Compiled by Rick McCollum
Hello worshiper on mission.
There is a song for every chapter of life, and the Bible’s 1,189 chapters provide the themes.
This blog will share a chapter from the Bible, title it with a life theme, and connect a song that sings you through that chapter in your life.
I trust the message and the music will give you inspiration in your daily walk as a worshiper on mission.
This article appeared in the Shelby, NC Star as a result of the Praise & Worship Choir from Spring Valley Baptist Church in Columbia, SC ministering through service projects and a community concert in April:
Ministry without walls
By Rebecca Clark
Published: Saturday, April 27, 2013 at 17:19 PM.
They came with choir books and willing hands, ready to paint, hammer and minister to the people of Cleveland County.
Beginning early Saturday morning, 80 choir members from Spring Valley Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C., scattered throughout the county to paint homes, assist with a clothing give-away, build wheelchair ramps and conduct a survey.
Five local churches paired up with Spring Valley to provide transportation and assistance.
Saturday evening, the church’s choir members performed an Easter musical, ‘Victorious,’ at Elizabeth Baptist Church as a grand finale to the ministry.
‘Helping hands’
The community mission work was a result of connections between Spring Valley Baptist’s choir director, Dr. Rick McCollum, and the Rev. Charles Reed, ministry team leader of the Greater Cleveland County Baptist Association.
Both men served at Flint Grove Baptist Church in Gastonia during the 1980s.
“We wanted to take our entire choir outside the walls of our church and, in addition, show the love of Christ in a tangible way by providing helping hands to those needing help,” McCollum previously told The Star.
After a morning spent working, lunch was provided for the group at the Baptist Men’s Work Camp on Sharpton Road.
Meeting needs
Clyde Strickland, choir member, said his group was paired up with Elizabeth Baptist Church.
He spent the morning working on a wheelchair ramp.
“I thought it was a great idea,” Strickland said. “It’s nice to get outside our own community…see their needs.”
Not only was he able to lend a helping hand, but he said it provides an opportunity to build camaraderie between different churches.
Mike McGee, Elizabeth Baptist’s minister of music, said his group went out to paint an elderly couple’s home.
“This has been great,” McGee said. “It was a real needy situation and that’s what this is all about.”
Vandy Hobbs, who was part of the Second Baptist Church group, helped conduct surveys in the neighborhood around the church and invite people to the evening concert.
Hobbs said he had fun but was most looking forward to singing.
A 20-year member of Spring Valley’s choir, he said the performance was one of the church’s best.
The SC Baptist Convention promotes missions through music around the state. To help organize these music missions efforts in your church, they provide M3 (Musicarts Mission Movement) Resource Groups. These groups are interactive learning and networking for worship leaders to learn how to disciple others using missional thinking which results in mission projects to our communities.
These groups meet from 1-3PM. Groups meet September 2012 through May 2013, except for December. The Columbia and Barnwell-Bamberg groups meet October through May, except for December. To get involved and for more information, please contact Mark Powers, Director of the Music and Worship Office of the SC Baptist Convention at 803-227-6166 or email markpowers@scbaptist.org
Here is a list of meeting times and locations:
First Tuesday: York-Lancaster-Rock Hill at Eastview Bapt Ch, Rock Hill
First Thursday: Easley-Pickens-Anderson at Westminster Bapt Ch
Second Tuesday: Barnwell-Bamberg at Ashleigh Bapt Ch, Blackville
Second Thursday: Greenville-Spartanburg at Anderson Mill Bapt Ch, Moore
Third Tuesday: Aiken-N Augusta-Edgefield at Millbrook Bapt Ch, Aiken
Third Tuesday: Columbia-Lexington-Camden at SCBC Bldg
Third Thursday: Chester-Great Falls at First Bapt Richburg
Fourth Tuesday: Charleston-Summerville at The Fellowship @Oakbrook, Summerville
Fourth Thursday: Laurens-Clinton at Chestnut Ridge Bapt, Laurens
Today, SC Baptist Convention’s Mark Powers met with several worship leaders around the state and gave his definition of “worshipers on mission:”
…meeting people at their point of need on a regular basis in your community to build relationships which lead to witnessing opportunities…
Valley Voices is the senior adult choir of Spring Valley Baptist Church. Here they are singing at Martha Franks Retirement Center of Laurens, SC. They are presenting the musical “Well Seasoned Praise.” This group sings throughout the year in a variety of venues including churches, civic clubs, schools, retirement facilities and businesses. To schedule the Valley Voices to sing for your organization, contact Rick McCollum at 803-736-0624.
Tom Moore is the Director of Arts and Music at First United Methodist Church of Tucker, Georgia near Atlanta. He took his youth choir on tour in Kentucky and Tennessee last week. Here is a “flash mob singing” inside the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory. You just never know when missional musc ministry might happen!
I had directed youth choirs for nearly 35 years when my wonderful youth choir fizzled out. It took all I had to let it die a natural death. This year, we began to dream a new dream, first for our middle schoolers. We started a Middle School Mission Choir this spring. The idea was to work on music that could be used in worship but also as a witness to others, combine that music emphasis with mission and ministry opportunities. Our first outing was this past Sunday when we took 13 middle schoolers, a guitarist a pianist plus adults and sang for kids in a trailor park. We connected with a ministry called Inside Out Of South Carolina. I think we’re going to keep this going for a while. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity of music missions literally in our own backyard.
The South Carolina Singing Churchmen recently took their musical abilities and shared them with the people of the Dominican Republic. Take a look at all of the wonderful experiences of ministry and missions. The South Carolina Singing Churchmen are ministers of music throughout the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
The following is an pamphlet produced by the Adult Ministry Office of the South Carolina Baptist Convention called “ABCs of Missional Living.”
ABCs of Missional Living
Our mission in life does not begin with us — it begins with God. We wonder what we can DO for God. DO begins with the fourth letter of the alphabet. The three letters before after D help us understand God’s mission for us.
A – Awareness When God makes us aware of needs around us, He is revealing his work and His will to us. God gives us eyes and ears so our hearts can see and hear the world around us and know where He is working.
B – Burden God does not expect us to meet every need we see. However, when He burdens us about a specific need, then He is calling us to join Him in demonstrating His love and power to those with the need.
C – Choice When God reveals His will to us, we must choose whether we will obey. Our choice reveals what we believe about God and the depth of our love for Him. Be careful of saying “yes” to God only when you feel equipped for the assignment. He may want you to experience His power at work through you, so you will grow in faith and come to know Him more intimately.
D – Do We do not need to dream of ways to serve God. We must do what He calls us to do. God may give assignments that use our abilities, experience, and wisdom, but He is not limited by what we can do. It is God at work in us and through us that makes the difference in the lives of others. So, let Him do His work—through you!
E – Evangelism When we do our good deeds, we show the love of God to others. However, when we fail to share the gospel, we are no better than good people and organizations in the world that care about helping others. We must show love AND share Christ!
F – Follow Through When we allow God to love others through us and then tell them about the good news of forgiveness and life through Jesus Christ, many will come to follow Him as disciples. Those we lead to the Lord, we are responsible to teach to live for the Lord.
G – Glory Jesus said, “My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples.”John 15:8 (HCSB). The fruit of a missional life is disciples who follow Jesus and lead others to Him. Disciples are disciple makers bringing glory to God.
Q&A with Dr. Curt Watke, PHD, Intercultural Institute for Contextual Ministry:
Worship in Cultural Contexts (edited by Mark Powers from e-mail exchange)
Curt,
I’ve really been trying to process this whole idea of worship within a cultural context. Here’s my question: If we are worshiping within a blended context, forcing people to worship in many styles, have we truly worshiped? How can we know if they are worshiping when God looks at the heart? Only He knows whether or not we have worshiped?
CURT: First of all, we can never know for sure if anyone has truly “worshiped” because, as you stated, we cannot know their heart. However, we can know those things that will likely keep them from worshiping. We do know that people truly worship when they express their worship in the cultural forms that are indigenous to their culture. Because of that we know that if we require people to express their worship in a form that is foreign to them the likelihood of their truly worshiping is extremely diminished. We also know that the likelihood of that “foreign form” being used in the spread of the gospel among non-believers is just about nil.
Here’s where my confusion comes in… I understand that we need to be culturally relevant, but when the lost of the world meet Jesus, shouldn’t they be taught how to worship? And don’t they learn how to worship by watching other believers? Yes, they will add their own flare to it. But take for instance a tribe that is saturated in voodoo. If you allow them to worship in their own context, won’t they continue to worship with voodoo practices since that is all they know?
CURT: Because all human beings have been created in the image of God, all human beings are worshipers. Worship is ascribing honor and glory to someone or something – so people innately know how to do that. The point is whether they will be able to do that within a cultural form that makes sense to them or whether they will be required to adopt a different cultural form in order to “worship” God. They can learn from other believers – but if those believers are using cultural forms that are not indigenous to them then we are asking them to leave their cultural forms in order to “be a Christian” (a clear violation of Acts 15). It is more than adding flare by using a different style of worship – it is a matter of what cultural patterns speak to their innermost heart. A voodoo tribe would have to leave their voodoo beliefs, of course. However, the style of music that they use can be redeemed for God’s glory (except for certain patterns if they were exclusively used in the voodoo religion).
Let’s apply that to my situation and community. In talking with my pastor, he thinks, and I tend to agree, that the culture around us is a blended culture in which we have people who are traditional, people who like contemporary, and people who like southern gospel.
Curt: One of the unique challenges we have in North America is that we do live in a society where many cultures are represented and many styles of music form the “heart language” of certain pockets of people. These “pockets” are ethnic, lifestyle, life-stage and socio-religious groups. However, it is far more than the categories of “traditional, contemporary and southern gospel” (lesson four). Please keep in mind that traditional church music is the “heart language” of Christian-heritage people. CCM has become a neo-traditional “heart language” of primarily boomer and buster Christians. Southern Gospel is the “heart language” of Christians from a primarily blue collar and country background. You will notice that whenever you include a focus on one of these styles of music in your church, certain people respond. For example, if you incorporate Southern Gospel in your service you will notice that certain people “come alive” – clapping and enjoying the music style. For these people, Southern Gospel resonates.
But please notice – all of these are “heart languages” of Christians or people with a Christian heritage who are already pre-disposed to Christianity. There is very little overlap between “traditional” church music and secular music styles, if at all. CCM has a limited overlap with some “Adult Contemporary” music styles. Southern Gospel has an overlap with some of the sub-genres of secular country music.
The point is that we do need to provide worship opportunities for believers that are in their “heart language” for them to truly worship. But we need to also be aware that when we use cultural Christian forms of music (traditional, contemporary, southern gospel) that for the “pagan pool” of people, it will be a cross-cultural event for them to participate in our “worship” services. Thus, if we truly desire to reach the pagan pool we will have to learn to provide ways for new believers among them to worship within their indigenous cultural forms. That will be easier with the overlap between CCM or Southern Gospel and secular music.
If we truly wanted to create a service with the idea of reaching every style, we’d have to have 10 worship services and we don’t have the manpower for that. That being said, when we cater to the preferences of people aren’t we feeding the selfish desire? I know we have to get past the style because the worship of God is our sole desire. But, I’m really having a hard time understanding and grasping how we do that. I want our worship services to be engaging and relevant, but I find it so hard to plan blended services that have contemporary, traditional, and even southern gospel in them.
Curt: Worship is a cultural experience. The way in which we ascribe honor and glory is encapsulated in the cultural forms that are part of our cultural group. It is not a matter of catering to people’s preferences – instead it is the reverse. To require that people conform to the way we want to express worship is actually being very arrogant and ethnocentric – not unlike the Jews who wanted the Gentiles to conform to their worship norms in order to be Christian. The Jerusalem council in Acts 15 settled that issue. Churches that require people to conform to their worship styles in order to be considered Christian violate the Acts 15 mandate. Blended worship allows Christians to only participate in the cultural forms that are the core of their “heart language” part of the time. The rest of the time they may or may not actually be worshipping – because the other cultural forms do not resonate with them. You can never get beyond the “style” in order to get to worship – because all worship is culturally encapsulated in some cultural form. Therefore many churches find that having a traditional service – done well – for believers who are culturally “traditional” and a different service for either CCM Christians or Southern Gospel Christians will resonate better with their indigenous cultural forms. In particular, North Augusta has several churches who offer a “Contemporary” worship service – but to my knowledge, I do not know of anyone who is doing a “Southern Gospel” worship service. Personally I believe this would go over extremely well. I would recommend that you have two services –one very traditional and one very country – Southern Gospel. I believe that you would grow by serving a real need for traditional and country Christians. I also believe that you would be able to reach some of the country music “pagan pool” for whom the Southern Gospel style of music would.
If we sing hymns, the whole congregation seems to join in. If we sing contemporary, people stand around with sour looks on their faces and it’s very discouraging as a worship leader. We can’t seem to get past the “It’s not about me” idea. I can do hymns in a contemporary way and it’s a little better, but I want people to enjoy worship because they are worshipping God with their full being and I know I have to teach that, but how do I do it? That’s where I’m confused. I want to be culturally relevant, but we must also be doctrinally sound.
Curt: If people are standing around with sour looks on their faces while you sing contemporary music that should tell you something – the style is not part of their culture and they are not worshipping because of that. That said, it is a fine line between culturally appropriate worship and the “it’s all about me” idea. Worship has to use indigenous cultural forms in order for people to truly worship. That being said, worship is all about ascribing honor and glory to God – not about what I get out of it. My counsel would be to fix the first problem – the cultural forms. Once that barrier is no longer there then you can tackle the second problem. But people’s resistance to “foreign” cultural forms is not due to their selfishness – it is due to the fact that they intuitively know that worship is a supremely cultural event – and what they are experiencing is not enabling them to truly worship.
Your response has helped me greatly. I understand where you are coming from, but I still am having a major issue with one element. Where is the room for the Holy Spirit in what you all are saying? I understand the Holy Spirit to be a unifier, even across cultures. Right now I understand you saying that 2 cultures can’t come together and both truly worship because we aren’t speaking the “heart language” of the culture. But with the Holy Spirit living in us, doesn’t He determine the heart language?
Curt: The Holy Spirit uses our “heart language” to convey truth to us. It is a fallacy to believe that there is a “holy language” through which the Holy Spirit speaks to us that is different than our own language – He uses God’s word to communicate to us in our own spoken language. Yes, the Holy Spirit is God – he can even break thru language barriers such as in Acts 2 when the listeners heard the message in their own languages. But notice, the Holy Spirit was moving beyond the Aramaic that Peter knew so that all would hear the message in their own heart language. In the same way the Holy Spirit uses “heart music” to speak to us – our own “heart music.” Of course cultures can come together and worship—and our bond in Christ enables us to overcome cultural barriers – but that doesn’t eliminate the fact that worship is always encapsulated in cultural forms and we truly worship when the cultural forms are meaningful to us.
Even in Ephesians Paul talks about the barriers between Jew and Gentile being broken down. We can all worship (even cross culturally) if we are coming together with the idea that we are there to ascribe worth to God. The goal of the church is not to worship. It is, however, one of the functions of the church as outlined in Acts 2. The mission of the church is to make disciples (the Great Commission). We are to live our lives as a sacrifice meaning everything we do is worship. Worship is not just a gathering of people in our own context to praise God. That’s thinking inside the box, isn’t it?
Curt: Yes cultural barriers – the animosity between groups and sour intergroup relations can be broken down by our “oneness” in Christ. But even in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural setting each group is still worshiping in their own heart language and heart music. The goal of all of life actually IS worship. Even the “Baptist Catechism” stated: the chief end of man is to glorify God forever. You are right that worship is more than just the service on Sunday morning. Acts 2 talks about the things that believers did which included worship. Making disciples is the mission of all believers – it was given to all believers – not to the entity we call “the church.”
I hope this helps — keep the questions coming until you get it all figured out. God bless.
I’m really trying to grasp all this; I really am… thanks for being patient with me!
Rick McCollum
worshipersonmission 