Close your eyes and think about worshiping. OK, read that last sentence first, THEN close your eyes.I’d be willing to bet big money (at least $1) that you saw yourself and/or other people singing, listening to music, or playing an instrument. OF COURSE there’s nothing wrong with that (#3).
Imagine yourself in a position where you could not do that. What would you do? Would you call off worship?
On Friday, 4/3, Eric Jones (that’s him above in the spiffy hat Tori knitted) and I found ourselves sitting in a McDonald’s in Beaumont, TX trying to get online and worrying about the fact that Arnie Borowsky, our worship leader, was home sick and would not be joining us on the mission trip.
Here’s what happened by the numbers:
- I had spent about six weeks trying to find someone to lead worship on this trip and could not find anyone.
- Carla, my wife, normally leads worship on the trips we lead, but because it was Holy Week, she had stay home to practice with the choir.
- Christy Barnard, AIM’s project leader and worship leader coordinator, also had lots of trouble finding a worship leader and finally moved Arnie off of another trip that didn’t have enough participants.
- Arnie got sick and could not go on the trip.
- I called both groups coming on the trip and asked if they had anyone who could lead worship. They both said no. As a matter of fact, the Wyoming group was bringing their entire worship band…except for the guy who led it.
- I can sing, but am most assuredly not a worship leader as one currently thinks of worship leaders.
- Eric is a dancer/actor type, not a singer (at his own admission). In our ‘getting to know you’ conversation the day before, he mentioned that he liked to worship God in creative ways that were not just musical. (That’s the way I remember it, anyway)
At this point, I was starting to get a glimmer of the idea that God didn’t intend for us to have a worship leader for this trip and as the project leader, I needed to figure out how to run with that. (I know that sounds all fancy and religious. It would be more accurate to say that I was scared spitless and was looking for someone to blame. OK, not exactly; I was surprisingly calm about the whole ordeal, but still had no idea what to do.)
So, sitting in the booth at McDonald’s, I asked Eric (and Tori), “What would it look like if we had worship all week without a worship leader?”
