Looking back and looking forward

I cannot begin to express my love and gratitude for all of you in the amazing ways you have led worship this season, whether in one of our NC Baptist churches in a worship concert or at the annual meeting in Greensboro. Every time, God was lifted up in an amazing way, and people were profoundly impacted as they worshipped God wholeheartedly.

As many of you know, several years ago, I began to purposefully transition the choir to be more of a worship-leading choir that would be more relevant to the wide variety of NC Baptist churches—it was something I felt strongly that God was leading me to do. I wanted us to be a choir that could show church leaders across our state that choirs and orchestras could still be a great catalyst to worship in their churches. I know some of these changes were difficult for some, and I thank you for sticking with us through these changes.  

In the past few years, you have displayed God’s power as you sing and play these songs that seem to come from within you as an emotional expression of your love for God. People in the congregation could see it was more than just professionally producing what was in the score. Your enthusiasm and passion are contagious with the people.

We gave up tuxes and evening gowns to be more relevant to the vast majority of our churches and perceivably more approachable. You learned your music before coming to our retreat so we could spend much more time on spiritual things—particularly in small groups—to more deeply share life with others in the group, hoping to make us a more solid family to bear one another’s burdens and celebrate God’s goodness together. We have incorporated more congregational participation and worship leaders to facilitate these times. You have excelled in this new culture and the results have been amazing. Thank you. To God be the glory!!

I hear so many people who attend our worship concerts and the annual meeting comment that the worship led by you all has been the best they have ever experienced—and some add that they didn’t think they liked choirs! Again, I hope we model for church leaders how important choirs and orchestras can be in leading worship today when many of the trends suggest worship can only be led by a band and a few singers. Yes, I embrace modern worship practices when done well (and I have written extensively about problems in this arena), but I want us to lift up how a church can involve a host of people that God has gifted and called to use their talents for His glory in choirs and orchestras.

I am so thankful for the leadership that I get to serve with. At just the right time, God brought Carol Ann Forgus to share in leadership. She has been an amazing director, encourager, and friend. She has been greatly supportive of me through all this and is a delight to work with. I am thankful for Joel, Michael, and Connie for all they bring to the group as well.

Today, I share with you a journey I have experienced in the last months. In the past year or so, I have had many additional opportunities to impact worship in NC and globally. I have been added to the church revitalization team for NC Baptists and now get to interface with the scores of churches going through that process to train worship leaders and help their churches. There are many new initiatives that God has placed on my heart that I feel I must devote significant time to fulfill. One in particular is extensive training for worship leaders to engage in to prepare them to do what I have been doing for over 20 years—going to the nations, working alongside the IMB, to help churches renew their worship, to train worship leaders, and to train select groups of leaders to train others. This involves providing materials in multiple languages and high-level equipping to get these leaders prepared to flex on the mission field for whatever God puts before them.

These are just some of the areas that I am adding to my work. Additionally, I have quite a bit of resource development that is needed. So many things are demanding my time that have potential great kingdom impact, but there is a growing sense of always being behind in my work and not having the time I need to create resources and develop training.

That leads me to a very difficult decision. My last time as director of the NCBSO will be our April concert in Statesville, NC. It pains me to think of giving up something so fulfilling to be a part of, but the time I have to allot to the choir is tremendous throughout the year (mostly behind the scenes). As I have prayed and sought God’s direction, I feel this is clearly the path I must take to give me the margin needed for all the new initiatives.

Ethan and I met with the directors and accompanists yesterday for several hours to begin discussing a transition plan. I feel very good about these early plans. We will need some of you to volunteer to take on some additional responsibilities as well.

Carol Ann will be stepping up to do most of the things I do behind the scenes. Connie will also be taking on additional responsibilities of printing needed items and hauling equipment to and from concerts (and she will need people to unload and load for her so she is not left to do that herself). We will additionally need some other people to fill roles:

• Male director – there will be an application process publicized soon for anyone interested in taking the male leader role that I am vacating. We will search within the group but are also open to outside parties.
  
• Tech director – we need someone with some experience with WordPress websites that can take on all of our online tech—resources on NCBSO.org, updates on NCBSO.org, managing WorshipPlanning, updating online access, working with WhatsApp, etc. I will be glad to talk in detail with anyone who might be interested. This person can select others to assist in the work. I have ideas of ways to reduce the load for this.
  
• Site coordinator – we need someone who will communicate with church hosts before the concerts to ensure everything is understood and being taken care of on their end. This person will also arrive early on Monday to tweak the setup at the concert venues OR enlist a team of people that could do this more regionally.

We will also be purposefully connecting with the younger members of the group to get their advice and leadership in decisions going forward to help keep our group viable for years to come.

If you have questions about these issues, reach out to Carol Ann (unless you have questions specific to the tech director role—ask me).

Please pray for each other and our leaders during the next months as the transition takes place. It is obvious that God is at work in the NCBSO, and I look forward to great things to come!

I felt it was best to send everyone a letter rather than announcing this on a Monday. I probably would not be able to get through this without breaking down if standing before you because of how much I love you and how much I enjoy being a part of this group.

The NCBSO will still fall under my umbrella of oversight. I will just be much less hands on.

Finally, on another note, it was decided months ago that the NCBSO would not be singing at the annual meeting in November due to a special student emphasis. Your absence this year in no way is a reflection on last year’s leadership! Worship leadership next year will be by the BeDoTell band that leads the youth weeks at Caswell; this will be a group better positioned to lead student groups in worship. I would anticipate the NCBSO will be leading often in the future.

I hope this lengthy letter has provided some context for you to understand my decision. I will be happy to talk more about these things.

Kenny Lamm

Vision for Ministry

Our primary mission is to equip worship leaders to renew their times of corporate worship, creating services that transform and disciple their people by providing theologically sound content while increasing congregational participation. Further, we hope to equip worship leaders to go and train worship leaders globally to further bring the primary mission of Renewing Worship to the universal church.