“It’s All About Meeeeeeeeeee” (no it’s NOT!)

– May 7, 2009Posted in:

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Hey guys!

Watch this video… it made me laugh so hard tonight, then get really sad, all in about two minutes. Thank you to my new friend Danielle Strickland (who heads up the Salvation Army in Australia…check out her Blog here!)

I laughed because it is such a clever reminder of our secret motives and ambition to be on stage and in the spot light… And because someone was bold enough to create a video to communicate that message.

It also made me really sad, because worship MUST be all about Him. It’s a great reminder for me as I go into the studio here in San Diego every day this week…. a reminder to make sure I’m focused ONLY on Jesus. If it’s not about Him, then there’s no point writing another note or singing another word. Lets all keep each other accountable to make Him our ONE focus!

It reminds me of John The Baptist in the Gospels. In John 3:28-30 He decribed himself as a “friend of the Bridegroom” – the ‘Best Man” of the guy getting married. John writes ” ²⁸ You surely remember how I told you that I am not the Messiah. I am only the one sent ahead of him. ²⁹At a wedding the groom is the one who gets married. The best man is glad just to be there and to hear the groom’s voice. That’s why I am so glad. ³⁰Jesus must become more important, while I become less important”or other translations say “He must become greater and I must become less”.

John was simply a sign post pointing to Jesus. Imagine on a wedding day if the Best Man had an ego complex and tried to make it all about him! How weird and awkward would that be? Imagine him jumping into the Bride & Groom’s ‘couple photos’ or making any excuse to get the Bride alone and engage her in deep conversation. That would not be cool! In the same way, we mustn’t do that when we lead worship. Our only role is to lead the Bride to the Groom and make it as smooth and comfortable an experience as possible.

Let’s do it well!

Any thoughts on that?….

Vicky

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Sam

Wow, the video really is very sad. I am part of the worship team at a baptist church in the UK where we recently had complaints for leading worship for 15 minutes which was “too long to expect people to stand up” for. I was really upset & angry that people had this attitude. If you genuinely can't stand to worship, then sit down, or lie down, however you need to be to worship, but if it is just “tiring” to stand for 15 minutes what does that say about our desire to worship our Awesome & Almighty God.
http://www.jonathanpaulmusic.com/ Jonathan Paul

Wow, Sam – that blows me away. So sad. Both of my parents were raised Baptist, but eventually ended up seeking out God elsewhere just because of this and other similar attitudes that seemed so prevalent – at least in their particular church body. Of course this is not at all to say that all Baptist congregations or congregants are like this!

Wow, Vicky – they really did a great job with that video! Love your analogy too; that really brings it quickly into sharp relief how absurd it is when we are focused on ourselves!

It seems many people don't realize how many forms this can take. Being overly critical of ourselves, being self conscious, not really listening to others, can all be forms of focusing too much on self. And even at the root of some sorts of depression is an overwhelming focus on self; the good thing is that this can be helped by taking some time to invest significantly in serving others (particularly those who are not as fortunate as we are).
Towanda

I'm part of a Baptist community in the Uk. I experience similar issues and it drives me absolutely nuts.
Having said that – I believe this has nothing to do with denominations, but rather with the people. (There shouldn't be denominations in the first place.)
If the community is not open to any sort of alternative worship (whatever style) it'll be a big challenge anyway.
I'm certainly not a traditionalist which means that quite often it feels like banging my head against a massive brick wall and sometimes I could scream for 24 hours. (sorry, Vicky, but some of the Anglicans are even worse re traditions)

I wonder if this is a cultural thing? Are the britsh a bit more conservative (I'm German, so I won't be offended.:)

When I saw the video some of my favourite passages came into my mind. It's from Matthew 14:28-31 when Peter jumped out of the boat, started walking on the water, but as soon as he took his eyes off Jesus he started to sink.
Whether it's focusing on ourselves or trying to take control of our life or maybe even being distracted of all sorts of little unimportant things, it makes it difficult to stay focused on Jesus.
Every day we have to re-focus our eyes, asking ourselves about our motives and remind ourselves that whatever we do it's not for our glory, but to the glory of the Lord – and we most definitely should be 'sign posts' to Jesus.

Chris
Nathan Mitchell

Vicky,

Great reminder that our motives should be about Christ its easy with doing ministry focus on schedule and miss the point based personal preferences. everything we do is ministry and about focus on God.

Thanks,

Nathan
Ben Collingwood

Hello!
This reminded me of a worship song by Martyn Layzell whose chorus goes like this:

Not to us, but unto you be the glory.
Forever you will be!
Forever you will be exalted!
Your great love, the only way to the Father.
Your Spirit lives in me
and now I live to tell your story.

It's an important thing that we should all remember as worship leaders, like you say Vicky, we are a humble instrument that God uses to help people come into His presence and experience HIS glory.

Spring Harvest was brilliant. As ever, the music was truly insrpirational.
Thanks for doing it.
Ben, UK.
http://shesmakingwaves.wordpress.com/ Jamie =)

I had already seen this video (we showed our youth kids it a few months back). It is such a great reminder that our worship is NEVER about us, but it is all for God.

Thank you for reminding me about the video.
Jamie
Steve

I have already talked about this on your MySpace site, but to briefly recapitulate here, the focal point of Orthodox worship is the Eucharist. Our worship is not personality-centered. It is liturgical (No one can ad-lib it!). It is God-centered. The pinnacle point of it is receiving Christ in the Eucharist. It is patterned after the worship in Heaven. (St. Matt. 6:10; Heb. 8:5) The entire Divine Liturgy is based on the Book of Revelation wherein heavenly worship is described. The Divine Liturgy is the oldest form Eucharistic worship surviving in Christendom. It even precedes the Latin Mass. The Divine Liturgy of St. James came about in the late first or early second century. The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil is shorter than that one, but has the same basic pattern. The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is shorter than the St. Basil Liturgy, but it still has the same basic pattern as the other two liturgies.

Steve
http://www.nathanarnoldmusic.com Nathan Arnold

This is #1 reason I avoided playing my own songs for so long. I was always terrified that if something I wrote was good it would go to my head and I would lose right perspective. It took me 10 years of writing before I shared my first song with anyone and it still terrifies me that worship will become about me. Now that I am making most of my living playing music I think about this pretty much every day. I struggle promoting myself in order to get gigs (or announcing during a concert I have a CD for sale) when the heart of what I want to do is to point people to Christ, or as I like to put it “To facilitate a meeting between the earthly and the holy.” I don't know if it gets easier when you have a booking agency and promoters on your side, but as an indie artist who does it all himself it's rough. I hate that I have to do it play music for a living.

In other news, are you going to share what color ears you got? Did you get them to make you some with the Union Jack?
http://chinedum.wordpress.com Kelly

Dear Vicky, reading your post reminds me the objective of PURE worship. I thank God for His grace…He is very merciful. I pray my/our motives will be in tune with Him moment by moment with His supernatural help so that we would all be led into His throne in harmony. Who are we to make it all about ourselves…we did not die so ALL may live? Therefore, Jesus, I pray right now, “…not unto us but to Your name be the glory…” and You are “…above all else…” we desire. Your will be done–glorify thyself, Jehovah Shammah!!!
rawkalways

I just laughed so hard that my sides hurt!
http://twitter.com/rawkalways rawkalways

I just laughed so hard that my sides hurt!

“It’s All About Meeeeeeeeeee” (no it’s NOT!)

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