Earlier this week, I walked into the place in which I have grown so accustomed to. Within those four walls, I have found so many things within the course of my last few years of breaking, discovering, healing, and sometimes even breaking again. The aged bricked walls are lined with many memories, many triumphs, and many defeats. They are reminiscent of the years when I was so on fire, yet also of the years I walked away only to return broken and battered. Within that church, I found so much of myself. I turned the key to the door of my office and was met by a mess of chord charts, guitars, cables, mics; all scattered about carelessly, as an unkempt mess of chaos tossed in there by numerous musicians. Suddenly I went into a frenzied hour of organizing, throwing out, putting away, and cleaning up. Once I could see the actual top of my desk, I sat down and took a moment to breathe. So many things overwhelmed me within that forsaken moment; so many things flooded my existence that I hadn’t felt any many years. The life I felt breathed back into my bones was something that my own apathetic tendencies had shoved in to a darkened corner for the past few years of my life.

The frenzy within the chaos reminded me of a couple of years ago, back when I felt far more young and innocent than I do now, far more naive, and far more in love with the church that I had grown up in. I was taken back to the nights when I would come and organize the stage for the music the next day, arranging everything in its place, printing out the chord charts, praying over what was to come, anticipating all that we would experience in the presence of God. I lived and breathed within these walls. It was what I was. It was the thing that I had always so longed to be.

I don’t really feel that drive as much as I would like lately. I have to fight for it. I am stuck in between two different churches, being a part of both, and wearing myself out. I’m sick of the routine, of playing the same four chords day in and day out. Where is our drive? Where is our thirst? Where is the young, unbridled passion that we once possessed? I am so incredibly sick of simply playing church. Of walking in every weekend or every Thursday, setting up our equipment, playing through three to five predictable songs, praying, and then leaving. This is not what I originally thought I was signing up for. Yet, in my busyness and the chaos of my life, somehow I have become alright with the idea of settling for just that.

This must change. I don’t know how, yet. All I know, is that God created two different types of people in this world. The pastors and the artists. Both are called to work within the church. Both are the key to bringing about change, growth, and freshness.

Unless we have three things: the word, worship, and community….nothing will live and breathe as it was created to. I’m involved in far too many things that are focusing on only one or two of these things. And it is for that reason that we are feeling so lifeless and apathetic, constantly striving and doing, doing and striving….yet where is the fruit? 

 

Where is it?