Two weeks ago, I pushed back in my chair and realized that I had been serving as a worship pastor in various churches for 20 years, 15 of that full time. I’m really not one to keep track of that kind of thing so it surprised me for several reasons. First of all, there is no way I can be that old. People that have worked someplace for 20 years are old enough to have everything figured out; surely they have the basics down and they rarely make mistakes. I, on the other hand, forget what key I’m playing in about every other week. But, as much as I try and get around it, 1986 to 2006 is 20 years.

 

There are some advantages to my advanced age and longevity in my field. If one does manage to stay alive this long, one can’t help but figure a few things out about life and in my case, a few things about church. Churches are funny, dreadful, fascinating things that are commissioned by Christ and often sabotaged by His people. Properly led, there is no organization more equipped to change the world than the church, but unfortunately, world changing is a bit beyond the average American church. Changing anything in a lot of churches would constitute a sign of the end times.

 

2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV) says, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” I am convinced that the unwritten code amongst the leadership of way too many churches reads more like, “AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!! Run and hide!” Instead of the fearlessness that comes from faith, most churches seem to be fueled by fear.

 

Way back in 1986, I was in my first music position at a church we’ll call, uh, First Baptist Church. Why First Baptist Church? Because I’ve served in a couple of them and it’s got to be the most common name for a Baptist church in the country. Google “First Baptist Church” and you’ll get over 35 million hits. Check the list of FBCs in any metropolitan phone book and you’ll find that some towns even have more than one! I actually have a friend that is the pastor of First Baptist Church “West.” There are more First Baptist Churches than there are people in this world.

 

And before I completely leave the subject of First Baptist Churches - Am I the only one or does it seem downright unbiblical to even name a church first anything in the first place? The only possible reason to name a church First Baptist is so that people will know you were first! And if you were first, then you are obviously special! As in, “Come to us. We were the first! Everybody else is just copying us!” I can think of no other reason but pride to name a church First Baptist. I mean, didn’t Jesus say something about the first being last and the last being first? (Matthew 20:16) Doesn’t God oppose the proud but give grace to the humble?

 

Anyway, I was in my first music position at this church, which may or may not have been First Baptist. The church had recently relocated and was in a nice, new building with a pretty nice organ. The only problem was, they didn’t have anybody that could play the organ. Six months before I got there, the organist and the previous music director were found to have an inappropriate relationship that included, but was not limited to, naked swimming under the influence of alcohol. There are unsubstantiated accounts that there may have been dancing too, but nevertheless, those circumstances left them without an organist or a music director and provided me with a job.

 

I was a music student at a nearby denominational school (lets call it a “Baptist” school for our story). And I had a friend who was a very talented organ major. He hadn’t yet been snapped up by one of the larger churches in the area, so I invited him to come and play one Sunday at our church. I thought it would be great for our church to hear someone who could really take full advantage of the capabilities of the instrument they had paid so much for.

 

It was going to take a couple of weeks before he had a Sunday free, so I told the pastor my plans and went on with whatever it was I was doing. In hindsight, I remembered a tiny hesitation on his part. It was there for a second and then it was gone. It wasn’t big enough for me to ask if something was wrong, but it was there, and later, as I was beating my head against the wall of the choir room, I definitely remembered it.

 

Two weeks later, it was the Saturday before the Sunday that my very talented friend was going to come down the 15 miles from our Baptist school and play our new organ that hadn’t sounded a note in 6 months. I was excited. I didn’t even like organ music that much and I was excited - that’s how good this guy was. I knew the church was going to be blessed tremendously.

 

That’s when the call came. It was my pastor, God love him. He wanted to see if I could come over talk about something with him. I was in college so naturally I assumed I had been caught, uh, I assumed I had done something wrong (purely due to my inexperience!)     and began racking my brain trying to come up with any reason for the talk. By the time I drove the 15 miles to our church, I was a basket case.

 

It turns out that my offhanded remark about having someone come     down to play the organ had started two weeks of unbearable stress for pastor. He explained that some people didn’t really know the whole story about why we lost the previous organist and they were very fond of him.

 

He was afraid that having a hotshot musician come in and play “Bob’s” organ, better than “Bob” ever had, would be kind of a slap in the face to ol’ “Bob” and it might stir up all the old feelings that the church had already worked through. He wanted me to call my friend and tell him that it wasn’t a good weekend to come down.

 

I started looking into changing my major.

 

It has literally been 20 years and I can still feel the awkwardness as I tried to explain to my friend why my pastor was afraid of having him play the organ. It was just goofy! And yet, a man that I respect deeply was so mired in the fear of what might happen that he let that organ collect dust for another year before it was played. I guess he had learned something in “preacher school” that I wasn’t privy to. Maybe they have some obscure conversion chart where you can measure how safe it is to play an organ again by the depth of the dust on the keys.

 

I expect politics and social cliques to be a large part of the decision making process outside the walls of the church, but it’s so disheartening to see people take the “safe” road time after time for fear of what a few people with money, or a few people with the spiritual gift of criticism, might think. The sad thing is that I’ve seen pastors placate a church grump at the expense of those who we’re called to reach. I’ve known more than one new believer who got fed up with the “frozen chosen” and went to look for a place that takes Jesus seriously.

 

After all, fear is a lack of faith, but what are we afraid of? In the case of the above-mentioned church, one of the dreaded  “power brokers” was a husband and wife who actually thought blacks and whites should go to different churches. They were desperately afraid of “the mixing of the breeds.” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that kind of person is qualified to take out the trash of the Body of Christ, let alone lead it.

 

One of the ‘big three’ automakers is now running an ad campaign designed around the theme, “be bold.” It has phrases like “bold never holds back,” “bold leads the way,” “bold can‘t wait,” and “bold eats chips and salsa before the waiter brings your tea.” No wait, I just made that last one up. Anyway, I think you could ask 10,000 people to define the local church and I doubt that any one of them would use the word “bold.”  I don’t care who you are, that’s sad right there.

 

It’s funny. We were commissioned by Christ, paid for by his blood, promised His eternal presence till the end of the age, and we tremble in fear before those who don’t have the sense to know the slippery slope that they stand upon. The good thing is that there are churches out there that do take Him at His Word and have the courage to try something new. I’ve been around long enough to know that even with just a few of those churches out there, God accomplishes His will. I don’t think He’s ever been that impressed with big numbers anyway.

 

Oh, by the way, I currently serve at a church that may or may not be First Baptist Church, so I’m not using my real name. I would use my real name, but you know how some of those people can be...