Should non-Christians be on worship teams?

At first I was unmistakably clear about my stance on this discussion. I still reside in the same set of beliefs however, I cannot help but wish I was wrong. Let me explain why.

The word of God is quite clear about who is and IS NOT supposed to be in leadership. A few examples would be in Paul’s letter to Timothy where is giving his young, but able disciple a few guidelines for choosing leaders for the church. We’re going to break it up and evalutate closely, just to make sure we aren’t missing anything.

1 Timothy 3:2 “An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious[argumentative] but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?), and not a new convert so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.”

Wow. These are some pretty high standards. Even for christians. But maybe I’m being harsh so lets analyze this carefully to see if most christians qualify. Let’s see, husband of one wife…good… temperate …good…respectable…ok…hospitable…for the most part…able to teach…ouch…gentle…ok…free from the love of money…check…keeping kids under control…ouch again…and what is this? “and not a new convert so that he will not become conceited and fall…”. Hmmm. It seems to me that the people Paul recommends for leadership are those who are seasoned in the Lord and have walked with him for a while. If being in leadership can be as detrimental to new convert as Paul says, then how destructive can it be to allow someone, who is an unbeliever, under the wrath of God, subject to their carnality, and slaves to their flesh’s desires, who’s every whim is marred by depravity, to be on your worship team? I’ll take a wild guess here and say quite. So it seems that you aren’t doing any favors to an unbeliever by allowing them to carry leadership responsibilities, you are actually hurting them. Aside from that, you trust a non-believer to fullfill ANY of these requirements. Because if they do not acknowledge God’s holy standard then how can you expect them to do any of these? You honestly cannot, because even though a unbeliever may have a set of moral standards, they are still depraved and slaves to their flesh and you can’t trust them to do anything the Lord as asks because they have not yet submitted their lives to Him and his standards. Good morals ARE NOT enough.

I feel it’s important to firmly establish where or not your tambourine player needs to redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. I think to best investigate this, lets look at God’s orignal, “Worship Leaders”, the Levites. It is a common relation to make between the Levites of the old testament and worship leaders of today. In Numbers as God is giving Moses the steps that the Levites needed to take to fullfill their duties. This is how the bible describes it.

Numbers 8:20-22 “Thus did Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the sons of Israel to the Levites; according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so the sons of Israel did to them. The Levites too, purified themselves from sin and washed their clothes; and Aaron presented a wave offering before the Lord.”

We see here part of ritual performed by the Levites required them to be cleansed. In Malachai 3:3 it says that the Lord will “…purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.” How can an unbeliever offer anything righteous to God if even at his best his righteousness is as filthy rags? It seems apparent that non-christians don’t fit the bill for leadership. This, however, is only the beginning of the problems with allow unbelievers on your worship team.

I believe it is common understanding that we call band a worship team because we operate with a common goal and purpose by the vehicle of unity in the spirit. Paul had strong opinions about this one,

2 Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be bound(lit. unequally yoked) together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Chirst with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of god with idols?”

When speaking of being unequally yoked, Paul is using imagery of the common day where a heavy load would be pulled on a cart of sorts by a team of oxen. They were yoked together. The only way this works is if, the oxen are of somewhat equal strength and if they both go the same direction. So quite plainly, if we allow unbelievers onto our worship team, we are being yoked or bound to an unbeliever. And NO unbeliever has the ability to carry the mantle of a leader. They simply DO NOT QUALIFY. The qualifier? The blood of Jesus.

However, I am not completely unsympathetic to the opposing view. I have a friend right now, that is unsaved and if I allow him to play with me, he’ll attend One Voice. I wish so badly that I could bring him in with a justified and clean conscience, but when I read what the word clearly states, I know it cannot be so, however I am not worried, him playing with me on a Thursday night at OV is not the only way to reach him for Jesus. And until I can find some biblical justification, I remain with my current view. From what the bible tells us, it is for not only our benefit, but also for the benefit of the unsaved person.