Why Cynicism Has no Place in a Christ-Follower

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If you’re anything like me, you often find that you tend to lean towards a cynical outlook on your situation and your surroundings. Cynicism, by definition is a general distrust. Maybe, you always take the negative outlook on a situation, even if it’s meant to be fun. Maybe you find yourself always questioning whether or not the people closest to you are lying to you. Maybe you always think people are talking about you and that you can’t trust anyone. Maybe you question yourself and doubt yourself. And maybe, just maybe, you find yourself distrusting God and unable to believe that He can do what He says He can do.

You see, we often try to say, “I’m cynical. That’s just the way I am.” or, “I can’t help it. That’s just my personality,” and we ultimately attempt to rationalize our frankly unmerited distrust of our situations, surroundings, leaders, family, and friends. Now are people going to let you down, YES. Are your leaders going to let you down, ABSOLUTELY. Are some situations going to turn out worse than you hoped, OFTEN. But does that give us reason to be cynical and distrusting, and more importantly, is it okay to be a Christ-Follower and claim that you’re cynical and that’s just who you are?

I would say, no. Here’s why. Many of the things you’re cynical or skeptical of may be completely petty and unimportant. If you’re cynical of your favorite team’s chances of winning, who cares, right? It doesn’t seem like it matters. People may not like hanging around you, but hey. That’s your own doing. But you see, the problem is, our cynicism doesn’t stop there. If you’re cynical about petty things, I would venture to guess you’re cynical in many areas of your life, if not all areas of your life. If you question whether a friend is telling you the truth, you soon find yourself questioning God, doubting that He can do what He says He can. Doubting that He truly cares about you. Doubting that God even has the power to change your life.

So is cynicism just who we are and we can’t change it? No. Stop fooling yourself. That’s an excuse. Cynicism has nothing to do with who you are and everything to do with your mindset and your outlook on life. Now it’s not easy to change your mindset, just like it’s not easy to change your attitude. But it’s not up to you to change it. It’s up to you to give your cynicism to God and beg Him to let you see things through His eyes and not the eyes of your own doubt.

In our cynicism, we end up creating an inaccurate picture of who God is. If we’re doubting God’s true power and His strength,we aren’t seeing God for who He truly is. God is a massive God. He’s almighty, all-powerful, everlasting, wonderful, counselor, the Lord of Lords, the Author of Salvation, the Life-Giver, the Sustainer, the Creator, and guess what, in all of His might and His power, He knows your name. He loves you. He created you. And He can do anything. He’s not limited by your human understanding. But when we allow our vision of God to be obscured by our cynicism, we stop believing in His power. We start doubting Him. We question every decision our church leaders make. And our relationship with this almighty and all-powerful God of the Universe suffers, because our picture of Him is completely screwed up.

God has just recently showed me that I need to surrender my cynicism, just like I would surrender a bad attitude, and it’s amazing how the God of the Universe can completely rework your outlook on life if you’ll just let Him. I’m learning to stop doubting God. I’m learning to believe that God has the power to change lives. I’m learning to believe that God has the power to heal. And I’m learning to believe that God’s plan for my life is better than my own plan for my life. Sound familiar? In Christianity, we’ll often call this faith, something Jesus CONSTANTLY preached on. So there we get to the heart of the matter. Why is cynicism wrong and why can it starve your relationship with Christ? Because it’s having a general lack of faith.

On a side note, life is so much more fun when you set aside your cynicism. If you just stop distrusting and stop doubting, and actually start taking a positive stance and outlook on your life and your situations, you’ll enjoy yourself that much more. Guess what. If you tell yourself it’s not going to be fun or it’s going to be a disaster, it probably won’t be any fun and it probably will be a disaster. It’s because of your mindset. Cynicism is a mindset. Ask God to transform that mindset, and your whole outlook on life will be changed.

Musings on Worship

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Aside from being a staff-designer at my local church, Team Church, I’ve also had the incredible privilege of serving as a volunteer Worship Leader. For the past 5 years, I’ve been playing and serving as part of our team and for the past two years, I’ve been blessed to move into more of a leadership role with our Student band, planning and leading services for our Student Ministry. This is, undoubtably an incredible blessing but it’s also been a time that I’ve grown as a Worship Leader, particularly on the creative, planning back-end. As someone who is looking to go in to full-time ministry in a creative leadership role, this, coupled with my design and video work, has been an incredible experience for me.

One of the things that I’ve learned is that the construction of a Worship service is crucial to the success and impact of the short time you have to engage the congregation and ready their hearts to hear from the Lord. As Worship Leaders, we have an obligation to our congregation and to God to effectively lead others to the throne of God, through music, through prayer, through creative elements, it’s all a part. I’ve learned that maintaining a balance of the energetic songs and the slower, more contemplative songs is crucial, and how you get from one to the other is just as important. I’ve seen countless worshipful moments ruined by the distractions of a poor transition. Whereas we can’t force our congregation to Worship, it’s part of our responsibility to cut down on the distractions.

So this is where I’m really getting to. What does (in my humble opinion) a great, impactful worship service look like in its construction? The opener is crucial. This is where we set up the entire feel and mood of the service. Sometimes, maybe you need a high-energy tune to get everyone pumped up. Other times you may need a video or creative element to set up your first song. More recently, I’ve discovered that doing a welcome and announcements at the very beginning is a great way to open up. For one, you’re making key announcements at the very beginning when people are paying attention. Two, you don’t have the awkward intrusion of stage transitions between band and speaker in your worship set. What you need varies, based on the leading of the Holy Spirit, because, ultimately, the Spirit should guide every part of your service.

After the opener, it’s your job as a Worship leader to guide the feel of the service to where it needs to be. Keep the movement gradual. Stay away from changing keys and tempos a lot and drastically. This not only makes for smoother transitions, but it also allows you to keep your congregation hanging in an incredibly Worshipful moment. As far as song selection goes, pay attention to the congregation. As you’re planning, think about what it would be like to sit in the crowd and sing this song. Is it easy to catch on to? Is it awkwardly wordy? Is it tough to worship to? What even helps is to sit in the crowd one week and honestly look for flaws and ways you can improve the service. Always pay attention to the crowds response. Pay attention as well to modern worship music. Follow the examples of big worship teams like hillsong and  their song choices, tempos, transitions ,and the energy they bring to worship. For instance, if modern worship music moves to more moderate tempo, building songs (as it is now), follow that trend. There’s a reason it is moving that way. It works. It evokes response.

Thats all I’ve got for now. Like I said, these are just my opinions based on mexhort experience and on observation of other worship teams.

Welcome!

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To all four of you who will care enough to read my random and rambling thoughts,

Welcome! By now it’s fairly safe for me to assume that you just so happened to stumble across my little piece of the internet. This space is my online home as a graphic designer, photographer, film producer, and overall just as someone who loves to see how creativity and technology can interact. This website is where you can find my ever-changing portfolio of work, my random thoughts which you are currently preoccupied reading, and if any of my work sparks your interest enough, a contact page where you can get in touch with me.

In all seriousness, I really hope you enjoy this site, I’ll do my best to keep it up t0 date with new content. I hope that the thoughts I’ll share here on the creative world, technology, music, and life and faith in general, along with my body of work will be of inspiration to you, and if nothing else, at least good for some entertainment.