truth that can get lost or buried as a team keeps going on Sunday after Sunday without a proper venue for rest, and reconnection with the Lord. 

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This is an expanded repost from one FB status I wrote before and posted on my wall. :)