If You Build It...

“The main thing that God asks for is our attention.”—Jim Cymbala

It’s been said that if you attend a conference of a million topics and come away with just that one takeaway that you can apply to your own situation, then it was worth it.

Sometimes, that takeaway can be for a lifetime.

Several years ago, sitting at the back at a packed conference of church worship musicians, leaders, and pastors looking for fresh ideas and that one takeaway that could take their ministries to the next level, a lone voice shook the room. The topic was about platform layout—how to set it up to look pleasing and uncluttered, and especially how to make that layout most effective for helping to lead the congregation in worship based upon the amount of people and equipment that needs to fit on that platform.

There was much buzz in the room. You could almost hear the wheels turning inside the heads of hundreds of participants, dreaming how they could make things work better when they got home. Until with one raised hand, everything changed…

“I have a question: What if you don’t have all these instruments and equipment and people? At my church, our platform has one upright piano. No microphones. Me and maybe a couple other singers.”

The seminar leader could have encouraged the questioner to go recruit more musicians or put in a budget request for this piece of electronics or that one. Instead, with the same heart of Jesus spoken to the woman at the well in John 4, the leader replied:

“Then give it all you’ve got.”

“Believe me, dear woman, the time has come when you won’t worship the Father on a mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in your heart…From here on, worshiping the Father will not be a matter of the right place but with the right heart. For God is a Spirit, and he longs to have sincere worshipers who worship and adore him in the realm of the Spirit and in truth.”—John 4: 21, 24 Passion Translation

Takeaway.

Instruments and equipment and technology can all be helpful and powerful communications tools that help worshipers in a modern society better “connect” to the God of the universe who put those ideas for powerful communications tools into man’s heads in the first place.

But that lone voice that shook the room at that conference many years ago has stayed with me. In a good, re-calibrating, what-really-matters sort of way every single Sunday morning.

That if one Sunday you walked in to church and all of that good stuff was gone, could you still worship? Would you?

If there was no buzz or a pump-it-up vibe, would you be afraid that people would go elsewhere next week?

If you found out that, until further notice, church would held be in some local community hall with uncomfortable folding chairs and nothing but a piano on the platform, could you still worship? Would you?

Even if there was no overhead projection that fed you all the scriptures being read?

Even if the coffee would be instant instead of fresh-brewed?

“If you build it, they will come,” so says the oft-quoted promise to Roy Kinsella (Kevin Costner) in the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams.”

A logical argument for having all the conveniences and gadgets known to modern man. Except, after all these years in trying to prove a point, we’ve gotten that line all wrong. The lone voice that shook an Iowa cornfield was “he,” not “they.”

Which seems to make the line a lot less powerful and motivating. Or maybe, more powerful than ever.

Because whether we are blessed with church services filled with the latest and greatest, or with just very limited resources, as long as the Gospel is being preached and people are seeking to "follow Me," then Jesus’ response to the woman at the well in John 4 and the seminar leader’s response to the worship leader are what matter most—even on the first Sunday of Daylight Savings Time when it would be easier to stay home and recover from one hour of lost sleep...

“If you simply build your lives on My life, I will come...

So give it all you’ve got.”