A couple weeks back I linked to a two hour panel video discussing The Worship Leader as Pastoral Musician. I’ve finally gotten all the way through the video and want to highlight some thoughts from it that stuck out to me. The first one I want to talk about is Worship Pastor as Tour Guide.

This thought comes from Sandra Maria Van Opstal, who after 15 years with InterVarsity currently serves as Executive Pastor of The Grace and Peace Community, a church community associated with the Christian Reform Church on the northwest side of Chicago. She says [around the 25:00 mark in the video]:

The fact that worship leaders are pastors means that we meet people where they are, and we’re responsive to them, but we also lead people to new places where they need to go, and create spaces to introduce people to practices that form them…. It’s like a tour guide. If you come to Chicago and you’re really into sports, I’m going to take you to all the stadiums, and show you all that stuff - I’m not into it, but I’ll take you, because I’m a good tour guide. I’m asking what is on your mind, what is important to you. And then, I’m also gonna take you to places in my city that you don’t even know exist, because they are fundamentally what it means to be in Chicago. You can’t eat deep dish every time you go to Chicago. There is so much other food that exists there. So in the same way we as pastors don’t only meet people where they’re at… we also have to take them somewhere.

Sandra goes on to talk about how this relates to addressing current events and issues, and leading a congregation to lament and open discussion rather than just ignoring the issues.

I also see an application for worship pastors as it relates to music selection and service content. Yes, we need to meet people where they are, to speak in their musical dialect, in the words of Sandra’s metaphor, to show them the places they want to see. But we can’t stop there. We then have to take them to where they need to go in worship and formation.

In my church’s mission statement we talk about coming alongside people as they take their next step toward Jesus. This pastoral “tour guide” activity is placing an arm around their shoulders and helping them head in the right direction as they take that step. What a great picture.