Q and A with Worship Arts Pastor Jay Trull

What do you do at WBC?
I am responsible for developing and implementing the vision Worship Arts ministry of this church. That includes the planning of biblical based worship services and the training and leading of our arts ministry teams. It also includes the production of art presentations for the church, which over the last several months has worked itself out into me leading the development of waxahachiebible.org and becoming the general editor of the Ignite publication. I also oversee some the audio and video equipment here at WBC. More importantly than all of that what I seek “to do here at WBC” is to worship God with all of me as well as love my beautiful wife Ami and our joyful son Jackson with the peace, love and joy of Jesus Christ.

How long have you been here?

I became a member of WBC in 1995. I came on staff as a youth and music intern in November of 1997. My position evolved into worship pastor sometime after that. I have been apart of WBC for 15 years.

What brought you to WBC?

That is a long story. After I graduated college in 1995 I was searching for God and was led to WBC. The worship pastor of WBC during that time (Scott Cunningham) called me at my house and asked me if I would be interested in playing drums for the worship music here at the church. Apparently my mom, who had just started to visit WBC had informed the church that I was a drummer and to call me to see if I would be interested in playing for them. After Scott called me I brought my drums to church for worship practice and my drums and I have been here ever since. God has used the ministry of this church to change my life in many ways from that moment on. One of the ways God bought change to me was in my view of worship. Before WBC my view of worship was at best something that you did on Sunday morning with different attitudes and even different musical instruments than you used on the rest of the week. Worship for me before WBC involved piano and organ on Sunday and my drums and I were living a different life in the bars of the secular music world. God used WBC to blow open the fallacy of the secular and sacred compartments of my life. Shortly after I started playing drums at WBC God began to fuse my whole life together in worship of Him. For me playing drums in the church meant I could for the first time worship God with drums and since drums and music where a big part of my life it began making since to worship God with my whole life. Looking back on it now I think my knew that I needed to be in a church fellowship and the only way that I would go into a church during that time in my life was if my drums were there.

Some if not most worship pastors lead worship in the worship services on Sunday morning. Why do you not lead worship on Sunday?

I think I would say that I do lead worship on Sunday morning. I lead the planning and direction of all of worship services each week as well as play drums on most weeks. Sometimes I think it is easy to limit worship to the activity of singing. So it is easy to say that a worship leader is the lead singer, but I think that paints an inaccurate view of what worship is. When you think about the worship leadership presenting and accurate view of worship on a Sunday morning it has to be more than just a lead singer singing. Here at WBC we have a team based worship leading approach. You will see several different song leaders and instrumentalists who lead the congregation in worship. This not only helps broaden our view of what worship is it also provides a way for the body of Christ to be actively involved in the leading process. When I look at the current team of people that lead the music aspect of our services I see that all have different talents and gifts that God has given them. All of us seek to rely on each other in our efforts of worshipping God rather than focusing our leadership strategy through one main worship leader. Ultimately, God Himself exists in three persons, likewise leading people to Him is more than a one person thing it involves the body coming together under the authority, and intercession of Jesus Christ our exalted head.

Worshipping God is the first element of the mission of WBC. As the pastor of worship how do see the worshipping God part of the mission in action?

Worshipping God is really the foundation of the whole mission of the church. Becoming mature and Carrying Christ love must flow out of the worship of God and are both ultimately defined as worship. Having said that, there is still an aspect of the Worshipping God part of our mission that stands alone. In order for us to see that aspect in action we all need to begin to pursue the reality that worship is a lifestyle and our public worship services need to be seen as an open expression of a body of people whose lives practice the worship of God through out the days of all of our lives. Certainly I am referring to hypocrisy as I say this but not just that. To borrow an analogy from sports when the Dallas Cowboys play a game on Sunday they have spent all week practicing for that Game. Without practice the team does not play well. The Christian life also has practices. These practices are the spiritual disciplines of our faith (Things like personal prayer and bible study). I believe that our worship on Sunday is a direct reflection of how well we have allowed God to use these practices in our daily lives. To take the sports analogy a little further when the Dallas Cowboys play on Sunday to have success they have to play as a team. Likewise, when we worship on Sunday we have to worship as a team. It is easy to see that the worship leaders are a team, but equally important is the fact that the congregation must also see that they are a part of the team as well. Not just a spectator but an active participant. Many times I am involved in discussions about worship. These discussions range from the debates over music styles and even critiquing the quality of the music or the clothing of the worship leaders. I believe that those discussions can quickly become weapons of mass distraction from the awesome truth that we are all a part of the same team and that we all have a role to play in worshipping God with our lives and our worship services.

What steps should people take this school year to help them accomplish the Worship God part of our mission?

I would encourage all of us to have several times of personal worship throughout our days and weeks. These times of personal worship would include times of praying, reading God’s word, confessing sins, and letting God change us on a one on one basis. If we can be that kind of worshipper during the week, then I think that our Sunday services would explode in great worship of God from the all consuming fire that God has fueled us with during the week. Doing that would be my suggestion for a first step. Also, since the whole congregation has a role to play in our public worship services I think it would be good for us to offer worship training to our congregation as to what all of our roles are. If you are interested in that kind of training or help in developing you own life of personal worship please contact me in the church office.