jobs and work

There was a decent article on Jonathan Riggs' blog a while back, that talked about the issue of a working worship leader "ministering to the Lord" while ministering to other people — an idea that translates into most people's lives insofar as it's really worthwhile to dig the intrinsic aspects of what you're doing and not just whether someone else liked it.

The article itself is right on. Very perceptive and true. But it ended with a question intended to provoke a large comments section: "What do you do to keep your music ministry from becoming 'just a job?' " So far my response is the only one, and instead of answering that question, I questioned it.

Of course, the phrase "just a job" is a telling one. If your last name is Smith, you had an ancestor back there in the Middle Ages somewhere whose job as a blacksmith was such a part of his identity that it became his name. What you did was who you were: Taylor, Schumacher, Miller.

Names like this should remind us that we're in a weird place and time, when we seesaw between two extreme approaches to career: that it doesn't define you, and that it should be incredibly fulfilling. Our ancestors, those tailors and shoemakers and millers, knew better. Your job does define you in some way, and slogging away at it is a noble calling; and therefore it doesn't have to be incredibly fulfilling.

Paul the Apostle was a tentmaker.

I'm a professional musician — composer, arranger, producer, worship leader, jazz performer. The times when my work becomes tedious and sloggy, which happen often, are the times I can look back on with most joy, because there's nothing mere about a job, and there's nothing mere about digging into it.

When leading worship, thinking about the tempo, writing in a key change at just the right moment, adding or subtracting an instrument, changing ranges, coming up with the perfect riff, adjusting the microphone or the instrument — this is when I'm at play in the fields of the Lord, where discipline and freedom become indistinguishable. These aren't distractions from worship: they are worship.

When you discover your ministry is 'just' a job, then rejoice, and do the job.

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