Sermon-Centric Planning?

Neil over at the Blue Collar Worship Blog has written a great post about the problems with planning your set list around the pastor’s sermon.

There are a lot of folks who think it’s vital to plan your message around the sermon, and a lot of good tools and software available to accomplish this. I think that no matter what you do, you need to have a good line of communication with the leadership of your church, and a clear understanding of what’s expected of you. The reverse is that the leadership needs to have an understanding that if they ask for certain things it will require other things.  You can read Neil’s prespective on not planning your set list thematically to match the sermon HERE. Here’s my thoughts on why I don’t plan thematically.

Easter Is Coming

It’s Easter Week!

For the Christian, this is the best of all holidays. While Christmas and the coming of Christ is wonderful, and Thanksgiving and taking time for to give thanks, and spend time with family is terrific, none of it matters without Easter. Even Good Friday, and Jesus’ death on the cross are meaningless if didn’t rise from the dead. Easter has historically also been a time when people are more likely than any other time to attend church, so churches tend to plan and schedule accordingly.

With all that in mind, here’s a few random thoughts on leading worship Easter weekend from RealWorldWorship.Org:

The Month Of Delay

For whatever reason, and whether you like it or not, the delay effect has become a sound synonymous with modern church music. Staples like Hillsong, Paul Baloche, and Chris Tomlin, along with newer voices like Gungor and John Mark McMillian all employ the delay affect to varying degrees in the music.

Finding Maturity In Worship Ministry

My Pastor, Bill Walden, wrote a great post this week on his own blog that is worth sharing. Many of us deal with raising up new worship players and we struggle sometimes with people who have such great and genuine hearts to serve, but it seems like they can’t help but trip over themselves and others.

What If?: Complete System Failure

What If? This series looks at real world situations that come up in worship leading. They may not happen often, but they happen often enough to talk about and plan ahead for. This week we’ll talk about complete system failure.

 WHAT IS CSF?

Nobody Gets The Church They Want

Over at the 9Marks blog there’s an interesting post about giving up our preferences in church (read it HERE). While it was primarily written for pastors and church leaders, I felt the lessons for worship leaders was pretty obvious even before he used worship music as an example.

How To Make Your Worship Team Better… Even If You’re Not In Charge

A lot of times we talk about how we can better serve God and our churches in our worship, song and playing. But what if we could better serve the other members of the church band? What if we could be a servant to our worship leader instead of expecting him to march to our drum?

What if by making a few small changes we could better love and serve each other? Wouldn’t that be an act of worship to the Father who would see his children “playing nice” together? Wouldn’t that be an act of service to our church if we played better and gave them a better platform to express praise, awe, love and devotion?

TEACHING IN WORSHIP (1 TIMOTHY 1:2-11)

In this series we will study Paul’s 1st letter to Timothy, who was pastoring the church in the city of Ephesus. We will specifically key in on applications and lessons that apply to worship ministry and worship leaders. Today we will look at our calling as worship leaders.

“To Timothy my true son in the faith:

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”

1 Timothy

ARE WE TEACHERS?

Recently a friend of mine asked me if worship songs were supposed to teach people things. Without hesitation I shot back “well, we’re fooling ourselves if we think they aren’t.”

The truth is that most of us don’t remember what was taught in the sermon 3 weeks or 3 years ago, but we remember the songs. Timothy was charged not only to refute false teaching, but to instruct the people with sound teaching. I believe my pastor does this each week from the pulpit, and as worship leader, part of my job is to assist and support that teaching with songs that are based on sound doctrine.

By The Commandment of God

In this series we will study Paul’s 1st letter to Timothy, who was pastoring the church in the city of Ephesus. We will specifically key in on applications and lessons that apply to worship ministry and worship leaders. Today we will look at our calling as worship leaders.

“PAUL, AN APOSTLE OF CHRIST JESUS ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD OUR SAVIOR, AND OF CHRIST JESUS,WHO IS OUR HOPE”

1 Timothy 1:1

Paul was writing to Timothy, who he had sent to pastor and lead the church in Ephesus. What’s interesting in this verse is that recognizes his calling. For him it was being apostle, for us it’s to lead the church in song worship.

Whatever you do, whoever you are, God has specific callings on our lives. Mine is to be primarily a pastor/teacher and worship leader. By the grace of God I am what I am (1 Co 15:10), and I stand in that grace and calling.

Even if you are an “Accidental Worship Leader” or you’re in a season where you feel like you’re on the bench, God has a calling for you.

What If?: Speaking In Tongues

What If? This series looks at real world situations that come up in worship leading. They may not happen often, but they happen often enough to talk about and plan ahead for. This week we’ll talk about speaking in tongues in a church service.

IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU

Someone might have read the above paragraph and said “what’s the big deal?” If you come from certain charismatic traditions you might not find this blog post applicable. In your church this may be a very common occurrence, but for a majority of churches, even churches like mine that believe and embrace the gifts of the Spirit as valid for today, someone speaking in another tongue during a worship service isn’t the norm.

Someone else might have just read the above paragraph and said “not at my church!”. Says who? This is the “what if” series, so play along with me here. Let’s say you lead worship at a baptist or reformed church that holds to a Cessationist viewpoint, and after your third song, a person you’ve never seen before begins to cry out in a language you don’t understand. “We don’t do that at my church” you might say, and sure, that may be the accepted procedure. But let’s say that this person walked into your church not knowing that, and for whatever reason decided to speak out in this way, what do you do?