FOUNDATIONS OF AN ANOINTED BAND

from "Excellence in Music Ministry" by Steve Ingram

An anointed band is one of the main ways for us to defeat satan. Music is a spiritual force before it is an audible force. It is through holy, clean, honorable, noble, sanctified vessels that the spirit of God will do its work. We can decide to place God first and see our craft, our ability and our calling, our eternal calling of being involved in music, defeat satan and cause healing and deliverances to come forth.

God has a clear vision (II Chronicles 5:13-14) to intimately worship with us - 7 days a week, as often as the Spirit of God allows. We need to get before God and get cleansed. God's desire for the use of music is to see his glory fill the house of God and we are the house of God; therefore the worship hour is every day all the time - this is an area we need to get a vision of. He wants to inhabit us - intimately so all of what we do

Sunday morning comes out of a personal, intimate, growing relationship with Jesus Christ. As musicians called into the priesthood of the Levitical order of musicians, we follow that intimate relationship with Jesus Christ with him as the master conductor.

Read II Chronicles for types and shadows of what God wants today. We have to have a desire for God to inhabit the praises of his people - individually and corporately. The role of the musician is to stir up the heart of the Pastor. Unity of purpose is a by-product of people honoring the word and the presence of the Lord. As the musicians and the Pastor establish the purpose that we're involved in here it will bring us closer together. We need to seek and worship together. As we seek and desire God, then that vision - that unity of our purpose is established.

I Corinthians 14:7-8 the musicians bring forth a certain sound - these sounds come out of knowing there's an enemy there, knowing what the battle cry is and it comes from leadership - having the same vision purpose and goals. So then the music can begin to do warfare with the Pastor and we won't just be playing background music, but will be going into warfare because we know what the heart of the Pastor is because he's shared that with us. We will interject a kind of music that brings deliverance and does warfare in the spirit world before it even does warfare in the fleshly world.

Area of Leadership: It's better to have a music program with very few musicians in it who are willing to follow the will of God, the word of the Pastor and have very well defined, matured leadership - than to have just a bunch of musicians up there playing. A way to do this is to have some requirements with your musicians. Musicians have been called to stir up the word of God in their own hearts first - then in the body. Choose you out "faithful" men who God will make able to do the other things and not men of talent first. Show the musicians that their job here is serious. We need to study the word together with the Pastor - so we can develop honesty and commitment together.

Music is not just sound alone. It has to come from the heart of people - otherwise we could just worship to tapes - but we need spirit involved in the music - Musicians need to be growing in the word of God and flowing with the Spirit of God today, and not just given the position because of tradition - less is more - in the word there's biblical foundations in Judges - Chapter 7.

Do your musicians have a spirit of fear - is this job too fearful for you - are you spiritually mature enough to see deliverances right in front of your eyes, because of the notes that come out of your instrument. This job of warfare that we're in today is not a job for immature believers. It's a job for believers who are committed to the word of God - committed to seeing the works of satan destroyed.

In Gideon's day - he tested them by how they drank water out of the river - give the musicians a test - does self come to the surface or does honoring the Lord come up. A warrior would never leave their backside unguarded! This is what not studying the word of God and not praying is analogous to. We need a small quality group of musicians who are tightly knit, warrior musicians, who know their job and their function - who know their job is to stir up the heart of the Pastor - the flow of God will be much sweeter and better and the presence will come much quicker.

Our lives need to bring forth quality to the people that we are interceding (musicans are intercessors too) for and faithful to - we must submit to the Pastor and be obedient to the word of God that comes from the Pastor - this will elevate the standard and give us power. We need discipline through defining and fine-tuning the group we are working with. We need to qualify, mature musicians in the Lord and guide them - it's better to not use musicians unless their lives "live it".

Plan for the future: teach young children music theory, reading, ear training, how to look and judge music - how to judge the spirit of music (Philippians); not judge the sound or style - so that as they grow up they know how to respond to the spirit of God - they've learned sensitivity to the Holy Ghost and know how to respond with their instruments.

Rehearsal suggestions: We could have 15 minutes of intercession before our practice. We could also have a time of ministering in the spirit together - this is a great time for the Pastor to come in and then we can stir him up even more by going into a specific song - get him to agree with us in that ministry time that bondages, sickness, problems in the church will leave and the spiritual force of music will go through with great anointing….even have him tell us where the direction might be going Sunday so that the musicians might be more in tune with what the Pastor wants to do.

It's time that we recognize that Sunday morning is not the only prayer time we have all week. We have to look to our entire lives as leading up to and being joined to this time of worship Sunday morning …perhaps we could even anoint each other's hands and foreheads with oil - so that the word of God could come out of our spirit and what we pray about and study all week can manifest itself and therefore the presence of God could manifest itself during the service. Make sure music doesn't get in the way of your worship. The musician's confession: "We are priests. We dwell in unity and live a Godly life, free from the entrapments of this world. We never allow strife to dwell in our midst for we are children of the light. The Creator dwells within us and is free to create fresh new songs and sounds from our inner most being. Therefore the music that flows from us brings forth encouragement, blessing, healing and in every way glorifies the Father, for we are priests and we dwell in unity."

8 things every church music program needs:

1. the presence of God in every service based on II Chron. 5:13-14.
2. the flow of the Holy Spirit all of the time and not just a bunch of songs lists to be the music portion leading to the offering and the sermon.
3. Spiritual leadership from the music - it is not preparing the heart for ministry - it is doing the ministry - it is doing warfare.
4. Fresh new sounds and songs to take place every service so we look for prophetic music to take place.
5. We need the power of God to be demonstrated in the music ministry.
6. We need to always be an encouragement to our Pastor, who is our local prophet.
7. We need to be boldly declaring deliverance to the heart of the people.
8. Our music needs to minister to the heart of God.