Beautiful Pearls

I was about to turn six years old. Many of the other girls in my kindergarten class had their ears pierced, so for my birthday I asked if I could get my ears pierced. A few days before my birthday my mom took me to the mall after school and she surprised me by leading us to the beauty shop where you could get your ears pierced. I was ecstatic! I carefully picked out small turquoise colored earrings (my birthstone) and marched proudly to the chair with the store associate. We lined everything up and just before he made the first hole I asked, “does this hurt?” He smiled and replied with a hand gesture to follow him back to the sales desk in the store. Here he pulled out a piece of paper and a stapler. He placed the paper in the stapler and quickly stapled the piece of paper. Looking back on this event I suppose his illustration was to show how quickly it would happen, but for a 5 year old child who was just learning in school NOT to staple herself with the stapler, I ran out of the store screaming.

It was not until I was 22 years old that I finally found myself back in that chair to get my ears pierced for the first time. The first earrings I had were small diamonds, but I could not wait for the day that I could “upgrade” to some of the fun earrings I had seen others wear. As soon as I made this switch I found that I would pull a sweater over my head and catch and pull them out, or my hair would get caught in them. So, the hunt began for the perfect earring - something that looked good with an array of outfits, but was not the bane of my existence.

Then I found pearl earrings. 

The smooth and round features of this earring allowed for a no-catch sweater experience, they never got caught in my hair, and they dressed up and down quite nicely. What I did not know was that these earrings would become much more important to me than I first realized.

In between my third and fourth year in college I became very sick with an undiagnosed illness. I was living with a kind of chronic chest pain that plagued me 24/7 for, what I would find out in the end was, 2 years.

During this time I found myself at a David Crowder concert. In the second verse of his song “Everything Glorious” Crowder sings, “my eyes are small but they have seen/the beauty of enormous things/which leads me to believe/there’s light enough to see.” I stood there during the concert, listening to these words, and my immediate reaction was to grab my chest. I questioned how this pain could be beautiful.

On the drive home I continued to wrestle with this question. It was in the quiet space of my car, driving along a flat and straight road in Saskatchewan that I heard the Lord speak, “Becca, the beautiful thing about your pain is that you will not be the same person you were when this is all said and done. I am doing a good work in your life. I am molding and shaping you, drawing you to myself, and you will be changed by it. That, my dear girl, is an enormously beautiful thing.”

Then the image of a pearl came to mind. When a pearl has a brown spot or damage it has lost value, but there is a process in which you can remove a layer(s) from the surface of the pearl and in doing so restore it free from blemishes and return or even increase its value. I understood then that although the pain in my life was not beautiful, that the process I was going through was as if the layers would be stripped away and it was the end product of that life journey that would be beautiful.

So I wear my pearls daily, not only for convenience, but because they remind me that no matter what I am journeying through GOD MAKES DAMAGED, BROKEN, and UGLY THINGS BEAUTIFUL.

Telling Lies

Lies need to look as much like the truth as possible, without actually being the truth. Otherwise we wouldn’t believe them.

I’ve been learning in the last couple months how easily influenced we can be by media and society. To the point that we have allowed them to feed the small lies that we have told ourselves, or that others have told us.

Lies like: I am not beautiful, I’m not worth it, I don’t measure up, I will never be good enough, etc. These are lies I’ve believed.

But I’m choosing to stand and live on truth instead…and the truth is that those things ARE LIES!

In the garden, right after Adam and Eve choose independence from God and ate the fruit in disobedience, God looked for them. He didn’t come with fire and lightening bolts in a rage, ready to destroy them. Rather, he came walking in the garden in concern and with questions. Of all the questions he could have asked, his was this. “Who told you that you were naked?” I read that and hear a God whose heart broke when man disobeyed because, in listening to the lies of the snake, they abandoned the full and rich life He had made for them.

This song comes from that passage. I wrote it because I believe he is asking us that question also. WHO TOLD YOU…you weren’t beautiful, you weren’t worth it, you weren’t enough, etc? Those are lies. 

Out with the Hymns, In with the New?

I’ve often been told that my position as a worship pastor may be one of the more difficult positions to hold within the church. Thankfully I had a professor in college prepare me in such a way that this type of descriptor for my job comes as no surprise. You see music is and always will be controversial. Everyone has their own opinion on it, and it seems that in regards to music, many speak openly with their opinion. This is not new. It can be traced all throughout the history of the church AND it can be traced in mainstream music as well.

Now before I open what is easily one of the biggest cans of worms in my profession, I’m going to direct my focus a little bit.

I recently had a conversation with a man who suggested that I consider removing hymns from my repertoire of worship songs as I lead. His premise was that with all the new music that is out there, why bother with the stuffy old (sometimes cheesy) songs?

Carefully and thoughtfully I responded to his suggestion.

As long as I lead, I choose not to reject all of the songs that have gone before me simply because they may be dated. Each generation has offered something different and unique. Are there songs that should probably never be sung again? Sure. But are there some gems that have been offered to the church through the many saints the Lord has blessed with the gift of music. Absolutely. I believe the same will be said of some of the music we are putting out today. I think it is healthy, respectful, and appropriate for us to draw from all generations of worship music, keeping in mind the congregation we are leading.

So, how do we make a choice of which pieces fit in each of these categories?

1) Is it biblically sound?

If I am picking a song for worship, I am less concerned with when the song was written and more concerned with how it stacks up against scripture. I believe that as worship leaders, we are given the RESPONSIBILITY of choosing the songs/words that people will sing/say to GOD! Think about that for a second…that is HUGE. In light of that responsibility, do you want to just sing fluffy, thoughtlessly chosen words? I don’t.

2) Will it be a distraction to your people?

I believe that part of our job as worship leaders is to give people an opportunity to enter into the presence of God as they worship through music. Removing distraction is part of that. If you’re rocking out to a bunch of newer worship songs and then throw in an older song arranged the way they did it when it was first written, that might not be a great fit…but it doesn’t mean you should not do the song. Perhaps those words are exactly what you need to fill that space. Be creative; try out a new arrangement (yours or someone else’s…there are many modern takes on the classics).

3) Consider the theology

As I studied hymns (in particular) while I was in college I discovered something interesting. Many of the hymns that are still current were not written by worship pastors but rather by the lead pastors of the church. They recognized the power of a song. If you take a popular tune that people know and place lyrics that teach on it, people will take that home with them. So, many pastors would write songs that held the rich theological teaching from their sermons so that their congregants would have that as an easy reminder of what they had been taught. Think about some of the worship music that is currently trending. Is it giving us biblical and theological truths that we can find our roots in?

Could I go on forever about this topic. Yes. Could I go on tangents here, there, and everywhere from parts I already touched on. Yes. But I’ll end with this.

People will leave church on any given Sunday morning repeating the words they have sung before they’ll go home quoting pieces of the sermon. They are also more likely to follow up Sunday by playing a CD than they are to read a theology book.

As worship leaders, songwriters, and congregants who think carefully about what we are singing, my charge for us is to be diligent in choosing, writing, and singing music that is biblically and theologically sound, and that removes distractions. Let's not put so much emphasis on when and where it came from and dig into the roots of what we are singing. I think if we begin to do this, we may gain a new found appreciation for the many generations in our churches.