After church last Sunday, I had a rare opportunity to talk, about teamwork, with the youth worship team at my church. My youth director asked me to speak to them about some problems they had been having, but I really wanted to hear it from them. When our meeting began, I asked the students to explain their frustrations. And I was impressed by how forthcoming and honest they were.
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| Photo courtesy of Aikawa Ke at Flickr.com |
To boil it all down for you. Some of them were upset about how disrespectful others were being, by showing up late and unprepared for rehearsals. And others were frustrated by the disrespectful words and attitudes of their fellow team members. In the end, both sets of students had the same problem - respect.
Surprising right?
Actually, no. If you've served on a worship team (or any other team on the planet) for any amount of time, you've experienced the same problems. And that's exactly what I explained to the students. Regardless of your age, job, birth order position, religion, GPA, or dating status, disrespectfulness is among the greatest challenges any team member faces.
It's not an unfamiliar issue, but it's more deadly than we realize. When we're hung up on the way others are disrepsecting us, it blinds us from seeing how we're responding to them. Frequently, we react to disrespect out of frustration, which leads to vengefulness. At that point, we stop doing the very simple things that a worship team is supposed to do - We stop loving God with all of ourselves, and we stop loving other people as ourselves. At that point, what we do ceases to be worship. It becomes just music, and sometimes not even that. This is the single largest pitfall of worship teams.
When we talk about what drives life changing worship, we talk a lot about our connection with god, which is certainly foundational. But when it comes to working with other people on a worship team, the crucial element is our reflection of God. And in the same way that He offered us an undeserved grace, the key to leading life changing worship with your team, is offering other each other the same kind of grace that is not earned.
Easier said than done right?
Offering people grace doesn't come naturally to most of us. Especially when their disrespect is continual. And if it were as easy as 'treating others as you would have them treat you' then this wouldn't be a problem. So here are a few tricks I've picked up over the years that have helped me put aside offenses and lend people the kind of grace that God has freely given me.
Offering people grace doesn't come naturally to most of us. Especially when their disrespect is continual. And if it were as easy as 'treating others as you would have them treat you' then this wouldn't be a problem. So here are a few tricks I've picked up over the years that have helped me put aside offenses and lend people the kind of grace that God has freely given me.
1. Ask yourself this unnerving question. It's easy to be offended when someone disrespects you. But it might not be so easy when you ask yourself this question - have I ever treated anyone the same way this person is treating me? I ask myself this question frequently when I feel wronged by someone on my team (but probably more frequently in my marriage). When people show up late and unprepared, I try to remember the times I've let people down by being unreliable (which is not difficult for me). This helps me remember that I'm no better than anyone, and leads me quickly to a more humble attitude.
2. Ask God to give your offender everything you want for yourself. Occasionally, you'll even have to pray this one through gritted teeth. But the goal here is humility. When I ask God to give my offenders joy, peace, wisdom, and success I'm thinking about how much I feel like they don't deserve it. And because God is good to me, He frequently leads me to be reminded of how little I deserve those same things. Suddenly, their offense doesn't seem like such a big deal.
3. Smile at 'em. I hate this one so much. It sounds like a piece of advice my grandmother would give. But like most timeless (cliche) advice, it's true. So often, all that is needed to begin healing is a simple sign of affection. An honest smile has the power to melt relational ice.
4. Understand you may be misunderstanding. It's no secret, miscommunication is the most frequent cause of tension in relationships of every kind. But when we feel angry or resentful toward a disrespectful person, communication is that last thing on our minds. You may feel like you have every right to be angry with someone, but you owe it to yourself to ask, "is this just a miscommunication?"
These are my 'go to' solutions for dissolving my anger when I feel like other people are being disrespectful. They are my ways of letting go of my own pridefulness, and working toward reflecting God to the people He has put in my life.
But I'm curious, what are your tactics for managing anger, and loving disrespectful people? Chime in by leaving your comment in the section below.
But I'm curious, what are your tactics for managing anger, and loving disrespectful people? Chime in by leaving your comment in the section below.
One thing that I would add, and pardon if it sounds cliché nowadays but, “Let it go”. I have been a part of the sound team for years and for a while coordinated the media presentations at the church. While I was coordinator, a committee was form to handle some of the more technical aspects of the department. In the chairman's position of the committee was a man who butted heads with almost the entire sound team. To keep things short, his goal was to have things run his way, the old ways, and to disagree with him meant that you were a fool. Even towards the end of his time at the church, after all that had happened, he was still quite rude to myself and the rest of my team. The sad thing is that I am sure we could have gotten along real well if he had shown us some respect and had been a bit more friendly. But while I still had to work with him I realized that he would not treat us with respect, so I decided not to let that get in the way of things. I would treat him with respect, not talk badly about him behind his back, and do my best to cooperate or respectfully disagree.
ReplyDeleteWhile it ultimately did not work in that one case, in the end he still treated me with little respect, there have been other experiences where, in combination with these other steps, the person began treating me more respectfully. But one of the things to keep in mind is that going from disrespect to respect can take some time. While this verse is talking about gossip, it could apply to the area of respect too: For lack of wood the fire goes out, And where there is no whisperer, contention quiets down. -Proverbs 26:20
I will also add that I have experienced first hand how disrespect can destroy a group. Years back I was a part of a group that was divided, on one side had people who were looking for activities and fun from the group where the other side wanted to do churchy and “spiritual” things. In interacting with both sides, they were often disparaged the other. While I was trying to keep the group going, I got an E-mail from one of the leaders rather bitterly telling me that she would no longer support the group because the lack of spiritual interest in the rest of the group. In the end, both sides left leaving a significantly smaller group from the middle who, to be honest, were more spiritually minded then those who complained about the lack of spirituality in the group. While I would have preferred the group not divide like it had, in the end it changed the tone of the group from bitter to friendly.
Carl, your point about letting it go, is right on the money. And it reminds me of another point that I didn't include in this post, and it's that sometimes going separate ways is necessary. It should be rare, but it happens. And I think your Proverbs reference is a great one to pull from. And as always, thank you for your insight.
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