Music that Worships

I was talking with my new friend Gil the other day about trying to get some musicians to play at Sojourn. Gil is a worship leader here and knows a ton of guys, which is great because I don't know anybody.

We started talking about some musicians he knows when he said something I hadn't thought about in a while.

He said, "Some guys can play really well. Other guys can worship really well."

Like I said, I hadn't thought about that. So I started thinking about more. And here's what I realized.

There is culture in the church now that you pay the musicians who play. It's rampant now. I thought it was bad in Atlanta with the mega-churches there that pay their musicians upwards of $300 a service. Then I come to Charlotte, where the same thing takes place. Now, this isn't a bad thing entirely, but it kind of hurts church plants. We don't have the money for anyone to be full-time staff, let alone to pay musicians.

What is really hurtful of this culture is that feeds into the musicians desires. Every musician wants to tour. It's like the ultimate goal. And churches are feeding that desire now. As a musician, you can play at a different church every weekend, so it feels a lot like you're touring. It just makes the musicians ego a little bigger each time they get paid. They start thinking, "Hey, I'm good enough at this to get paid to do it. Why should I not get paid to do it? If someone can't pay me, then I can't play for them." It's selfish is what it really is. And this is so set into the culture now that even churches who don't have the money to pay musicians feel like they have to in order to have the quality of music they want.

So that being said I have made a decision. I am not looking for good musicians. I am looking for good worshipers. I don't want to deal with peoples ego-centric attitudes of being to good to play for Sojourn because we can't pay them. I want musicians who just want to worship God with their talents. I want musicians who want to serve the church and serve God.

I want musicians who worship better than they play.