“God, You have taught me from my youth, and I still proclaim Your wonderful works. Even when I am old and gray, God, do not abandon me. Then I will proclaim Your power to another generation, Your strength to all who are to come.”
In just a bit of time, I turn 40.
I'm not one of those guys who has a crippling fear of entering into the middle of life. On the contrary, I'm joyful about entering my 40s. I see this as a milestone, a rite of passage into becoming a seasoned leader wanting to help those growing in worship find their voice. But make no mistake, I have no plans on retiring as a worship leader anytime soon, and yet, there has been a difference in how I lead now that I'm approaching this second half of life. Franciscan priest and author, Richard Rohr, has written about this turn when he mentions, "...it will feel like a loss of faith or loss of self. But it is only the death of the false self, and is often the very birth of the soul." (1). Rohr is making the point that the first half of life, the younger self, has conditioned its identity heavily into becoming a loyal soldier. While this trajectory may work for most in their twenties and thirties, inevitably, there must be a shift in identity entering the second half of life. This shift comes at the cost of the false self; for me, it will look like pursuing faithfulness over significance.
Faithfulness > Significance
In my younger years, I chased after ministry significance in a somewhat healthy manner. I have memories of a high school Seth putting on a Hillsong united c.d. and worshiping along, thinking, 'one day, Lord, this will be me.' Memories of a 20-year-old Seth leading a college-driven ministry while attending said college. And while I was in the room with some of the most talented young musicians and singers the industry would soon see, I found myself humbled, saying, 'One day, Lord, I'll get to do this for the church.' I can even recall a 30-year-old Seth helping coach and train various worship ministries on the east coast and thinking, 'One day, Lord, I'll get to do this on a higher level.' I was on a path of pursuing significance and hungry for it. Maybe you've had some stories like this of your own?
But something is shifting now that I'm approaching my forties. The half-time show of life is nearing an end, and I'm finding that the desire for significance is nothing more than a shadow bereft of the tangible. All silhouette and no substance. It's not that significance is wrong per se; it's just that pursuing it in the way I did in my younger years is inappropriate at best and just plain wrong at worst. Instead, I see faithfulness as my ultimate aim for the next 40-plus years. I believe that it's through the soil of faithfulness that God can cause significance to germinate, but it has to be His planting and not my own. Faithfulness to the call God initially placed in my heart and faithful to the assignments He gives me. Faithfulness to the community of God I'm engaged with and being faithful to the family the Lord has blessed me with. Most importantly, faithfulness to the God who always goes before me and has my back (Isaiah 52:12).
Don't get me wrong, I'm still all about living that life of unfeigned faith. The shift from significance to faithfulness is not about falling into complacency or misguided contentment. No, I'm talking about a more profound stride in this long journey of faithfulness to the Lord, even over pursuing ministry significance. Sometimes the world can articulate better than the church, as is the case of Friedrich Nietzsche when he wrote, "...there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living."(2). The long run of faithfulness is the shift I am talking about. And this shift has helped me think generationally, reshaping my devotional life and even stirring up a fresh passion for discipleship. Heck, even my prayers are sounding less ambitious, and yet, they're still more audacious than ever.
On a side note - another outcome of this shift in focus is that my eyes are opening a lot more in corporate worship. Weird, right? There is a fascinating link about having a vision when worshiping the Lord with the people of God. In my 'first half of life' as a worship leader, I led in a way that made worship most intimate between myself (along with the congregation) and the Lord, so naturally, I would have my eyes closed. But as I'm closer to this 'second half of life' as a worship elder, I've realized that I want to encounter God in the company of believers and see the zōē of God proliferate throughout the service. I want to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, as Psalm 27:13 sings out. A.W. Tozer is quoted as saying, "Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God."(3), so when I, by faith, worship with the people of God, I want my physical eyes to reflect what my internal soul is viewing at that moment - gazing upon the Lord and his saving work.
From loyal soldier to beyond a soldier
Finally, I'd like to return to the metaphor of the loyal soldier entering into the second half of life that Richard Rohr speaks on. For the Japanese soldiers that reentered society after World War II, their community understood that reentering would not be easy and that the loyal soldier would need a different identity within the community. So they devised a ritual where the soldiers were publicly praised and honored for their service. After this was done, an elder in the community would declare in front of all that there was no longer a soldier. Rohr writes what, in essence, is said by the elder: "The war is now over! The community needs you to let go of what has served you and served us well up to now. The community needs you to return as a man, a citizen, and something beyond a soldier."(4). This spoken ritual is what we, aging worship leaders, need to see. A community that loves us enough to bless us into our second half of life and call us higher into something beyond a soldier.
For those reading this who are still in the prime of life, keep pursuing God! Don't get caught up in the fads and fame of worship ministry. Keep your first love your one and only love. Have ambition...but let God exalt you and open up the doors He sees fit for you to walk in. And for those, like me, who are entering into the second half of life, I pray that you let go of the battles you've faced as a loyal soldier and enter into God's great society as a renewed individual. Let go of your attempts to pursue significance on your own terms and enter into the rest of God's faithfulness. After all, "...He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6).
(1) Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Pg. 50. For more information on Richard Rohr, visit https://cac.org/about/our-teachers/richard-rohr/
(2) Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil, translated by Helen Zimmern. Page 188
(3) https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/148764-faith-is-the-gaze-of-a-soul-upon-a-saving
(4) Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Pg. 44. For more information on Richard Rohr, visit https://cac.org/about/our-teachers/richard-rohr/