Treasures on Earth (J21-27)

Happy Saturday to you!

Almost doubled over from giggling, I ran as fast as my tiny legs would carry me down the row of chairs and used the arm of the last seat to swing myself in a new direction. Behind me, I caught a glimpse of a French exchange student dramatically stomping and shouting, “Where’z mai cookee!?” I shrieked with laughter as I (the cookie) was snatched from the row below into the air by Benoit (the cookie monster) and eaten alive (tickled from head to toe).

As I returned to the ground, Daniel taunted the cookie monster from a few rows above us. Benoit pretended to be astonished - “Anozher cookee!? For me!?” and gave chase, causing both me and my brother to erupt in violent giggles as we sprinted through the small auditorium.

Mom was on stage, finishing worship practice with a few other musicians. As the room filled with more college kids, the cookie monster caught the smaller cookie first, then the bigger cookie, and tickled us both as he hauled us up to Dad at the back of the room where he was greeting Chi Alpha students.

”Ai breeng you two of zhe most deh-leecious cookees,” Benoit said, setting us down in the back. “Don’t let them get away,” he added, a twinkle in his eyes as he dropped the monster accent, patted us on the heads, and joined his friends.

I grabbed a bulletin from the student leader at the door as Dad sat me and Daniel in the last row so we could draw and color instead of taunting students to chase us. Sometimes, we had backwards laminate papers we would set on light projectors for worship (and a student would hand me the right paper to lay on the glass), but this time all of the songs were printed on a single sheet of paper.

Mom played guitar and sang, which I assumed made her the worship leader and more crucially, the coolest, most awesomest, and importantest mom on the planet. I could read all the words on the bulletin, which felt pretty important for a 5-year-old, but it wasn’t as important as being able to play the guitar. 

I wanted to grow up to be just like her!

Up until this week, my most treasured possession was sitting in its case underneath the stairs. Now, it hangs on my wall - because a TED Talk about melting candles in closets appears unbidden in my brain to remind me that life is short and best filled with lovely things.

That possession is my mom’s guitar which I received as a birthday present when I was a teenager.

It is the guitar she led worship with. It was the guitar I wasn’t allowed to practice on until I got good enough to play clean chords on my little dumpster-dive guitar. Once I nailed some chords down, I remember learning to play my first worship songs on that guitar - Open the Eyes of my Heart (where I learned my first barre chord, Bm) and Here I am to Worship (where I learned strumming patterns) and Blessed Be the Name (where I had to do both). I learned how to change the strings with a butter knife and a string winder, and clean my fretboard with lemon oil and a guitar pick.

I’ve played Fenders, Taylors, and Martins that cost a whole month’s wages - and I still prefer this little Alvarez. Its favorite songs to play are all worship songs.

Alexia had never been to a Students for Christ conference before, but since we had shortened the training to 10 days and found a larger campground in Budapest, the trek from Ukraine finally made sense for their family. It didn’t take long for us to realize that we had faced off in a soccer tournament in Kyiv 3 years prior and we both played guitar, so we hit it off.

The teen program was run by a couple Floridians who brought us all of the American youth group goodies: new CCM albums, new CCM posters, buckets of Reeses, Oreos, Smarties, and Nerds. That year, I learned that new worship music was coming out all of the time - we sang “How He Loves” and “Oceans” extensively during our services which was 1000 times better than the poor kids program who were singing “Jesus You’re My Superhero” for the 10th year in a row.

One of the albums we received was Tenth Avenue North’s debut, and I was captivated by the guitar intro to “By Your Side.” Alexia and I found tabs for the song, and when I realized it was just a fingerpicking pattern of power chords, we were quickly in business. I started nailing that intro while she practiced strumming.

”Do you two lead worship?” our Floridian youth pastor asked us. “Because you two could totally lead worship.”

The next year Alexia’s family was on furlough and couldn’t make it to the annual student conference. But the teen program leaders found out I played guitar and asked if I could lead worship for our services. The Alvarez played John Mark McMillan, Chris Tomlin, and FM Static on repeat as I practiced relentlessly and then played all-too short sets with my friends.

Almost all of us teen MKs were musically endowed by that point, so someone suggested that we lead one of the morning music services for the students. I couldn’t use the Alvarez on the sound system, so I had to borrow a German’s electric-acoustic which was black and felt incredibly exciting. The college-age MKs did the heavy lifting on piano and vocals, but I felt on top of the world - I went from teaching myself how to play Tenth Avenue North to leading adults in the span of a year.

It was not lost on me that I had grown up to be just like Mom.

It’s a travesty to me that the word “worship” has come to mean “the musical portion of Christian gatherings” when Paul explicitly tells the Colossian and Corinthian church that, “whatever you do,” whether it’s eating or drinking (or abstaining from eating or drinking) or singing or reciting scripture or really anything you can do, “do all for the glory of God.” (Col 3:17, 1 Cor 10:31).

We’re not set apart or put into a right relationship with God because we eat or don’t eat meat, because we drink or don’t drink alcohol, because we play or don’t play gospel music, because we read or don’t read the KJV. We’re set apart and put into a right relationship with God because of Christ.

We might receive a particular conviction because of our right relationship to God, and then in obedience eat or abstain from eating meat, drink or abstain from drinking alcohol, play or abstain from playing our top 40 CDs. And we owe it to Christ to express our convictions in a way that doesn’t inspire the people around us to violate their convictions.

But if you brush your teeth in the spirit of Jesus, that’s worship. If you let a lousy driver into the packed turn lane in the spirit of Jesus, that’s worship. If you play board games with your friends in the spirit of Jesus, that’s worship.

And if you hang your most treasured possession on the wall so you play songs more often when you’re home for the glory of God, that’s worship.

I hope to get to play some of those songs with you this year,

—Beth