This post by Mandy Smith

When I first started in ministry, I wrote to a friend, “Most of the time, I either feel so bad about my own abilities that I forget God or I feel so good about my own abilities that I forget God.”  Either way, God gets forgotten.  And by someone claiming to be working for Him!

The practical reality of curating worship is that it takes a lot of human effort:  dreaming up metaphors, writing prayers, choosing music, setting moods.  So it’s easy to think that it’s all up to me and that if I get one thing wrong, people will be unable to worship and God will be unable to work.  On the other hand, in my more spiritual moments, I’d acknowledge that it’s God’s work and that he draws people to him, regardless of—or even in spite of—what I do.  So if it’s not about anything that I  do, why bother doing anything?  It’s a tricky balance to find.

And no matter how much I’ve tried to find the balance by thinking about it, it’s a simple action that is teaching me how to work alongside God.  One week I decided to close a service with an a cappella singing of the Doxology.  And now a service isn’t complete without it.  I’ve made it so that the campus minister and the preaching pastor and the spiritual disciplines minister—or whoever has done the closing prayer—leads it, although none of us would claim to have any musical talent or official song-leading experience.

This little doxology has become a metaphor for all of ministry.  Because all you have to do is pick a note and sing it, regardless of your own fears of whether it’s a good note. And so far, the congregation has never yet left me hanging.  I start with “Praise” and when it’s time for “ . . . God from whom all blessings flow” there’s a swell of 100 voices.  It’s undoubtedly a moving experience of God’s people worshipping him as one.  And it didn’t take a fancy video or big band or expensive art materials or even much talent on my part.  All it took was one little (sometimes shaky) voice.

As I sing, I know I have a goofy grin as all the voices wash over me, not only because they sound so beautiful, but because it’s my weekly reminder that we’re doing ministry together, that God can take my feeble squeak and create a heavenly choir.  Which filters down to whatever I’ve tried to do for him that week:  He can take one tired conversation and create a deep relationship, he can take one communion meditation that never seems to come together and create encouragement in the heart of a listener.  My work never seems fresh or creative or finished enough but God is able to make it enough.  He is Enough. As leaders, if we have the courage to sing the first note, God himself will join in the chorus.

Here are the lyrics to try your own Doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him, all creatures here below,
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host.
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Amen.

For a few interesting versions, listen to how these artists do it: Coram Deo Church, Cynthia Clawson and Eric Gilbert. For fun: Check out Michael Langan’s quirky film called Doxology.

© Mandy Smith
Image © Michel Tronchetti / CC BY-NC 3.0

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Originally from Australia, Mandy Smith is an artist and author. She serves as associate pastor at University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio and is the creator of The Collect, a citywide trash-to-art project. Mandy lives with her professor husband and two children in a little house where the teapot is always warm. Mandy’s latest book, Making a Mess and Meeting God: Unruly Ideas and Everyday Experiments for Worship is available for purchase through Standard Publishing.