We’re coming into my favorite time of the year—youth camp season. This year I have the honor of being in charge of the music at both Olla youth camps. Most of the pencil and paper work is done: the songs are chosen, singers picked, lead sheets written. The last couple of days, tho, I’ve been spending a lot of time just thinking. Over and over a passage out of Isaiah keeps coming to mind. ”…my glory will I not give to another…”
Many of us who have been blessed with a “platform” ministry, especially music, seem to face a problem—we like attention. Yes, we love leading a congregation into worship. Yes, we love music for music sake. But, yes, we love attention.
On one level this is ok. It drives us to become better musicians, better singers, better dramatists. We get in trouble, tho, when attention goes from being a perk to being the whole reason we do what we do, when a God thing becomes a Me thing. And we can get in a lot of trouble when we start desiring the glory that is God’s alone. We can start developing that most insidious of personality traits: pride
I’m a big fan of sci fi/fantasy fiction (yup, I’m a dork, but I think people pick that up pretty quickly), and a few days ago I was reading a work by L.E. Modessitt and came across the following quote: ”If you do good because you expect to be rewarded, it is greed.” That thought has set off some soul-searching the last few days. How much of what I do is because I want the approval of people, because I want to be thought well of, because I want people to hear the music and think, “Man, he is good!” How much of my motivation really comes from the desire to minister. How much comes from the desire to follow the path of Jesus and take on the mantle of the servant?
So I invite everybody who will be involved in music ministry for youth camps this summer, especially you guys from LA ALJC, to take some time to think about why you’re doing what you’re doing. If you find you need to make some adjustments, there’s plenty of time make them. The impact the upcoming services will have on the lives of the kids at camp is worth any effort you have to make.
