CPL #3: Play Your Instrument

Once you’ve heard God’s unique melody for your new ministry, He wants you to begin playing it on the specific instrument that He has given to you.

We each have a unique instrument that has been given to us by God. This instrument represents the specific passion, personality and life story that God has given to you. To keep going with the illustration: One person’s instrument may be a violin. For another, it may be an electric guitar. Yet another may have been given a piano. (Mine happens to be the spatula & Kate’s is the rubber spatula – so that the precious apprentice won’t hurt herself.) So, not only is God’s melody unique for each person & church, once you begin playing it on your unique instrument, it becomes truly a one-of-a-kind sound.

I’ve found that there are three sub-lessons that go along with this:

1. I found that I am often tempted to take His melody & change the music so that it will become known as MY melody. I did this a couple of years ago. While I do believe that I was hearing the first few notes of a new melody for a new church, I wanted not just to play it on my unique instrument, but to alter the tune so that it would be “mine.” How specifically did I do that? Well, I had had a “community lust” for Charlotte, NC for quite some time (ok, still do). So, I began to look into how I could start a new church there. Over the next few months our family began to visit with people and schools as well as study the demographics there. Thankfully, God saved me from making a big mistake. He didn’t want us to start a new church there at all! Instead, He wanted us to be patient and take our cues from Him alone. Looking back at that now, I see that I was making the same classic mistake of Adam & Eve in the garden. That is, taking something God had created and using it for our own glory (see Gen. 3:6).
2. In playing His tune on our unique instrument, I’ve also found something fascinating. That is, if we play His tune alone, the more we discover the beauty of our own instrument. C.S. Lewis said, “The more we get what we call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let God take over, the more ‘ourselves’ we become.”
3. Finally, we need to keep it simple – play His tune only. Don’t play anything else… keep playing it and playing it. Be content with the tune’s simple beauty. Don’t add in any other harmonizing instruments until He brings them along. For us, that means that we keep abiding in His love… and that’s all. I’d love to add in an inductive Bible study class or a church planting internship or a global missions ministry. But God hasn’t told us to add in those to harmonize yet. So, we won’t until He says to do that. Right now our focus is to just to love people… that’s all!

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