You Are Mid-Formation While You Lead Worship | Before the Doors Open

Nobody Paid to Come See You | What the Team Cannot See E3

You are not a rock star at church. Nobody paid to come see you. And the most gifted person on your team is the one who most needs to hear that. Sometimes that person plays in your band. Sometimes that person mixes your front of house like it is their personal showcase. And sometimes, this is the episode where I have to say it, that person is you. Our church used to host a volleyball league. Serious players. Referees. And every summer at the church retreat, somebody would say, let's play. Everybody in. Nobody worrying about the rules. It turned into a family thing. And then one of the league players would spike the ball into a sixty-five-year-old grandmother's face, and when we said, whoa, what are you doing, the answer was, I'm not dumbing down this game. That sand pit is exactly what happens on worship teams. The moment your skill stops serving the room and starts performing at it, you have switched games. The room came to sing together in the sand. You are spiking at grandma. Peter's instruction in 1 Peter 5:5 is stranger and better than be humble. He says clothe yourselves with humility. The Greek word is egkomboomai, to tie something on, the way a servant tied on an apron before kneeling to work. Peter watched Jesus do exactly that with a towel, the night he washed feet. So this is not humility as a feeling. It is a garment you put on, on purpose, before you pick up the instrument. You tie it on at the console. You tie it on at the center mic. And notice who Peter says it is for. Subject yourselves to one another. The gifted to the ungifted. The seasoned to the new. The platform to the booth. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Resists is a military word. It means God sets himself in array against. So the most dangerous place a gifted musician can stand is at the top of their own game, opposed by the God they are singing about. The grace flows somewhere else. It flows downhill, to the player who simplified the part so the new bassist could lock in. To the vocalist who came off the melody so the room could carry it. A question to sit with today: is my skill making it easier for the room to sing, or harder. Read the written version and get extra notes at ryanloche.substack.com. Mentioned in this episode: If you've enjoyed this devotional, would you please leave a rating and a review? You can keep up with everything at ryanloche.substack.com

Exceedingly Above What You Asked For | Before the Doors Open

You have been praying for a small thing this week. You have been praying for the volunteer to show up. You have been praying for the in-ear mix to behave. You have been praying for the senior pastor to text back. You have been praying for the bass player who has been out sick to be ready. You have been praying for one specific person you know is going to be in the room today, to actually hear something. Small prayers. Honest prayers. The prayers of someone who has been doing this long enough to stop praying for the world to change and started praying for the next thing in front of you to work. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be the glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Paul is not saying your prayers were too small. He is saying the God you are praying to is not bounded by the size of what you asked for. The volunteer might not show up. But the man who walked in tired and uncertain might encounter the Lord he has not heard from in months. The in-ear mix might still be hot. But the bridge of the second song might land for someone whose grief you do not know about. The pastor might not text back this week. But the day might be richer than you would have known to ask for. The benediction is doing your imagination a favor. May the one who is able do exceedingly abundantly above what you have been asking for this week. May he expand your small prayer into something you did not have the imagination to pray for. May the power that works in you, quietly, all week, be the power that meets the room today. And may the glory of it not need to be yours. Go. The room is waiting. But more importantly, Jesus is already in it. I will see you tomorrow. Mentioned in this episode: If you've enjoyed this devotional, would you please leave a rating and a review? You can keep up with everything at ryanloche.substack.com

Stop Plugging Positions | What the Team Cannot See E2

Stop plugging positions. I want to say that to you early, before we even get to the text, because I spent years doing it. The decline button is telling you something the schedule cannot. You know the pattern. You build the Planning Center matrix for the month. You send the requests. And there is one name that keeps coming back red. A decline, then another decline, then a blockout that covers four Sundays. And somewhere in you, a clock starts. I need to make a confession in this episode, because this wound is one I have been on the wrong side of. I had a season in ministry where I did not care about my volunteers as people. I cared about whether there were five of them. The pressure of that mandate rolled downhill, off of me and onto them. So when somebody declined, I did not wonder about them. I wondered about the slot. There is a tension in Galatians 6 that most of us read right past. Verse 2 says bear one another's burdens. Verse 5 says each man will bear his own burden. Same English word, two different Greek words. The first is bare, a crushing weight, the load that breaks a back. The second is phortion, a soldier's pack, the load a person is meant to carry themselves. A roster cannot tell the difference. Planning Center cannot tell you whether that decline is a phortion, a season of ordinary busyness, or a bare, a marriage coming apart, a diagnosis, a faith that is quietly bleeding out. Only a relationship can tell you that. The practice that replaced my old one: when the declines stack up now, I do not text the position. I text the person. Hey, what's up. Noticed you've been blocked out, just checking in on you. No ask attached. The empty slot on your roster might be the most honest worship question your team asks you this month. Not, who can I get. But, what is this person carrying. Read the written version and get extra notes at ryanloche.substack.com. Mentioned in this episode: If you've enjoyed this devotional, would you please leave a rating and a review? You can keep up with everything at ryanloche.substack.com

Sometimes I Am People | What the Team Cannot See E1

Your team conflict is in the Bible. Not as a footnote. Not as a case study in somebody's leadership book. It is in there as the reason half the letters got written. Every new member of The Church Collective answers a few questions when they join. What are you carrying. What is hardest about this work. Almost six hundred worship leaders have answered those questions now, and one answer has stayed with me longer than any other. Someone wrote that people are the hardest part of ministry. People let you down. People break your heart. People can have messed up priorities. And then they finished the thought with the truest sentence in the whole pile. Sometimes I am people. Welcome to a new season. Last spring we walked through What the Room Cannot See, ten episodes about the wound inside you. This season is about a different set of wounds. The ones between you and the people in the room. The volunteer who keeps declining. The musician who is better than you and knows it. The person at the console who finds out everything last. The setlist argument that will not die. When I say team, I mean the whole team. The person mixing front of house is leading worship. The person at the lighting board, the person clicking through ProPresenter, the person behind the camera. If you shape what the room hears or sees or attends to, this season is addressed to you. Anchored in Philippians 2:1-5, where Paul hands a team he loves the word his culture used as an insult, tapeinophrosyne, lowliness of mind, and calls it their survival skill. Each counting others better than himself. Not because the others are more talented. Because that is the shape of the mind of Christ. A question to sit with today: where in this team am I the people. Read the written version and get extra notes at ryanloche.substack.com. Mentioned in this episode: If you've enjoyed this devotional, would you please leave a rating and a review? You can keep up with everything at ryanloche.substack.com

Caesar's Household Is Closer Than You Think | Phil 4:21-23

The last three verses of Philippians 4 are greetings. Paul names people who are with him in prison. Paul names people who send their hellos. Paul ends with grace. Most people skip these verses. I do not want you to skip them. Because there is one line in the closing greetings of this chapter that I think every worship leader needs to hear before this season ends. All the saints greet you, especially those who are of Caesar's household. Caesar's household. The imperial palace. The seat of the empire that has crucified Jesus and arrested Paul and is currently keeping Paul in chains. The place where the most powerful man in the world lives and the most powerful soldiers serve. There are saints there. Christians. In the palace. Sending greetings to the church in Philippi from inside the imperial household. The room you cannot imagine the Spirit reaching is the room where saints already are. For the worship team, this last passage does two things. It expands your imagination about where the Spirit is at work. The seat in the back of your church you have written off. The colleague at the other church who you assumed was not interested. The bandmate who has been quietly questioning everything. The senior pastor you cannot read. You do not know whose household is being secretly populated by people the gospel has reached. And it ends the chapter where Paul wants it to end. Not at instruction. At grace. This is the last episode of Philippians 4. Read the written version and get extra notes at ryanloche.substack.com. Mentioned in this episode: If you've enjoyed this devotional, would you please leave a rating and a review? You can keep up with everything at ryanloche.substack.com