Dear Our Next Worship Leader*

News | by Pastor Adam Sinnett

Dear our next potential worship leader,

We are planting a church in the heart of downtown Seattle called Downtown Cornerstone. We are very early on in the process of planting and need a worship leader yesterday. I know you’re probably looking for a church that can pay you, is located in a city that actually sees the sun periodically and has winning sports teams. Why? I don’t know. We have the great outdoors in our backyard. We have Vivace coffee and Top Pot Donuts. When it rains, it pours. When the sun is out (both days) there is no place more beautiful. We have Microsoft, Starbucks, Boeing, Amazon, and Real Networks. We’re the most educated, literate, and over-priced city in the U.S. We have great homegrown music. We recycle. We like baby seals.

We also have a tremendous amount of brokenness. We have prostitutes who were once little girls with the wrong kind of men in their lives. We have innumerable immature grown men who were once little boys with the right kind of men absent from their lives. We are a very tolerant people as long as you agree with us. We have a large homosexual population that have made Seattle home because they’re running from the Church. We have proud and self-righteous business people who make a living downtown and then safely retreat to the comfort and security of suburbia. We have proud and self-righteous homeless people who attempt to make a living downtown and safely retreat to the comfort and security of their cardboard homes.

We are also one of the only churches in downtown corridor that is remotely orthodox. Our area of downtown Seattle is littered with liberal mainline denominational churches, a multitude of emergent house churches and a couple who are on the same team. The last great decade for church planting in Seattle was in the 1880’s.

Fact: California has nicer weather, winning sports teams and surfing.
Fact: People will actually sing along with you if you plant in Texas.
Fact: Life and ministry is hard, expensive and more difficult in an urban context.
Fact: You will be called to do hard things.

You must know what it means to lead worship. I’m not merely looking for a guitar player or talented musician. I’m looking for a man who can lead an urban congregation in worship to their God in song week after week. I’m looking for a man who knows how to use worship as a witness to the non-Christians in church on any given week. I’m looking for a man who gets Seattle music. I’m looking for a godly, responsible, masculine, gifted leader who lives the gospel, enjoys God and loves people.

In order to not rob you of your treasure in heaven, we will not pay you. What we have, we will give. We don’t have anything. But, paychecks might (i.e. will) come in the form of dinner on Tuesday nights, change from the couch, and free tickets to the Mariners.

I also commit to personally taking an interest in and discipling you. Whatever resources my family or our church family have at our disposal we will leverage to get you out here and settled. I will pray for you regularly. I will seek to develop your current strengths and cultivate new ones. I will spend time with you, welcome you into our community and support you. I will also come to your apartment to drink your beer.

I’m looking to get you out here soon. I will need someone willing to be bi-vocational until the church grows. If you are looking for something hard, but fulfilling, consider joining us in downtown Seattle.

Call me,
Pastor Adam

*Note: Inspired and adapted from a similar post by my friend and fellow church planter Mike Brown of Tribe, Los Angeles. Yes, they found a worship leader. Pray for them.