The Music Architect

Blueprints for Engaging Worshipers in Song

Cherry, Constance M.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781493404575
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Rituals & Practice

Guidance for Leaders Seeking a Richer Way to Employ Worship Music Worship expert Constance Cherry offers comprehensive guidance to Christian leaders seeking a deeper, richer way to employ worship music in engaging ways for twenty-first-century worshipers. Following Cherry's successful book The Worship Architect, this work helps Christian leaders think theologically and act pastorally about worship music in their churches. It addresses larger issues beyond the surface struggles of musical styles and provides tools to critically evaluate worship songs. The book is applicable to all Christian traditions and worship styles and is well suited to both the classroom and the local church. Each chapter concludes with suggested practical exercises, recommended reading, and basic vocabulary terms.

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Becoming a Pastoral Musician

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Before reading this chapter, reflect on and discuss these questions with a good friend:

1. Have you recently been in a group where people were asked to introduce themselves? How many of them included some sort of vocational identity as part of their introduction?
2. Other than ministry-related, what titles do you presently hold (formal or informal)?
3. How would you change the way these titles are worded if you could?

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We are often defined by our titles. For better or for worse, titles establish our identities. Notice how often when called on to introduce ourselves in a public gathering, we do so by saying what we do: “I’m a stay-at-home dad”; “I am a principal at the local high school.” Whether titles are formal (“senior defense attorney for the city of Los Angeles”) or informal (“mama”), they serve as a clue to who we are and what we do. What we do, of course, is not the same thing as who we are. First and foremost, we are children of God made in the imago Dei, apart from what our job might be. At the same time, who we are and what we do are often related, for our interests, natural talents, spiritual giftedness, cultural contexts, and so on not only help to form who we are but also often determine the trajectories of our lives, leading us naturally to our primary vocations. The connection between who we are and what we do is all but unavoidable in Western cultures.

Many folks engaged in musical leadership in the church, whether paid or not, have a title that describes their role: worship leader, pastor, worship pastor, director of music, minister of music, worship arts pastor—these are just a few of the common ones. Options have proliferated in recent years, as a visit to any ministry job-search website will attest. But is there a title that combines both what you do and who you are?

In this chapter we will examine just such a title in depth: pastoral musician. While any number of titles can be appropriate for persons invested in worship music leadership, this one holds profound potential for capturing much more than one’s duties to be performed; it also represents how leaders approach their duties in a particular way as a result of who they are. The purpose of this book is to assist persons charged with musical leadership in the local church with carrying out their duties in ways that are glorifying to God and edifying to worshipers. The title “pastoral musician” reflects a multidimensional type of leadership that combines both being and doing—a leader who is being conformed to the image of Christ and, as a result, is able to do God-focused ministry with others. This term will be used broadly to include any and all persons with responsibilities for any aspect of the music in corporate worship. (This approach will become clearer as we go along.) Remember that pastoral musicians are also worship architects. As explained in the prelude to the book, worship architects are those persons with responsibility for designing and leading a full service of worship in its many aspects, from concept stage to the service itself to its evaluation. One dimension of such responsibility is the musical leadership for the service of worship; in that sense we are music architects in particular.

Defining the Pastoral Musician

The term “pastoral musician” has had a distinguished history in some sectors of Christianity while unknown in others, but it is a term with much merit. A definition will help to describe what is meant:

A pastoral musician is a spiritual leader with developed skill and God-given responsibility for selecting, employing, and/or leading music in worship in ways that serve the actions of the liturgy, engage worshipers as full participants, and reflect upon biblical, theological, and contextual implications, all for the ultimate purpose of glorifying God.1

There are several key phrases and ideas found in this definition. First, pastoral musicians are spiritual leaders; they lead out of their relationship with Jesus Christ, and their leadership is offered for the spiritual development of the church. Next, pastoral musicians have developed skill. They possess more than natural talent; they have intentionally invested in training to maximize their skill set(s) as a means to serve Christ and his church in a manner that is worthy of their calling. They seek to honor God through the ongoing nurture of the gifts God has given them. Pastoral musicians also have God-given responsibility for some aspects of the music employed in worship. Whether remunerated or volunteer, they have been placed in designated leadership for this ministry by the will of God and the church. Pastoral musicians understand that music serves the greater purposes of biblical worship, and they help participants to become fully engaged in the fulfilling of those purposes. They also give thoughtful consideration to theological reference points that undergird their ministry so as to ground it faithfully in biblical and historical Christianity. At the same time they are aware of contextual and cultural realities as they seek to offer the music of the community most fitting in a given locale. Last, pastoral musicians are deeply committed to enabling all worshipers to sing of God’s glory.

Describing the Pastoral Musician

Definitions can be very helpful; however, sometimes a description of the type of person and ministry can be equally advantageous. Below is a series of succinct descriptive statements that begin to tease out the definition of the pastoral musician. The statements describe three dimensions: the person of the pastoral musician, the vision of the pastoral musician, and the role of the pastoral musician. Following each group of statements, which are comprehensive but not exhaustive, I will elaborate on some of the principal themes, while leaving others to be addressed at length in the succeeding chapters.

The Person of the Pastoral Musician

Pastoral musicians begin by recognizing who they are as God’s beloved and redeemed creation on a journey of growth and service.

Characteristics of the person include the following:

• Fully embraces and lives the Christian faith
• Demonstrates a developing spiritual maturity
• Demonstrates awareness of personal spiritual gifts
• Senses a vocational call to worship ministry2
• Embraces, encourages, and loves the persons in the community God has given him or her to oversee
• Is committed to lifelong learning
• Is accountable to God and to others for his or her ongoing development as a pastoral musician

The person who you are in ministry will affect your ministry more than any skill or quality you possess. In the end, who you are will leave a more lasting impression than what you do. Our personhood is rooted in the imago Dei. We are humans made in the likeness of God (Gen. 1:26). Beyond this, we also become children of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26). Our identity as persons is found first and foremost in our relationship with God by virtue of our creation (made in the image of God) and in our re-creation (becoming children of God). While the source of our identity is rooted in our relationship with God, our personhood develops and matures over time; it is a lifetime process. The person of the pastoral musician (whom we have become, are becoming, and will become) possesses several important characteristics: is a disciple of Jesus Christ, has a deepening spiritual maturity, is a member of the church, and has a sense of vocation.

Disciple of Jesus Christ. The starting place for a true pastoral musician is that she or he is a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. As a leader, one’s relationship with Christ is the foundation for ministry. Non-Christians can fulfill tasks in a religious setting, but they cannot do ministry apart from a relationship with the One in whose name they minister.3 Pastoral musicians will identify themselves as Christians; they will demonstrate love and devotion to the triune God and love and compassion for others. They will be committed to the orthodox tenets of Christianity and embrace the Scriptures as authoritative for life and ministry. They will name Jesus as Lord and live according to his teachings. Being in Christ is a prerequisite for true ministry.

Deepening spiritual maturity. Pastoral musicians not only declare their faith as Christians; they also commit themselves to a lifelong pursuit of spiritual maturity. Our growth in Christ cannot be separated from our growth in leadership, for how we develop as leaders is deeply linked to how God is forming us into the likeness of his Son. Our view of leadership shifts over time in relation to our experience of God at work in our lives. It is common for young leaders to embrace secular models of leadership for ministry, sometimes overlaid with Christian terminology in order to authenticate its use in the church, only to discover that the biblical portrayal of leadership looks quite different. (Chapter 12 will elaborate on servant leadership as a favored model for Christian leaders.)

Spiritual maturity occurs through the gracious initiatives of God, followed by our intentional cooperation with God in those initiatives. There is no better means for our growth in Christlikeness than our participation in the classic spiritual disciplines of the church.4 Spiritual disciplines provide the normative ways and means for our spiritual formation. Transformation is God’s work—it is the gift of grace at work for a lifetime. At the same time, God accomplishes spiritual transformation when we offer ourselves willingly as full participants in the process. The point is that pastoral musicians are conscientious about their growth in Christ. It is never growth for growth’s sake; rather, it is an honest, dynamic pursuit of holiness so that our will comes into conformity with God’s will. It is that type of “long obedience in the same direction”5 that is worthy of the pastoral musician. It is that kind of conformity that will produce effective pastoral musicians to lead the church of Jesus Christ.

Member of the church. The pastoral musician’s relationship to the church is also central to who we are. The church is not an organization; it is a living organism. As such, it is a dynamic, eternal, worldwide community of Christ-followers who name Jesus as Lord. As baptized believers, we are members of Christ’s holy church; we are in union with Christ and all true believers—past, present, and future—who make up the church. Pastoral musicians serve the community of faith in fulfilling their duties. The local church is our context for doing the ministry that we are called to do. There would be no point in serving as a pastoral musician apart from the local church or its parachurch ministries. Pastoral musicians understand the nature of the church and fully embrace its God-given role in the kingdom of God. They view themselves as citizens in a cosmic, universal community who think globally and serve locally. Enabling the music of worship in a local church setting becomes much more than it seems when pastoral musicians serve out of their love for Christ and his church.

Sense of vocation. It is, in fact, the church that helps pastoral musicians make the shift from seeing their duties as employment versus vocation. Some pastoral musicians are paid while others are not, but this is immaterial to the idea of vocation. To embrace a vocation is to recognize a sense of call in relation to one’s duties. The English word “vocation” comes from the Latin word vo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Other Books by Constance M. Cherry
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Endorsements
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prelude
• 1. Becoming a Pastoral Musician
• 2. Pouring the Footing
• 3. Laying the Foundations
• 4. Selecting Songs for the Movements of Worship
• 5. Evaluating Worship Music
• 6. Maximizing Shorter Song Forms
• 7. Maximizing Longer Song Forms
• 8. Discovering the Congregation’s Worship Voice
• 9. Leading Congregational Song
• 10. Participating in Song as the Body of Christ
• 11. Forming Disciples through Song
• 12. Pursuing Spiritual Leadership through Excellence
• Postlude
• Appendix A: Assessing Your Canon of Song
• Appendix B: Antiphon for Congregational Use
• Index
• Back Cover