“It is always the right time to do the right thing.” - Martin Luther King
What is ‘Integrity’?
…being honest and having strong moral principles?
…being consistent in actions and values?
…displaying good and positive character?
…practicing what we preach?
All of these are more or less right because ‘integrity’ means many things to many people.
Here’s how I prefer to understand it: ‘Integrity’ is eliminating the gap between who I am in public and who I really am. 'Integrity' is living in authenticity. 'Integrity' is living without compromising Christ. 'Integrity' is keeping it real.
As worship leaders or any other ministers, I believe we should focus on at least these three categories of integrity.
3 Kinds of Integrity
1. Pastoral
Good worship leaders consider what people need to sing. Lousy worship leaders on the other hand are more into Christian entertainment—playing a bunch of songs because people know them and/or like them. They may call it ‘worship’ but we know it isn’t that!
Integrity demands pastoral conviction—a resolute desire to do the right thing especially when it’s unpopular. We do what we believe is the best thing for our people because we care more about them than their opinion of us.
For e.g. Generally, people love to attend healing services, but there are not so many takers for repentance & surrender services. Leaders with pastoral hearts know the importance of the latter and serve accordingly.
We ought to remember the example of David who “…shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.” - Psalm 78:72
2. Theological
From a congregational worship perspective, whether it’s a choir in a Catholic Mass or a contemporary worship leader in an Evangelical service, all of us have a huge responsibility to ensure people are taught to sing sound theology… nothing less! You see, there are songs, which express our own feelings, and others that convey our disposition towards God and teach truths about Him. I believe our set-lists should be skewed more towards the latter type of songs.
This also means a song with even the slightest compromise on correct theology should not make it to our set-list either. For e.g. there’s this song with these lyrics:
You stand alone
I stand amazed
Jesus, only Jesus
Excluding these lines, the rest of the song is fantastic, with catchy melodies, and is totally congregational. But we cannot ignore the theology that Jesus is never alone—He’s in perfect and perpetual communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Maybe the songwriter meant something else, but I am not getting it. Maybe I could consider changing the lines to something like
You stand above
I stand amazed
Jesus, only Jesus
But it involves the cumbersome process of contacting the songwriter for permission. The easier option—simply pick some other song!
3. Personal
Sure, we can listen to all the sermons, read all kinds of scripture verses, and sing the most wonderful of songs with the greatest of skill… but personal integrity is simply about who I am when I am off the stage, away from the spotlight. My friend, integrity is practicing in the dark what we claim to be in the light.
Personal integrity is all about holding on to the Gospel and Christian principles especially when it costs us. This is one of the best lessons that the Jesus in the gospels can teach us—it cost Him His very life but He wouldn’t budge from doing the right thing… from doing God’s will. The early Christians we read about in the rest of the New Testament teach us nothing less… follow Christ at any cost!
I value personal integrity most of all, because without the practice of personal integrity, we are nothing more than bona fide fakes... hypocrites even.
I believe personal integrity is a sure path to personal holiness… the key to unlock pastoral and theological integrity.
5 Best Practices to Live With Personal Integrity
1. Transparency
Be totally transparent with at least one other person—someone with whom we can share all our struggles, and count on for good counsel and prayer. Except in the case of a spouse, it’s advisable this sharing partner is of the same gender. The more we hide our weaknesses, the more scope they acquire to take deeper root in our lives. Light always drives away darkness!
2. Forgiveness
We need to stop beating ourselves down whenever we compromise (and we will!). Instead, we would do well to repent, forgive ourselves, and seek the Lord’s grace… we need to believe that His grace is truly sufficient!
3. Ending Self-Justification
Our minds have tremendous abilities to rationalize and justify our compromises and convince us that "it’s okay"… we need to stop that and simply admit it’s not, and take it from there. Trust me, every compromise, no matter how small or insignificant it is, will invariably lead us to a far bigger sin… it’s only a matter of time!
4. Discarding Masks
Once I was conversing about attire with a female worship leader and she happened to mention that she wouldn’t wear a particular type of clothes on stage, but wouldn't mind wearing it elsewhere. Then she paused as the implication of her words dawned on her!
We need to consciously be the same person on and off the stage—let’s get rid of those masks that we tend to wear, especially inside the Church!
5. Hope
We need to stop depending on our own willpower—it only makes us smug, self-righteousness, legalistic, and vain. Instead, the Bible teaches us to hope in the Lord, for then “integrity and uprightness” will protect us (Psalm 25:21).
Integrity can be consistently lived out only when it's inspired by the Holy Spirit—we desperately need Him to move inside us—let's never cease calling out to Him with utmost hope!
Attracting people is in many ways easy, but keeping and shepherding cannot be done without integrity. See what St. Paul said: “Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace.” - 2 Corinthians 1:12
With every compromise, we turn ourselves over to the dark side… allowing our souls to bleed. Preserving integrity is our war against compromise… and the time to start this war is now!
