A worship leader (wait for it….) leads music and song whereas a worship pastor leads people into experiences that collide them with God.

A leader plans and practices transitions from song to song whereas a pastor looks for holy interruptions that could send us deeper.

A leader will make sure his part of the service is done well while a pastor focuses on the WHOLE worship experience.

A leader will be great with the music, a pastor will experiment with different disciplines (silence, prayer, readings, communion, video, etc).

A leader will evaluate notes and tuning, a pastor will evaluate the impact and response.

A leader will understand response as someone walking down the aisle, a pastor will see response as life change once the service is over.

A leader wants to run a smooth practice, a pastor wants to develop other worshippers.

What would you add?

But putting all of that together, keeping that juggling act of activity focused on Making disciples who love God, live connected, and serve all stretches me in areas that I didn’t even know I had. I love the dreaming and team building part. I love the putting steps in action to accomplish this. I love that more so than ever we have a more holistic approach to this process.

But when it comes to numbers and budgets, I just feel overwhelmed. As a leader, there is this huge temptation to be ‘good at everything’ that comes to your desk. Bible question? I gotcha. Counseling? Marriage? Kids? Sports? Politics? Budgets? As these questions and opportunities come flying at you, there is this evil voice gently whispering – “go ahead, fake it. You can be the expert.” And most leaders know enough about any subject to sound intelligent about for about 5 minutes. After that, the gig is up.

So I’ve learned to just punt that first 5 minutes. There is no sense in pretending, you’re going to get exposed sooner or later. Last night I was asked by a dear friend, ‘how are you really doing.’ I leveled with him – “This is the worst time of the year for me. I feel completely exposed as a leader and inadequate in this area of budgets. I can follow one, I can keep an organization under one. But creating and organizing?”

He just looked at me and said the exact words I needed to hear. “Grant…we’ve got people for that, right?” It wasn’t a question. He pushed me a bit more – “Just close your eyes, trust God and keep teaching the word.” Later that night he said something else that jolted me – “We need to do anything we can to keep bringing people to Jesus Christ. That’s the focus. Nothing else matters.”

Exposed and protected. That’s what I felt last night. What a great place to be as leaders in the church. This is the huge benefit of team leadership, in community with authenticity and humility. I’m off the ledge this morning.

Auburn
As Coop and I were watching the game wind down, I told Cooper that the right call would be to throw now with 10 seconds left that way MSU has two plays. MSU runs and Auburn’s safety makes one heck of a play. I’m not sure if MSU just choked away a win or if Auburn is that resilient. Either way, Auburn is 2-0 and while they aren’t as talented or dominant as they were last year – they still play hard, still play the WHOLE game.

Georgia & South Carolina
Uga now has a different meaning. Watching Georgia self-destruct in that game was painful even for me. Murray still makes those one or two bone-head plays a game that just makes you go – “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??” Which should totally sound familiar for South Carolina fans as they have watched Garcia…dare I use the phrase ‘grow up?’ Shame for Mark Richt – who will probably lose his job after this season.

NFL

The Broncos…here’s the deal. I’m not anti-Orton. It’s just that we’ve seen this ineptness the last 4 years. Dink, dink, short run, turnover, field goals instead of touchdowns, penalties, and unable to finish games. It is clear that Orton is an average quarterback who at times plays awful but generally speaking will play to the level of talent around him. He isn’t going to put the team on his shoulders and take them to the next level.

What we don’t know is what we’ve got in Quinn or Tebow. And since it is apparent that the Broncos are going to be in the Andrew Luck sweepstakes, wouldn’t it be great to figure out what you’ve got with Tebow or Quinn? Maybe they do know what they’ve got and it’s so bad they are just trying to get as much as they can in trade value from the other teams. The 23-20 score is so deceptive. The game really wasn’t that close and it was a slow, ugly game. Penalty Bowl.

The cool thing? The Orange Jerseys!!! Love that look!

The only team that I thought looked worse than the Broncs this past weekend was the Chiefs. And unless there is a major attitude change in KC, they could be the worse team in the NFL. They didn’t look ready to play and completely out-coached on Sunday. Could be a long season for the Chefs.

I’ll be posting about some of those in the future. I’ve got pages of notes. But there were a couple of thoughts that I just didn’t get and didn’t see how in the world they were even relevant or could possibly work.

One of the head-scratching parts for me was watching Neil Cole basically deconstruct and critique the ‘centralized’ church versus the decentralized church. It was way to obvious what Cole’s bias was – decentralization – but what was frustrating for me is that I felt like I was getting more propaganda than substance at that point. It was one of those moments that I wanted to quote Shakespeare – “I think he doth protest to much.”

I’ve heard that sermon before – house churches, decentralized churches that are smaller with no overhead costs, with no paid staff are better for the advancement of the Kingdom than mega-churches or any organized church with brick and mortar. They spend their time and money on real Kingdom work.

It’s a great theory. And I’m sure there are examples of exactly that happening. I just don’t think the ratio of how many house churches that REALLY function that way is all that different from ‘big’ churches that do.

Most of the house churches I know of started because they didn’t like any of the larger churches or didn’t want the hassle of the Sunday morning experience. Or they were of the “anti-establishment” church. The idea of impacting their community for Jesus I think I can safely say was one of the last things on their minds.

And guess what? Big churches have the same stat line – a lot are started by groups of people who aren’t happy with their current church (music, preacher, color of carpet) and the idea of impacting their community for Jesus is the last thing on their minds.

I don’t really think the size of a church OR where that church meets is the ultimate determination of how they define themselves or understand their mission. There are inward-focused house churches as well as “centralized” churches. There are outward, Kingdom focused house-churches as well as centralized churches.

So what is the difference maker? I think it’s all a matter of the focus of its leadership.

At Western Hills, we are trying to figure out what it means to BE the church where we live – all week long. What does LOVE, LIVE, and SERVE look like on my ball teams, in my office, with my family, in my neighborhood? What does being the CHURCH, being the presence of Jesus looks like wherever I go? What does that concept of church do to my life choices now? How I spend my time and money?

We are not there yet by any stretch of the imagination but I have a hard time believing that a decentralized house-church would have been given access to the places we’ve been given access to serve this year. And I know that there are some places that we are never going to penetrate under the banner of Western Hills but some of our life groups will get to through them being Church.

We’re not a shining example of what COULD be. At least not yet but I think we are asking the right questions, on the right road, focusing on making disciples on a micro level that love, live, and serve where ever they go.

I understand that most organized churches don’t ask these kinds of questions. Most say something to the effect “Come here because we have the buffet of programs and services to make your life better.” I get the frustration with that kind of philosophy and how it just further feeds the consumer beast we have in the States. Believe me…I get it.

But I know of house church leaders who function much the same way, the only difference is they are selling the anti-establishment, not necessarily Kingdom living. It’s just as wrong.

I left the afternoon session wondering if Neil really believed that the smaller, decentralized church was the only way the Kingdom could be advanced? I wondered if he really thought these centralized churches were a danger to the advancement of the Kingdom.

I’m not sure. He left that impression. I reserve the right to have heard him incorrectly…it was the afternoon session and I wasn’t exactly locked in with laser focus. I just wanted more from the afternoon session than what I got…because the morning session was outstanding in so many ways.

Time to end this post. Let say this as sort of a wrap-up – I think there is a place (and need) for both the decentralized and centralized. (I think they can even exist under the same roof but I’ll save that for another post.)

I was reminded today that there just isn’t one simple answer to how to spread Jesus’ story. It’s about connecting people with the real Jesus and that is a messy proposition at best. And that’s okay.

Some people are going to get connected to Him in a living room under the name “house church.” Some are going to get connected in a large auditorium. Some are going to get connected over lunch with a co-worker. And others still will meet Jesus when we start being Church where ever we go.

And I think He’s okay with all of that…

She smiled. “Pray for healing….but….” She paused to look out the window. “I’m not afraid to die. I’m going to see Jesus. I just don’t want to suffer. I don’t want that for my family.”

She turned back to look at me. She was smiling with eyes bright and clear. There wasn’t a hint of resentment or bitterness. There was no dread or self-pity. Just a prayer that sounded a lot like Paul’s prayer – “for me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”

She didn’t sound like someone who’d been told that the tumor was cancerous and inoperable. She didn’t sound like someone who knew that her “homecoming” was near. And she then waited for me to pray.

I don’t want to pray for acceptance of this. I don’t want this to be the verdict. I can’t count how many meals we ate at her table or how many naps our kids took upstairs. How many football games in front of the fireplace? Or tears of laughter at her crazy stories? How many hours of sleep did we bypass for card games and movies?

She always had ice cream, she always had room for one more around the table. She modeled how to love others with the gift of hospitality. She had a basement full of playpens, high chairs, toddler toys, bouncy seats, sippee cups, small spoons, and bibs. She had that cool Fisher Price barn with the mooing cow barn doors and the hammer and big wooden nails bench. If you were a young family with small kids, she was a lifesaver. We could go over and not have to pack up the house to do it.

I don’t remember what I prayed. I didn’t make it very far before the tears started leaking in anyway. I feel so very inadequate in this moment. Small. Insignificant. As if I’m interrupting a private conversation. And this is as it should be because this moment is about her and Jesus.

There is a strength in her faith I do not yet have but hope to one day achieve. But for today…for now…I’m sad. And I’ll honor her prayer because I don’t know what else to pray for…