When the Music Stops

The amount of time I have spent behind a piano leading worship is substantial. There have been hours and hours spent encountering the transformational power of God’s presence enter into the room and change the lives of the people. It’s truly one of the greatest experiences of my life, and there’s nothing else like it. Nonetheless, with this comes another perspective. There are also moments where hypocrisy saturates the room and pride attempts to dismantle the unity of the church.

There is something profoundly troubling about witnessing people passionately worship a God they proclaim to have surrendered everything to, only to discover that their surrender apparently comes with conditions. I have spent enough time in ministry to understand that the church is composed of imperfect people who are continually being shaped by grace, and I have certainly encountered enough of my own imperfections to approach that reality with humility. Yet there are moments when the contradictions between what we profess and how we conduct ourselves become so glaring that remaining silent feels wrong. So, naturally, I don’t. 

I find myself increasingly concerned about a particular contradiction within the church. Okay, probably a list of them, but we can start with this one for today. We can stand in a sanctuary with our hands lifted, sing passionately about the presence of God, declare that Christ is Lord over everything, and then become remarkably resistant when obedience to that same Lord requires us to surrender our preferences, or perceived authority. We can spend an entire worship service asking God to have His way while privately insisting that His way must somehow align with ours.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable question we could ask ourselves is whether we genuinely desire the will of God or simply enjoy the experience of worshiping Him when His will does not interfere with our own.

I have always believed that worship should accomplish something within the person who participates in it. Certainly, worship is directed toward God and exists for His glory, but an authentic encounter with His presence should also confront the attitudes and dispositions that remain inconsistent with His character. Theologically speaking, worship and spiritual formation belong together. Our repeated expressions of devotion should gradually shape the desires of our hearts. If we continually declare the sovereignty of Christ while remaining unwilling to relinquish our own need for control, then we should seriously consider whether our worship is transforming us or whether we have simply become comfortable with its emotional familiarity. When we find the place of unity in worship, the body of Christ becomes more like Him. 

Throughout Scripture, unity is presented as an essential characteristic of the body of believers and a visible expression of the transforming work of Christ. In John 17, Jesus petitions the Father that His followers would be one, connecting their unity directly to the credibility of their witness before the world. Paul adds to this by urging the Ephesian believers to walk with humility, gentleness, and patience with one another while bearing with one another in love and maintaining the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.(English Standard Bible, 2001/2016, Eph. 4:1-3).

What strikes me about Paul’s instruction is that unity is connected to virtues that require personal sacrifice. Something we find inconvenient. Humility demands that we reconsider our own importance. Let me remind you just in case you forgot. You are not more important than anyone else. Read that one more time for good measure. 

Humility urges us to examine our internal character and gentleness requires restraint, even when we possess the ability to offend others. Continuing with patience, my favorite; it acknowledges that other people will occasionally disappoint us. But then most importantly, we are compelled to bear with one another in love, which assumes that life within the body of believers will involve genuine frustrations and differences. For all my church hurt folks, this is your queue to stay right here. 

True biblical unity was never dependent upon the circumstance of everyone getting along or agreeing about everything. That is nearly impossible. We can’t even agree with our own family about what we should eat for dinner. Biblical unity was intended to be cultivated because disagreements, disappointments, and competing expectations would most certainly arise.

Those words were not just for then, they are for now even more so. It seems that in  contemporary church culture, we have developed a remarkably conditional understanding of what it means to be united. We value unity when our preferences are respected and when our opinions carry influence. We speak passionately about protecting the church when its direction aligns with our own convictions, but when those circumstances change, our commitment to unity suddenly become negotiable. That is where I believe we must confront an uncomfortable spiritual reality.

Sometimes the greatest threat to the unity of a church is the inability of its own members to relinquish control. 

There is a temptation within the body to confuse personal investment with personal ownership. People who have faithfully served for years, contributed financially, supported ministries, donated their resources or occupied positions of influence may begin to assume that their history entitles them to determine how the church should function. Their commitment, which may have originated from a sincere desire to serve Christ, can become intertwined with expectations of recognition and authority. Eventually, a decision is made that challenges those expectations. And BAM, now someone has to be criticized. 

Disagreement itself is a natural part of life within a group of people. The issue is when disappointment becomes resentment and resentment begins to shape how people treat one another. You do NOT have to be hateful to be bold. 

Things really start to take a turn for the worse whenever we step out of alignment with who Christ called us to be. Our side bar gossip filled conversations that could have been opportunities for understanding become occasions for recruiting agreement. Personal frustrations begin circulating through private messages, often times right in front of your face. Relationships are evaluated according to which side someone supports, and people become divided into groups. At that point, the unity of the church has become subordinate to the preferences of its members.

Paul admonishes this very problem within the Corinthian church. It is here that the believers had begun identifying themselves according to their allegiance to one side or another. Some claimed Paul, others Apollos, and others Cephas. And yet Paul responded with a question that I think we should ask ourselves before we open our mouth again,  “Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor. 1:13).

That question deserves to echo loudly  through every sanctuary where believers have allowed personal loyalties and competing expectations to fracture their fellowship.

Is Christ divided because we disagree about a decision? Has the body of Christ somehow become less worthy of our commitment because what we wanted didn’t happen? Does our responsibility to love one another go away when someone else has authority we would prefer to exercise ourselves? Paul’s question exposes the theological absurdity of allowing human disagreements to become more significant than the Savior who unites us.

I find it hypocritically annoying when division becomes wrapped in the language of spiritual conviction. Certainly, there are circumstances in which believers must challenge wrongdoing or pursue necessary accountability. Christian unity should always remain grounded in truth, and Scripture never requires believers to preserve institutional peace at the expense of righteousness. Nevertheless, we should possess enough spiritual discernment to distinguish genuine biblical concerns from personal dissatisfaction that has learned to speak in religious jargon. It’s distasteful and dangerous. Be vigilant in your conversations, the desire for control can be remarkably persuasive when it presents itself as concern for the church. Don’t mistake assumed persecution for unchecked pride. 

Pride can masquerade as principle and resentment can disguise itself as discernment. And don’t think it can’t happen to you. We are all capable of doing this because we are human and humans possess an extraordinary capacity to justify their own behavior, particularly when their sense of importance or influence feels threatened.

I am reminded that James provides a warning when he connects jealousy and selfish ambition with disorder and destructive practices (James 3:16). His words suggest that division is often rooted in something deeper than the disagreement being discussed. Remember that next time the parking lot prophet wants to give you a word. Beneath the visible conflict may exist something deeper like the desire for recognition or the longing for influence.

The preservation of Christian unity ultimately requires people whose hearts are being transformed by the character of Christ. If you leave worship the same way you entered it, then you just burned calories and gave an awkward performance. True unity, found in the transformed body of Christ requires believers who possess the humility to acknowledge that their opinions may be incomplete, the patience to endure disappointment without retaliation, and the maturity to recognize that being overruled does not diminish their value within the body. It requires that we be completely changed from the inside out by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

If you are struggling to find unity in your community, I want to remind you that we can experience disappointment without cultivating bitterness and we can express concerns without creating factions. It is possible for us to ask difficult questions without attempting to undermine the relationships that hold a congregation together and we can maintain strong convictions while extending genuine grace to those whose perspectives differ from our own. Please don’t miss an opportunity to extend grace, we know you have needed some from time to time. 

As someone who has spent much of my life involved in worship ministry, I find the relationship between corporate worship and congregational division especially difficult to reconcile. There is something deeply meaningful about hearing a congregation lift its collective voice in praise, especially when the songs proclaim the sovereignty and presence of God. Those moments remind us that we belong to something far greater than ourselves and that our individual lives are joined together through our common devotion to Christ. Yet I cannot help but wonder what those declarations mean when we leave the sanctuary and immediately return to conversations filled with resentment and division.

What does it mean to sing about surrender when we refuse to surrender our personal agendas? What does it mean to ask the Holy Spirit to move among us when we remain unwilling to allow Him to confront our pride? These questions are uncomfortable because they require us to consider the possibility that our religious expressions have become more developed than our maturity.

I wonder how often we ask God to bring revival to our churches while remaining unwilling to address the very attitudes that are damaging their unity. We pray for spiritual renewal and greater influence in our communities, and the transformation of lives, yet we sometimes allow disagreements over decisions and personal authority to consume the attention and energy that should be devoted to the mission of Christ.

I want to encourage you to find true, holy, unconditional forgiveness for your fellow community. Forgiveness is powerful. It presupposes offense. Christian unity is revealed most clearly when believers remain committed to forgiving one another and loving each other despite the circumstances that might otherwise tempt them to withdraw. Our ability to love one another through disagreement communicates something about the transforming power of the gospel.

Maybe we should ask ourselves who are we called to be when the music stops? I would argue that we are called to lift our hands together in worship and humble our hearts together in order to preserve the unity of the church, because if we can’t, then what exactly have we surrendered to Him?