Interview with Adam McHugh

Ok, so the picture of this gentlemen to the right probably doesn't mean much to you. Honestly, I wouldn't have a clue either if I hadn't read his book over the summer (a huge catalyst for this blog) and thus stumbled across an interview of him that featured this glamour shot. So this is none other than Adam McHugh, author of Introverts in the church.

Here's an excerpt from the interview about gifts the Introvert can give to the church:

What gifts do introverts bring to their church community?

This is such an important question. So often we define introversion by what it's not, and I would like us to start defining introversion by its assets, not its liabilities.

People in our culture so rarely have the experience of being truly listened to--having not only their words taken seriously, but also having their feelings, questions, and doubts underneath those words paid attention to. Even though listening is always a discipline to be cultivated, introverts may have a head start on listening. Because we process internally, and take up less social space, we can offer a nonjudgmental posture that frees people to open up to us. I also think that people who go deep into their own souls--and find both the good stuff and the bad stuff--are capable of a powerful compassion for others. These are just two of the several gifts I explore in the book.

I gleaned a lot from the interview and a lot from the book, obviously. Check out the full interview here.

What are some ways you see the Introvert fitting in the church?

Introverted Inspirtation in Scripture

In late 2009, I committed to memorizong 100 Psalms. I failed. I only memorized 24, and now the ones I had memorized have started to fade away so I can only recall bits and pieces. BUT it was still a fruitful exercise, so much so that I've recommitted to that goal but this time taking route that is more thought-through (in typical introverted fashion), adopting the "marathon" mindset rather than the "sprint" mindset.

One of the Psalms I recently committed to memory was Psalm 131. There's a line in there that gives me some peace and inspiration as the Introveted Soul. The line reads: "I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me, but I have stilled and quieted my soul."

This passage has both reminded me and challenged me.

It has reminded me of the perfection God. One moment he's challenging the Introvert with the call to shout for joy and lift our hands , and then the next He's reminding the Introvert that there's purpose and value in how He has created us by calling us to stillness and quietness.

It challenges me to harness that natural response of stillness and quietness and make it an intentional feeding of my soul, not just an outward behavior. It is an awesome challenge, and thankfully I believe the Introvert is well equipped for this.

How is God reminding and challenging you through His Word?

Montreat Weekend Internal Processing Part II

This is Part II from yesterday's post about the Montreat Weekend:

3. Equipment- a HUGE concern and stress was equipment. This was because we were going to have to bring ALL of our own equipment (drums, mics, cables, speakers, etc.) and have to set it up on Saturday night. We then found out a couple of days prior, that there was an event occurring on Saturday Night and Sunday morning, and were told that we would have to set up all of our equipment late Saturday night (starting at 9PM), could only rehearse until 11PM (due to a noise ordinance), move all of our equipment off stage to accommodate the event the next morning, then move all of our equipment on stage following the morning event (ending at 9:50AM), and be ready to start playing prelude music at 10:15 AM. WHOA! I was STRESSED! But we trusted in the Lord, loaded all of our equipment, and headed to Montreat praying for a miracle. WELL, when we arrived, we discovered that there was a band playing music for the event, and they said we could use ALL of their equipment. This meant no need to worry about setting up, tearing down, etc. because it was already set up and would be set up the next morning. So while we did have to load all of our equipment and tote it up there, we didn't have to worry about any set-up and tear-down, and the stress of time constraints were washed away. We realized that we would NEVER have been able to have made everything happen it if weren't for that miracle. PRAISE THE LORD!

4. Devotion- that Sunday morning, we were feeling pretty awestruck at the Lord for what he had already done on our trip. We held a devotion following breakfast in which we discussed idolatry. We spent 45 minutes talking through some biblical concepts of idolatry, and how we can apply that our lives and our worship. Well during the service, there were 2 congregation responsive prayers that took directly from passages of scripture on idolatry and used other wordings that spoke about idolatry. WOW! We all started looking around at each other, feeling totally weirded out!

5. The Response- as I said, even through all the amazing reminders the Lord gave us about His faithfulness, we were still nervous about playing for the more traditional congregation. Following the sermon, we walked on stage to lead in "Revelation Song." As I said, the sermon centered around scripture that were right in line with the song, so we were hopeful the congregation would see the link, and be moved by the music. But "Revelation Song" is a pretty rocking song at times, so there was still uneasiness...but...WHOA! Frances Reid sang the solo of the song, and sang it beautifully, the rest of the band played with excellence, but more important the Spirit moved in a powerful way during the song. The congregation actually erupted in applause after the song was finished, and we were left with feelings of humility at how big God is and again left totally awestruck. Countless people approached us afterwards with compliments and words of encouragement.


All of these illustrations of God's faithfulness are just echoes of the resounding theme of the experience: When we are weak, He is STRONG! All of us in the band came into that experience feeling weak and afraid because we were stepping into the unknown. But thankfully we were stepping into the unknown by faith, and the Lord honored that by knocking us onto our knees and putting us in a state of surrender, allowing us to experience is awesome strength and sovereignty. Through every experience we were all humbled even more, moving us into a state of dependency and weakness; fertile soil for the Lord. What an amazing experience of holy revelation, and one that I will not soon forget!

Montreat Weekend Internal Processing Part I

Being the typical Introvert, I am just getting to the point where I have processed events in my life that occurred 2 months ago, ha! But there were some amazing ministry opportunities afforded to me this summer, and I wanted to write about one such opportunity. After writing this all out, I decided I needed to break this into 2 posts, so check out part II tomorrow:

Over the July 4th weekend, the First Pres Worship Team was given a chance to lead music and worship at the Montreat Conference Sunday morning worship, located in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. By the grace of God, this was the only weekend this past summer where temperatures were actually extremely pleasant, which was awesome because there is no AC in the hotel we stayed or the worship auditorium. That was definitely a huge plus. However, despite the providential fortune of the weather, the band and I were very nervous about our weekend. Mainly because the style of music we play for worship is somewhat out of the box for Montreat Sunday Worship...some would say out of the box is generous because there has NEVER been that type of music used. So we were anticipating the worst, as far as response. But as we soon discovered, the gorgeous weather was just one of the ways that Lord revealed Himself to us, reminding us that that when we are weak, He is STRONG.

So here were some awesome evidence of God from that weekend:
1. The deposit- I was concerned how we were going to be able to afford our accommodations for the night, because the budget is tight, and there aren't a lot of options for lodging that are convenient to Montreat, aside from the Assembly Inn (out of our budget, we thought). BUT come to find out, First Pres had a non-refundable deposit with Montreat that had not been used, and needed to be used ASAP or else that would be money down the drain. I found out about it, booked individual rooms for all the band at the convenient and gorgeous Assembly Inn, and we were saved!

2. Scripture and Song choice- the week before, I was able to speak with the pastor that would be teaching that Sunday. He wanted to discuss some song choices, and see if there was any way we could support his message with some appropriate song choices. Of course, this made me nervous because I had already chosen songs, rehearsed them with the band, and submitted them to Montreat to print in the bulletin. But when he told me he would be preaching on Revelation 5, I had chills. The song I had submitted to Montreat to print in the bulletin for use after the sermon was a called "Revelation Song" which uses scriptures from Revelation 4 and 5! When I told him this over the phone, we both responded with some laughter, realizing that the Lord is our worship leader, bigger than all our plans and worries.

Part II to come tomorrow!!

The introverted church

I love working at a church. I love being able to serve people, and working at a church, I'm able to publicly and intentionally serve people for the sole purpose of glorifying Jesus Christ, which is something I would never get in the business world, which is where the Introverted Soul started. So I wanted to get that out of the way before going deeper into this post.

One thing that challenges me at times in corporate worship settings is how to approach an introverted church. As the Introverted Soul, you would think I would be more sensitive to an introverted church, but I can't deny then when I'm worshiping among people that are more expressive and open during worship, it is energizing, encouraging, validating. The church I now serve has people who are very expressive in worship, but overall the folks would be classified as introverted with how they worship. The introverted church would describe their worship as reflective, cerebral, and reverent. Certainly nothing wrong with that, and I wholeheartedly believe those are God-honoring ways to worship. But the introverted church also needs to challenge itself as to whether the expressions are motivated by reverence or by self-consciousness, fear, or flat out disobedience--or said more simply, motivated by pride.

So the question is the introverted church motivated out of reverence or pride? I can see both sides. I have been in worship situations where I am in a mode where quiet reflection and meditation feels like feels obedient to the Spirit. I have also been in modes where I've literally felt like I've been lifted out of my seat and my arms were raised above my head almost like a puppet on a string (me=puppet, string=Holy Spirit). So I totally get that worship is expressed in many different ways. The key is being allowing yourself to be vulnerable and obedient to Spirit.

So the beef is when people are staunchly against allowing themselves to express certain forms of biblical worship. Some introverted church folks say they could never allow themselves to do such things as shout (Psalm 100) or raise their hands (Psalm 134:2) in the context of worship, and judge those who do. I think the fact they won't allow themselves even if the option of expressing themselves that way is pride. The extroverted types who constantly judge people who are more reserved are prideful as well, because outwardly expressive worship is not a tell-tale sign of obedient worship (see Psalm 46:10).

But to go back to addressing the introverted church, let's examine our motives and see where that takes us. I do believe our introversion can be reverently pure, but I would not want to use it as an excuse for pride.

What energizes the Introverted Soul?

A lot of time is spent here trying to define the Introvert, and the benefits and hindrances introversion has on leadership. One concept that keeps coming up is what energizes the Introvert, and we conclude that solitude and rest energizes the Introvert, where action and social activity energizes the Extrovert.

As the Introverted Soul, I totally concur with this definition, and as I've said, I see strong relation between many qualities of the Introvert and a healthy spiritual life (but of course, I am biased). However, I have landed on something that energizes me besides "alone time" and I guess it shouldn't come as a suprise considering what I do for a living.

It dawned me the other day after playing music for a group of students at a local church. After a normal workday (complete with tiresome social interactions:) I headed to lead worship for a group of about 15 students. Including set-up, rehearsal, and hanging out afterwards, this left me getting home at about 9:15 that night...You'd think that the Introverted Soul would have no desire to work a full day, voluntarily go and put on the extroverted hat for a very small group of people, until late in the evening. But I left that place completely refueled and happy as a clam!

Here some reasons why:
1. When in front of a crowd leading worship, it's more of a one on one time with me and God rather than something I'm doing in front of a bunch of people where I need to put the extrovert hat. Obviously I can't neglect my duties of leading the group, but I've found that the times when I'm more focused on the people in the room than I am on the Lord, I get distracted, I have the wrong motives, and my energy is drained. When I'm involved with authentic worship with the Lord, he tends to always fill my cup to overflowing.
2. For some reason, playing music transports me to another place...cue "Twilight Zone" theme...I know it sounds weird, but it simply brings something out of me. Or maybe a better way to say it is that it quiets those distractions around me and inside me, and it frees me to go to a place of peace and rest. Being the Introverted Soul, any time I can get some peace and rest is a good thing!
3. Quite simply, because I'm hitting in my sweet spot. I played a lot of baseball when I was younger, and nothing felt better than connecting the bat with the ball in the sweet spot of the bat...where you almost don't even feel it happen, there's no vibration, and you hit a line drive into the gap with what seems like less effort. Hitting in the sweet spot is an indescribable sensation. That's how I feel about what I get to do...It just feels right! I love the Church...I love leading the Church in worship of our Holy God, and I personally love doing that through music. I feel like I'm at batting practice and hitting line drives from the sweet spot almost everyday...what a blessing!

Can the Introvert Lead? Part II

Continuing exploring the benefits of intorversion and how it makes the Introvert an effective leader?

3. The Introvert is a good public-speaker
This is true because speaking is simply not something the Introvert values. That's why they need to work extra hard at it, because the world certainly does value people who can speak and speak well. The Introvert will spend a lot of time, intentionally or unintentionally preparing a speech. Intentionally speaking, the Introvert recognizes that they don't value speaking and therefore they need to prepare themselves and improve upon this skill. They write out their words, and rehearse their words, and because they are so internal, they can internally critic and judge their skill and adjust. This need for preparation increases the level of performance. Unintentionally, because the Introvert is very inward focused, the Introvert is constantly rehearsing, even when they aren't meaning to. They imagine how the speech will go, what they will say, how people will react, etc. When you combine the unintentional with the intentional, the result is consistently a confident and quality public-speaker

4. The Introvert can connect with people
This hinges on the Introvert having a deep understanding of themselves. The Introvert needs to understand that large groups are not their place to thrive. Leave that to the Extrovert. The Introvert is the one organizing one-on-one meetings, or gathering small groups of people together, because this is simply an easier environment for the Introvert to navigate. The benefit of this is that the smaller, more intimate setting is a perfect situation for the Introvert, because the Introvert is comfortable with silence, and the opportunity for silence is much greater in a smaller setting. So now that the Introvert is in their element, then they are confident and can begin leading. The benefit of the more intimate environment is that it is in fact, INTIMATE. This is how people connect. Over a one-on-one lunch, or a cup of coffee, or a small group at church. The very way that connections are made, is also the environment that is most suited for the Introvert to thrive.

Can the Introvert Lead? Part I

Many people think of a leader as someone who is personable, confident, good public-speaker, and persuasive. Most people would also never assign these qualities to the Introvert. But I think the Introvert is more than capable of being an effective leader, by building on the benefits of introversion.

Here are ways that the Introvert is well equipped to lead:
1. The Introvert Listens
I can't think of anything more frustrating than trying to be led by someone who does not listen. Often times it's because they are so busy talking, there's no room for anyone else to speak in order to be heard. With the Introvert, there are lots of chances for voicing opinions. In fact, the Introvert would prefer to listen and not speak. A leader cannot be as effective if they don't listen to those they are leading. The Introvert prefers to listen.

2. The Introvert is confident
Yes this is true! I believe the Introvert is often a confident person, because they are comfortable with silence. Comfortable with being still. Comfortable with other people questioning their personality because they aren't constantly flapping their gums. How many times have you been involved a discussion with a group of people, and everyone has been voicing their opinion...except the one person. They have remained silent the whole time, to the point where everyone knows it. And then when the discussion is going in circles and nothing is being accomplished, that person will speak...you're on the edge of your seat...often this person's opinion shifts the discussion and solves the problem. This person is the Introvert who is confident. They don't need to contribute to all the back and forth craziness. They're confident enough to work through the issue internally, to listen to all the ideas being thrown out, and then landing on an opinion. And when they speak, they do it with confidence because they have gained a demand for their opinion. It's simple economics. The less supply there is, the higher the demand. The less supply of opinion there is, the more people want it. And then the Introvert leader has authority and confidence

More thoughts tomorrow in Part II...

Talking is Exhausting!

I had lunch with a pastor the other day, and we had some great conversation and discussion about leadership, life, and love (well we didn't really talk about love, but I was just rolling with the alliteration).

We ended up talking about personalities and introversion and extroversion (I promise I wasn't fishing for a blog post...in fact he brought it up!). He reminded me that a way to look at both personality types are that the Introvert is drained by interactions with people, and the Extrovert is energized by interactions with people. He said that he has extroverted qualities (which in church leadership is fairly common, and the subject of another post at another time) but his wife has introverted qualities. Even though I know better, immediately my mind jumped to the conclusion that she's probably really quiet, hermit-ish, and not as well-liked, while he's probably the life of the party. While it's probably true that he's the life of the party, He snapped me back to reality by saying that his wife is as well. She's very social, engaging, and loquacious (SAT word alert!). The difference is that when they leave the party, he's ready to talk some more, go to another party, or call his college roommate and talk until dawn...while she is ready to hibernate. Of course I already knew this, but being the proprietor of this blog, it embarrassed me that my initial reaction was that his wife was a social outcast! That's one of the things from which we're trying to liberate the Introvert.

The Introvert loves people, cares about people, and wants to interact with people. The thing is it's unnatural for the Introvert to do that, and it requires a lot of extra energy...so even though the interaction is worth it, it is still very draining for the Introvert. Every Sunday afternoon I feel like I've just run a marathon because of all the energy I've had to spend as a worship leader, doing what comes unnaturally to the Introvert. Even though I think there's huge benefits to being the Introverted worship leader and operating out of reliance on the strength of God, it makes me envious of all the extroverted souls leading worship on Sundays!

Confidence in weakness

Soon after starting my job working full-time at a church leading and planning worship, I was asked to take the personality test (ours was called the DISC profile). I certainly don't let those kind of tests dictate how I should act or what I should do at work, but I think they do hold some truth that can be helpful personally, and for your co-workers.

My DISC came back saying that I display some pretty heavy introverted qualities (no big shock there), while the rest of my co-workers all had the exact similar DISC results--pretty strong extroverts.

Needless to say they were somewhat surprised that the Introvert could do the things that my job requires me to do on Sunday mornings. Feeling comfortable in the spotlight (I realize the spotlight is on God, but the point is, I'm in front of people, speaking, singing, leading, etc.), being open and vulnerable in front of others, speaking publicly (and just speaking in general--the Introvert can be rather word deficient at times!), and feeling energized by interactions with people are all crucial aspects of what I do. But they do not come naturally to the Introvert me, AT ALL! But here's the part that fills me with assurance: somehow I am consistently able to do the unnatural, and I am able because HE is able. This has makes me even more confident that my responses of worship are authentic because I am operating from a place of weakness, humility, and reliance on Him.

The times where I fail at my job, my relationships, and life, are when I am relying on my own strength. But I am so grateful that the Lord has give me the qualities of an Introvert, because they remind me every Sunday morning that I'm going to an unnatural place, and I have a gut check to see how much I'm depending on Him. So even for the something as simple as the introverted worship leader, Luke 1:37 is still true!