Archive for November, 2011
Union and Communion with Christ
Communion with the living God is at the heart of all worship; and where God is present with his people is a sanctuary.
~Allen Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory
Union with Christ: Union with Christ is a phrased used to summarize several different relationships between believers and Christ, through which Christians receive every benefit of salvation. These relationships include the fact that we are in Christ, Christ is in us, we are like Christ, and we are with Christ.
~Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
Roadblocks in my leadership – Part 2
Continuing on from yesterday’s blog post…
Another situation where I seem to have issues with pride and cynicism is when I’m with other Koreans. I remember over the summer when my good friend Jay and his wife stayed with us. We were both attending a conference I was hosting with some friends in New Hope, MN.
I would safely say that we’re pretty comfortable with one another because we’re both worship leaders, we’re both Koreans, and we both enjoy creating resources for worship teams.
The problem came when we were interacting with one another. We were kind of cutting each other down and making fun of each other. At the time I passed it off as a Korean “thing.”
But I was humbled when a good friend of mine mentioned to Jay’s wife, Joy, that it made him feel a little uncomfortable. This is one of those moments where it caused me to think about my culture and who I am for a couple of weeks.
I realized that, especially in the multicultural church, just because someone is behaving in a way that’s resonates with their culture it doesn’t mean it resonates with Scripture.
Ephesians 4:11-13 says:
11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
These days I am much more aware of my role and responsibility as a worship leader, shepherd, and teacher for my team. I want to be in obedience to the things of the Lord and be a good example to my team.
So, I’ve been much more aware of my CULTURAL way of relating and making jokes. And I hope to remain accountable to that with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
Questions of you
Take a look at yesterday’s blog post at Roadblocks in my leadership – Part 1.
What are some things from the list of “roadblocks to charisma” that you need to be accountable for? What are some things that you’ve deemed to be okay because it’s cultural even though it doesn’t line up with Scripture?
Blog post by Peter Kihyun Park
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
Roadblocks in my leadership – Part 1
I just started rereading a leadership book by John C. Maxwell and it was a little harder to read this time as I took some time to really evaluate myself. Here are two things that I came across that really caught my attention.
Leaders who think about others and their concerns before thinking of themselves exhibit charisma.
Roadblocks to charisma by John C. Maxwell:
1. Pride – Nobody want to follow a leader who thinks he is better than everyone else.
2. Insecurity – If you are uncomfortable with who you are, others will be too.
3. Moodiness – If people never know what to expect from you, they stop expecting anything.
4. Perfectionism – People respect the desire for excellence, but dread totally unrealistic expectations.
5. Cynicism – People don’t want to be rained on by someone who sees a cloud around every silver lining.
Even though John C. Maxwell uses the word charisma in his book, it really seems like what he’s talking about is being a servant. And it seems I need help with two of them: pride and cynicism.
My leadership on the worship team
When I came to Aldrich Presbyterian Church my focus quickly shifted from music, which is strange because I’m the worship director there, to team development. I was and still am working on the spiritual maturity of the team so we’ve been digging into the Word a lot and focusing on prayer.
But it’s so easy for me, especially because of my Korean background, to see everything as an issue or problem. You see, in the Korean culture it’s not uncommon to praise publicly and criticize harshly in private.
There hasn’t been much that I’ve let worship team members get away with whether it’s their interaction with one another or with myself. So, I’ve had a lot of talks with individuals this past year and I probably will continue to have them.
With that in mind I do filter my concerns with my pastor and with other multicultural worship leaders. I really try to discern if I’m just complaining about something or if something is a real concern.
I also try to ask worship leaders who represent certain ethnicities/cultures whether cultural influences are coming into play. Why? Because every culture has a gift to offer the Body of Christ, but every culture brings baggage along with those gifts.
These are areas that need to be brought to the forefront and confessed such as the example of the Korean culture I mentioned earlier.
To be continued…
Blog post by Peter Kihyun Park
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.