good question
All questions are good if they seek an honest answer and you are right to ask and find out.
At my church, many on the team call me Pastor-Saxman. I need to preach for just a minute.
The Church is not a high society club for insiders. It is a place for Truth Seekers to feel welcome. If you go to a church that does not welcome un-believers in, it might not be a Christian Church at all.
God cares so much about the unsaved he spread his arms out and died for them, and us too since none of us were born into grace; we choose God's free gift, leaving the judgment we were born into and chose God's forgiveness.
Now, as I understand the difference between my responsibility to my brothers in Christ, and individuals that have not made a decision to follow Jesus; We are commanded to Love the non-believer. We are to Love the Lost in this World; Period. We are also told to hold each other up and be accountable to one another in the Church. We are even told to make Judgment calls - i.e. Judge one another in the Church. We have rules to follow regarding protocol in these matters and direction as to how to handle fallen Church members and falling members.
Don't see to much preaching on this stuff these days, but it's all in the book.
It is not politically correct, but God works outside of our ideas and collective decisions since he is God. He can. He is bigger than our system of understanding or world views since he made this stuff; like a watch maker and a watch. He can no sooner reduce Himself to the size or level of His creation than the watch maker can crawl into or become the lesser, simple, mechanical creation he created. ...but I digress.
C.S. Lewis addressed this issue years ago when he asked a simple question. How can you expect a non-believer to live like something he is not? The reason the Bible calls the un-saved lost is because they are. They are not bad, they are lost and that is bad.
Being lost is not the issue. Dieing lost is a tragedy. We all started lost. Thank God many in this thread are no longer lost to God and His goodness.
Helping the lost find Jesus is the reason you and I are still breathing.
None of this makes any sense away from that fact.
You can't expect Tenorsaxer to understand what makes this music different from music that is not worship. You can't expect him to know stuff he has not had explained to him. You can't expect him to act like a Christian until he makes that decision. And, you can't rebuke him for the asking.
As I stated above, we are to love the non-believer and we are to be politically incorrect and hate the sin, but we are to hold our brothers by a higher standard because they know the truth.
The first 2 responses make me sad. SaxRookie and Gary should never have responded so crass. Since I am lead to believe you are Christians, I say to you both to chill and love lost people out of this discussion thread and into the Church body. As your brother, I don't think either of you can feel good about those posts since there is NO love there.
To Tenorsaxer,
I am sorry you got that kind of response. I think the purpose of Worship Music would leave you feeling pretty unrewarded with your involvement since none of it is really about the music but about Worshiping God. Any good Worship Leader would trade your talents for bringing the Church closer to God and without a relationship to God, it would not make much sense.
I think there are better places for you to explore making music for the meantime, and would hope that you might consider the message of the Gospel on a personal level first.
The message of Christmas is all about God going way out of His way to make a way for us to know Him. He came as a baby because He did not want to scare us. He lived around us to show us how He would want us to live and he died so we would not have to go to Hell. He rose again from the dead to show his power over death, so we don't have to fear it, to give us real hope for the future and so we could have free admission into Heaven to live with Him after all this stuff is said and done.
That is the foundation of what we do and why we Worship Him in lots of ways including music in Church. It is also why a non-believer might feel frustrated since the Worship is including music but not all about the music.
Thanks for asking.
My prayer is that you find the work you need and the space in your heart to explore God's truth and plan for your life.
Thanks, I'm done now.
Merry Christmas and much Blessing to each as they live and serve.
Pastor-SAXMAN
www.gregvail.com