treasure

treasure: [verb] to retain carefully; to regard or treat as precious; cherish

guard what has been entrusted to your care (1 Tim 6:20)

My life is littered with the precious things God has entrusted to me. My family, my home, my friends, my Avalon guitar. And one of the things God has entrusted me with is the leading of worship for my church. And I have come to treasure it.

Of course, I know it’s not me, it is God working through me. I know it’s not my ministry it is God’s ministry. And I know that I am only entrusted with it for as long as God deems that it is beneficial to his purposes. But while he entrusts me with it I will look after it, cherish it, guard it, retain it carefully, treat it as precious.

Treasure it.

But this type of treasuring means holding onto it lightly. In fact, it probably only continues to have power whilst I hold onto it with the gentlest of pressure. Clasp it, and I risk suffocating it, risk it becoming ineffectual. Hold onto it too tightly and it will soon start to take on the form on a idol, stealing the glory that God alone is due.

And as a worship leader myself, I need to know that this gift that I treasure is entirely for God’s glory. Any desire to bring glory, or reputation, or adulation onto myself is not treasuring it, it is exploiting it. In fact it is in the complete disregard for my own personal gain that I display the greatest level of treasuring, and that God gets the greatest measure of Glory.

God requires us to treasure what he has entrusted to us. Not seek earthly treasure from it.

And one of the things I am learning is that, because I am involved in something that has such huge potential to bless the church, I need to be so so careful with it. I need to try and be whiter than white as I operate in it. I need to seek to minimise the chance that anything I do could be seen as self-seeking or self-promoting through it. The high profile that comes with it demands a proportionately greater level of thought and care. And I know I probably fail miserably.

Every time I get preoccupied with the number of cd sales I could make, I stop treasuring my gift and start to idolise it. Every time I hope for a higher place on the CCLI chart for one of my songs, I stop treasuring my gift and start to idolise it. Every time I manoeuvre myself into a place to be asked to lead worship at a particular conference, I stop treasuring my gift and start to idolise it. Every time I say ‘no’ to leading worship at an event purely because it isn’t high profile enough, I stop treasuring my gift and start to idolise it.

I recently bought a new car. Well not entirely new, but nearly new. We inherited a little money, and as our old car was on it’s last legs, we decided to buy something that would last us for a long time. Now you need to know something about me. In my twenties, I was your archetypal bachelor. Playing footfall, going to the football, beers, curry, sports car, the works. Then over the last twenty years this has been slowly chipped away at. I am now married, have 2.4 children (well 2 really - it just seems like more) have a respectable job and live in a three bed semi in a tree lined cul-de-sac. And the purchase of this new car complimented this image perfectly.

Yes, I brought a Mondeo.

Can you believe it? But actually it’s quite a nice car. Jeremy Clarkeson thinks so too, apparently. And when we got it, I decided I needed to really look after it. Clean it regularly, clear out all the rubbish which accumulates remarkably quickly from the aforesaid wife and 2.4 children. And so I do. But my wife, with her ‘holier than thou’ Christian face on, says I am idolising it. I try and explain that I am just looking after it, but it won’t change her mind. She tells all our friends I’m in love with a Mondeo. It’s so hurtful.

It seems that even with a boring family car, it’s really easy to mistake treasuring for idolatry. The line is fine.

And think there is so much that we worship leaders do in the name of worship these days that, despite every good motive on our part, could be perceived as idolatry. We only need to look at some of our marketing, our concert tours, our photos on our albums, our press releases, to see this may be happening. And this gives us a huge problem. Because as soon as we are perceived to be self-seeking we will cease to be able to serve our churches properly.

And maybe the bathwater has got so murky in this respect that the baby has every right to shout ‘foul’.

And maybe what we worship leaders need to do is become a little more faceless, a little more local, a little more in the background, a little more in awe of the one who has entrusted this amazing thing to us.