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3 Keys For Excellence in Worship Ministry: Heart, Head, Hands

June 9, 2011 in Leadership with 8 Comments

Here’s a simple framework for training, mentoring and equipping people to better serve in worship ministry.   I think it’s helpful for any context large or small, long term or short term. It has worked for me in these situations:

  • Youth Ministry extended over many “generations” (including rebuilding every couple of years for the ‘next generation’)
  • International Special Events of only 3 or 4 days like the SOZO Festival - leading a different team every day with as many 12-16 people from different countries, representing diverse languages, cultures and personalities.
  • Large church ministry with multiple leaders, numerous team members and lots of moving parts.

For healthy growth and excellence, focus on training in these three critical areas: heart, head and hands (Mark 12:30). See this post for more about this scripture and the basics of worship.

Why these three areas?

  1. Some people have a sincere heart, but need to work on practical skills.
  2. Some guys-n-gals are great players or singers but need a heart revelation of worship and an attitude adjustment.
  3. Some have a good heart and adequate skills, but need to fill their gaps in understanding or expand their knowledge. Continue Reading…

Glen Packiam discusses Wholehearted Worship Community

April 27, 2011 in Leadership, Vision with 5 Comments

“What should be the core leadership values for developing a healthy, wholehearted worshiping community?”

That’s the question I submitted to  The Worship Community website for Glen Packiam, Executive Pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he oversees Spiritual Formation and serves as the Teaching Pastor for NewLifeSundayNight.

He’s a respected author , has songs in the CCLI Top 100, and is pretty much the bomb when it comes to the pastor-thinker-musician-songwriter package.

What question would you ask? (Link to original blog post)

His answers blew me away.

It’s a really interesting video. There’s 10 questions and he covers mine at about 13:20 minutes. There’s a great riff about being culturally relevant before that.

Some of his key ideas for developing a wholehearted worshiping community:

Continue Reading…

What Are Barriers to Wholehearted Worship?

April 13, 2011 in Leadership, Spirituality with 19 Comments

The purpose of this blog is to encourage wholehearted worship worldwide.

Worship leaders and pastors know that the first and greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul , all your mind  and all your strength” (Mark 12:30) .

So, why don’t members of our congregations seem to worship more wholeheartedly?

This question has as many reasons as it has people in a community of faith.

Some barriers are practical, others are more complicated issues of the heart. This series will identify some issues and solutions. Let’s break it down in three spheres:

  1. The worship leader’s responsibility.
  2. Issues of the individual heart.
  3. Issues of group dynamics.

Barriers worship leaders create and can do something about.

Worship leaders have the responsibility to make it easy for people to worship. Here are some common problems that can be addressed with awareness and thoughtful planning.

  1. The song is not in a good key for congregational singing. The original recording of many popular worship songs are in keys that sound great for the artist, but are un-singable for many congregations. Maybe you can sing it, but nobody else can. Don’t be a diva or a rock star. Transpose the song so that your melodies aren’t too high for the ladies or too low for the men.
  2. The song has a really wide vocal range. Finding a congregational key for songs with a vocal range over an octave can be tough. Example:  “From The Inside Out”.  Great song, but tough for Grandmom to sing that chorus. Expect decreased participation.
  3. Nobody knows the song, or it’s a difficult song to sing. If there’s a big learning curve, or lots of syncopated lyric,  expect the average Joe to be lost. Large groups are not quick learners of complicated music.
  4. The sound is too loud. Fact: if the sound from the band regularly drowns out the voice of the people they will stop fighting the band and become spectators. Your goal should be facilitate participation, not observation.
  5. The worship leader is not setting a good example. This can manifest in two ways:
  • Behaviors or mannerisms that are distracting, annoying, or  drawing attention to the leader. This is off-putting.
  • The opposite is when leader gets lost in the wonder,keeps their eyes closed, ignores folks and is not clearly leading.  This is confusing.

I’ve learned all these things the hard way.

Continue Reading…

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programing

March 15, 2011 in Leadership, Spirituality, Vision, Worship Set Lists with 10 Comments

This post is for worship leaders and planners.

Imagine this … it’s Friday, the weekend services are planned, the music charts and arrangements ready, the media slides prepared. You can relax and chill.

But then, disaster strikes. No, not the kind that inconveniences you , like the drummer cancels or your hard drive crashes. Its a major tragedy, a death, a catastrophic local or world calamity, something of such magnitude that you would be remiss to ignore it. Should this event change your worship plan? My answer – maybe, it depends.

When is it right to change plans?

Deciding to do anything “off plan” is going to be a judgment call requiring wisdom and discernment. This past weekend, for example, I had originally planned on making “Happy Day” the first song. As I watched the images of the Japan earthquake, a happy-clappy call to worship seemed a ludicrous opener. The weight and impact of the world situation called for something more focused on declaring God’s sovereignty over natural events.

My ministry philosophy is to facilitate wholehearted worship, not escapist put-on-a-happy-face worship. There are times when we need to be pastorally sensitive to the mindset of our people and honestly address the tragedies at hand. However,  that does not mean we constantly shift here and there, always letting the news change our plans. Many times the best response is to just stay the course. Let wisdom and some common sense rule.

What to say? The Psalms are a good model.

The Psalms of lament (13, 51, 69, 38, 41, 71, 88 and others) give us structure and language when we don’t know what to say.

  1. First, we call on the Lord.
  2. We bring him the issue with frank honesty.
  3. We ask for his help in specific ways.
  4. We conclude by expressing hope, trust and confidence in His ability and desire to respond.

David’s songs were testimonies of his confidence in God.  Their message in essence, life is hard, but God is good.

In worship, we give people language to express truth.

So we substituted “God of Wonders”, I felt the lyrics “Lord of all creation, of water earth and sky ..” helped give us words to focus on God’s sovereignty over nature. We also subbed in “Your Love Never Fails” because it expresses confidence in God’s love “You make all things work together for my good”

The purpose of this blog is to encourage wholehearted worship worldwide.

What about you? Have you changed your worship plan because of some significant event? I’d love to see your comments or thoughts on this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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