My Calling to Worship Ministry Personal Testimony of Kara Guggenmos: July 2011

Transcription

1 My Calling to Worship Ministry Personal Testimony of Kara Guggenmos: July 2011 From the moment I breathed my first breath, the Church, God s beautiful Body, has played a VITAL role in my life. I was born in January of 1973 in Iowa to Larry and Maren Lindstrom, 2 very godly people from an ancestral heritage of Christians on both sides that spans many generations. Ancestral lineage and godliness is a heritage I will forever be grateful for. My maternal grandfather, Rawlin Johnson, was probably the most influential person in my life with Christ, other than my parents. My grandfather was a pastor in the Swedish Baptist churches of Iowa and South Dakota over the years that I was privileged to have him on this earth. He WAS Jesus to me. He embodied everything that I was taught in Sunday School and through AWANA and at home about what it looked like to be a follower of Jesus. I remember his passionate biblical preaching and his genuine love for people, which my mother also had. He also loved to sing. He was SO gentle and loving with people and ALWAYS pointed them to Jesus. I remember many times when he would gather all of us grandchildren around him, share a scripture passage and then expound on it from his heart toward all of us and His deep desire that we give our lives for the one who gave his life for us. My parents were committed to the church and to raising us in it. My dad has always been a leader in the church and my mom has been active in music and women s ministries. Whenever the church doors were open, we were there. Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, at Missions conferences, at weddings, funerals, potlucks, etc. The church wasn t just something we did every now and again, church was INTEGRAL to my family and our walk with the Lord. I honestly don t ever remember a day that I dreaded going to church. I was very blessed to be in a healthy, God-fearing, Bible-preaching church for my entire growing up years. I LOVED the church. Central Baptist Church in Sioux City, Iowa was that church. Mark Bubeck was my Pastor for most of those years and we heard DEEP preaching each week we attended. I remember, even as a middle schooler, entering into those sermons with my heart and soul. Sometimes the language was much deeper than my age, but the Lord used that to give me a desire to learn and grow. God gave me a love for his Word and a passion to continue to learn more of His heart. When I was growing up, there was no such thing as a worship Pastor. We simply had one of the Pastor s pick some hymns and then we all sang out of the hymnals together. I grew up singing hymns. They were definitely a foundational part of my growing up in Christ. I think I had most of them memorized by the time I left for college. Music was always a key part of my life with Christ too. I remember as a 2 nd grader getting to start to take piano lessons, and then singing the part of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in our little Christmas pageant, and just loving expressing myself in that way. I was more of a pianist then I was a singer. I LOVED to sing, but I had a very limited vocal range and could never fully express my love for the Lord through song without my voice cracking horribly when I was singing solos in church. It was truly embarrassing. There I would be, pouring my heart out in song, and my voice would give way. I longed to sing, but never thought I would be able to.

2 My high school youth pastor gave me opportunities to lead worship for youth group. My church also let me play piano for the Sunday evening services when I was in high school. I treasure this invaluable gift they gave me, that helped me see there was a place for me in the church and began me down a path I didn t even know I was travelling down. To this day I have a passion for young people to fall in love with the church and to see their gifts as valuable for the entire Body of Christ. Music always had the capacity to reach me at such a deep level. I remember 3 instances in my church that ministered to me greatly. Hearing the MOODY chorale sing at my church and the beauty of their music and testimonies, hearing a gal who didn t have great pitch sing AS IF I WERE THE ONLY ONE TO LOVE and hearing a partially retarded man in our congregation stand up and sing from the top of his lungs a praise song to our God. Early on I think the Lord gave me a deep love for worship in his church and that it didn t always have to look, or sound, the way we all thought it should. When I was in 8 th grade, we took my brother to some school in Chicago called MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE and this was the first time I felt like I heard a voice from the Lord speaking deeply to my heart. It was obviously the Holy Spirit speaking. When we stepped onto the MOODY campus I clearly heard the Spirit of the Lord tell me that that was where I was to go to college. I had no idea what I would major in at that time, but I told the Lord that if he wanted me to go there, then that is where I would go. And I did. In the fall of 1991 I headed to Moody Bible Institute and at the same time my home church hired their first Worship Pastor. I was headed to MOODY as a Bible major, which I quickly turned into a Sacred Music/Voice emphasis major, but I was not headed there to become a worship leader in a church. I didn t think such a thing was possible for me at the time. You see, my church back home had just hired their first Worship Pastor and they very strongly indicated they were not looking for a woman, so I honestly didn t think something like that was even on the radar screen for me. Grievously, within a few years of hiring the worship pastor, my home church began to have worship wars like many other places around America. Eventually, they split into 2 different services, the typical early, traditional service and then second more upbeat, contemporary service. I saw my thriving church, that was once a beacon in our community, begin to be so focused on this issue and alienating the older folks, that it brought our church down from 800 attenders to even up until 2 years ago, only about attenders. My heart still grieves over all the issues that led up to this, but the selfishness I began to observe from people at the church that once had tutored me broke my heart. The focus had become on the wrong thing. To this day, they are still trying to rebuild, about 15 years later. MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE was an invaluable place for me in my walk with Christ and growing me up even deeper in the faith. I graduated with a double major in Bible and in Sacred Music/Vocal emphasis. Even during my times at MOODY I see how the Lord was giving me opportunities that I never sought out. I was able to lead president s chapel a couple of times, which was a prestigious thing, and I was able to do my internship at the prestigious MOODY church under Erwin Lutzer and Gerald Edmonds. I was surrounded with Godly, world class leaders pouring into me. One of the major things the Lord did in me at MOODY was give me a voice, literally. My voice teacher at MOODY, Dr. Terry Strandt, told me at my first lesson that I had so many vocal problems he didn t know where to start. He said that not to

3 discourage me, but to encourage me because he could really hear my musicality and my heart and desire to sing, and he believed in me. More than that, he believed in what God could do in and through me. He told me that if I practiced 2 hours a day, every day, that he believed the Lord would help me find my voice. I took him at his word and I spent 2 hours a day, every day, in that practice room for almost 3 years. I had many days where I just cried and cried because I SO longed for my voice to be set free so that I could fully express my love for the Lord in song. I ll never forget in the middle of my third year, something shifted in my voice. I remember the day that I was practicing something that used to be really difficult for me and suddenly it was GONE. Literally GONE. I remember telling the Lord that I would always use my voice for HIS glory because it was HIS voice. HE had given it to me. He didn t have to, but he chose to come to my aid and since then I have had a voice SET FREE to unleash my heart in song. I still had no idea what He was going to use my voice for, but I was thrilled to begin to use it for Him. These are important things for you to know, because I will NEVER take my voice or musical gifts for granted. I know that I once did not have one and now I do. I will always remember that my voice is the Lord s. He gave it to me and He can take it away as well. I feel very strongly that I am to be a good steward of what He alone has given me. Whether I am singing Classical music and Opera for His glory, or using my voice in the church, He constantly reminds me that this is HIS instrument to be used for Him alone. There are many times that I struggle with pride, as many people who are in performance fields do. During these times, my voice will often have significant struggles and it seems to me a constant reminder from the Lord to always give HIM the glory and make HIM the point, NOT my voice. I feel my own struggles with my voice have also given me compassion and patience for those people who are musically IN PROCESS. I have been there. I have hurt and labored to see a result. And I have learned to trust the Lord in the process. I feel this is a great asset to my ministry at Calvary in helping to come alongside people and in equipping them for ministry. It also keeps my eyes off of only those who seem to HAVE WHAT IT TAKES right from the get go. I constantly remember that I, for a long time, did not HAVE WHAT IT TAKES vocally, but had a heart ready and receptive to the Lord s working in my life. This is more of my standard in using people in the worship ministry then complete and total outward excellence. When I graduated in the Spring of 1996, I had already been married 2 years to the love of my life, Neil Guggenmos, and I was so confused. I didn t understand why God had given me a deep love for the church, why he had given me a voice to sing for him, if I couldn t use it in the church. I honestly thought I would be teaching voice and piano lessons out of my home for the rest of my life. I will never forget one of my mentors telling me right before I graduated these words: Kara, I have rarely seen a woman come through the doors of Moody here with your giftedness and heart for the Lord. Please just know that if God is calling you to serve the church, HE will make a way for it to happen. You will not have to beat the doors down of a church. HE will open the paths and doors for you. Just keep serving the church wherever you are.

4 Those words changed my life. I did trust the Lord that day that if he wanted me to use these gifts He had given me for his glory in the church, that HE would have to do it. Neil and I moved out to Longmont, Colorado in June of 1996 and started attending Rocky Mountain Christian Church, simply because God led us there. We would not have chosen it on our own, but it was clear God was directing us there for a time. After 3-4 years of volunteering to help out with the music, choir or anything for that matter, they hired me part time as the vocal director to work with praise teams and choir. I couldn t believe I got hired as a woman in the church. Here God was fulfilling his promise to me. God taught me SO much during my time there and I honestly thought this was the end to my story of helping with worship in the church. However, in 2001 God led us away from Rocky Mountain and to Calvary. That was based solely on my husband s godly wisdom to worship elsewhere. I honestly didn t want to leave because I loved my job and didn t believe I would find another one in the church. But I knew that I needed to honor my husband and follow his leading. So in July of 2001 we started attending Calvary. I started plugging in just singing in the choir/praise team, etc. Then in January of 2003, Pastor Tom called me into his office one day and told me that Scott would be leaving and was wondering if I would fill in for a while until they were able to find someone to replace him. It was obvious they seemed to be looking for a man, but I remember tearing up in his office and thanking him for the opportunity and being SO grateful to the Lord, and at the same time secretly hoping that I would be able to do the job. I never told Tom that, I just went about my work and was thrilled to do so. How could this be? A conservative church that I LOVED was willing to hire me, a woman, to lead worship for a while. I wasn t sure how I felt about it either biblically, but as I talked to Tom about it and realized I was under the leadership of the elder board, I felt a freedom to function in that role. A freedom that continues to this day. About 6 months later Tom let me know that they thought I was the one for the job, but they were going to give it another year to see. I was SO thrilled and now it has been over 8 years that I have had the privilege to be on staff at Calvary and to serve this amazing Body. There have been many ups and downs. More ups than downs. But there have been enough downs and discouragements that at times I have desperately wanted to throw in the towel, just because it hurt too much. However, it is ALWAYS during those times that God has renewed my calling to the Church, to equipping the saints, for building the Body to be more like Jesus Christ. I hope now, knowing a bit of my story, that you understand what an honor and a privilege I consider it to be your Worship Director. Thank you for letting me serve you, the Church and our Lord in this way.

5 The Worship Ministry of Calvary Church (What guides us as we plan worship at Calvary Church?) (revised July 2011) (this includes: KOK, Worship Choir, Praise Bands, Praise Teams, Sunday morning worship planning, Sound/Lights/AV, Bell choir, orchestra, Drama ministry, Artists ministry) Vision: Purpose: Broken People, Being Made New in Jesus, Overflowing with gratitude and poured out for others To the glory of God, all we do is to Honor the Father, in the cause of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The above vision defines and directs the Worship Ministry at Calvary Church. Everything that is done in the Worship Ministry is designed, prayerfully and in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to propel every individual of Calvary Church closer to being the kind of disciple that our vision statement cites. Worship at Calvary also takes seriously the WITNESS of worship: That if we lift HIM up, all men will be drawn to HIM Who we are at Calvary: (our niche ) (things I keep in mind when I am planning worship) 1. Multi-generational a. We are not a church that seeks to target a certain age group in worship i. Calvary s history is now 56 years and because of that we have a vast heritage and span every age group. That is who we are and that is who we seek to minister to. ii. I am committed to using the people God brings to this church, of all ages. 2. Blended worship style a. using many forms and styles to worship our Lord i. Psalm 150 ii. Romans 12 iii. 1 Cor. 12 iv. Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs v. Our God is a CREATIVE God and his people are all DISTINCT and NECESSARY. We shouldn t all look the same. God is not bland. vi. Young people think I don t do young enough music vii. Older people don t think I do enough hymns viii. We are a unique body of Christ and seek to be what HE wants us to be and not what the church down the street is. ix. We have to continue to learn to lay ourselves down for one another

6 1. This, I think, will set us apart as a people who deeply love one another. 3. Congregational participation a. worship is not a spectator sport or entertainment, but corporately meant to be participated in together i. We are commanded to sing ii. It is not a show, where people watch worship. If it turns into that then we all just need to go home. iii. The sound levels are also considered. They are not to be ROCK CONCERT level. They are aimed at a level that is in the middle. 1. I often have 2 cards the same day that say Too little drums or Too much drums 2. We will not turn it up just to be relevant or because other churches are doing it that way. 3. People s ears say they hurt. a. Have researched this and there it truth to it b. We are trying to be sensitive to this iv. Choosing music involves things that are SINGABLE. 1. I know some of this is hard for older folks as some of the newer music is more syncopated, etc, but all of that is considered. Many times I change the keys of the songs to fit a better vocal range. 4. Bible/Truth based: a. everything chosen and done is filtered through the grid of truth, the Word of God: i.e. Is what we are singing true? ; this is not always foolproof, but we definitely strive for this to be the case i. If I am in error, I hope someone will point it out to me, and there have been times when people have questioned my choices and I have chosen not to sing those things. 1. ABOVE ALL 5. Worship with all our Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength a. Worshipping in SPIRIT and in TRUTH ( a balance) b. Isaiah i. These people worship me with their lips, but their hearts are FAR from me 1. I NEVER want that to be said of us at Calvary. Our Hearts, Minds and Words we sing are hopefully becoming more and more congruent. 2. Man looks on outward appearance but the LORD looks at the heart. 6. Purposeful use and scheduling of lots of different worship leaders (playing, singing, drama, artists, etc.) a. we believe in the whole body being used, not just certain people or ages.

7 b. Everyone is given a gift for the COMMON GOOD of the Body (1 Cor. 12) and when people are not using their gifts the WHOLE BODY misses out. i. When they ARE using their gifts, we ALL benefit 7. Not ENTERTAINMENT oriented a. We strive to do everything with excellence, but this definition for us does not mean only using the MOST talented musicians, and people with the most OUTWARD gifts. i. Often we are at our best when others are there to help strengthen us (choir, praise teams, etc), not when we can solely rely on our own strengths. b. We remember 1 Samuel 16:7 in this. i. Man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart. ii. Because of this we do not typically audition for things or exclude based on lack of talent, though there have been a few people we have directed to other areas of ministry. c. I seek wisdom from the Holy Spirit and the pastoral staff on people that we use in the worship ministry. 8. Children and youth are valued in our corporate worship settings (youth leading, KOK, etc.) 9. Always seeking the Lord and the Spirit s direction for the guidance of this key ministry of the church. a. The Lord knows better than I what our church and this ministry needs i. Never would have had an orchestra ii. Never would have had signing iii. Never would have had a Bluegrass band. b. If I did my style every week, just because that is what I am best at, we would all lose out. 10. I work with Tom to seek to complement the message for that morning a. I usually have the passage a few weeks ahead of time b. Tom and I usually briefly discuss his thoughts and where he might be headed with the sermon c. I then read the passage and pray and let the Word speak to my heart and ask the Holy Spirit to bring songs, thoughts, ideas to mind regarding the services. d. I do NOT follow a formula (i.e. 2 hymns, 2 psalms, 2 spiritual songs) but I do keep all the genres in mind when planning e. Tom and I don t get lots of strategic time together to plan, but we really rely on prayer and the Holy Spirit to bring it together and we are always amazed how He does more than we could ask or imagine. 11. Ever mindful of our culture a. Meaning, I am all too aware of church splits over this very sensitive issue.

8 b. I am aware that we are a consumer society and mainly selfish when it comes to participation in worship on Sunday mornings. c. I have defended not splitting our congregation over styles because of the horrific aftermath I have seen 2 very close churches to me go through. d. I am also constantly aware of needing to reach out to the next generation, while continue to use those and minister to those at Calvary who are there currently. 12. Does this point to Jesus? a. Ultimately I am continually asking if the things we are doing show people JESUS and do not point to US Struggles I have as a worship leader/ways to pray for me Knowing that most of the time at least one half of the congregation is not totally pleased with what you plan. o I am such a people pleaser by nature. I am always trying to make sure everyone is OK. It has been a Holy and sometimes Cruel Crucible to be on of being a Worship Director, being in charge of the one area of the church that seems to cause the most conflict and dissatisfaction o This has led to deeper faith and dependence on my Heavenly Father to do the work and to trust that HE is pleased with my work for Him, and not to seek it from men. Balancing my work and being a full time mother o This is always a delicate balance and has required that I work a lot of ODD hours. The staff has been so gracious to be flexible with my work schedule. o The weight of Spiritual Warfare is real and very relevant in my family. We are always feeling the battle. Pray for strength for Neil and I to continue to follow where the Lord leads. Wondering if anyone is really growing closer to the Lord through what I am doing o In those dark days when I have received a lot of negative comments, it is so grievous to my soul. I LONG for people to follow hard after the Lord, and if it seems people are focusing on the external things and not really the HEART of worship and truly entering into a life of worship, I am often discouraged. The Word, The Spirit, my husband and the staff at this church continue to be such a strong source of constant encouragement for me I have to continually be drawn back to the Lord and that HE is in control of people s lives. I just have to

9 continue to do my work, As serving the Lord, and not men. Only HE can change hearts. Daily continue to follow hard after my Lord, and not look at my job as my relationship with my Saviour. o That I will daily feast on The Word and rely on The Spirit and not live in putting confidence in my flesh.