Blog Post Four: Lead Me!

I have been apart of worship ministry since I was fourteen years old. That’s about fourteen years of making music – leading people towards Jesus. In that time, I have found myself serving with people from all walks of life. Each one who took a different road and each who played a different role in my journey. As a young musician – I looked up to the people that were ahead of me. The people that have served for many years. The people that were older than me. I looked to them for guidance, for help, for direction – for leadership.

I was so hungry to learn – I would find a way to open up conversations about music and worship whenever I could. Some of the people I looked up to were my direct leaders, some were peers, some were friends or family. Nevertheless, if I knew you were involved in worship ministry – I looked up to you. Some people chuckled me off, some people drew me in and some never even knew that I was observing. I wanted to grow, quickly. I wanted some direction, some impartation. I wanted to be led.

What happens when you are looking for that leadership and the leaders you have – don’t lead or support you? What do you do then? In my journey thus far – I have had many, many encounters with leaders who have left me feeling used and drained. (Yes, even in the church we can experience these things). I would give my all but often I felt like all I was, was a function – a cog in the machine, a link in the chain.

A lot of this happened in my early stages of worship (with one or two exceptions that I will tell you about them in later posts) but I found myself having to find a few things to keep going. The first of that being PURPOSE. Why am I doing this? What is the meaning of this? If it’s people’s affirmation – then I have a much shorter road ahead. Secondly, I had to decide WHO I wanted to learn from. Thirdly, I had to find the COURAGE to take ownership of my own growth.

What that meant for me was this: Jesus had to be my purpose, He had to be the reason I worship. It meant I needed to find the people who were passionate about Jesus and it meant that no matter what came my way – I needed to make sure that my growth was not dependent on another person but rather on me choosing to grow in every situation.

Sometimes we look to programs, events and structures to make us grow but ultimately, we need to put ourselves in the spaces that enables us to grow. Nobody can make you grow – as the age old saying goes : “You can take a horse to the water but you can’t make it drink”  – You can choose to learn from your circumstances, your leaders, the events and programs but you have to decide if it’s worth it first. Sometimes it will be easy – the people around you will inspire and motivate you but sometimes it is going to be hard. For me, Jesus is worth it and that is why I will continue to try grow in whatever manner I can.