Worship Without Music

We need new words for things. One of those things is Song Worship. As a culture in the West we have limited worship to singing and singing related activities.  I’ve heard bass players, and soundmen and overhead slide operators all complain about how they can’t “worship” when they serve in those capacities. Music and Song is only one small way that we as christians worship Jesus.

Random Thoughts

-If people come to hear the pastor preach, then what’s wrong with them coming to hear the band play?

-How many sermons have been preached about what “worship music is” by preachers who don’t know anything about music and who come in after the song worship is done?

-When you get up instead of sleeping in on Sunday: That is worship

-My pastor asked me to do a song I wouldn’t have picked. He doesn’t do it often and i really hated it he’d listen to my reasons, but it’s good for me to submit, especially this week where I’m feeling feisty.

-Its good to do songs you don’t like sometimes if it serves the people of God
-When you put the cash in the offering box that is often a greater acting of worship then any song you’ll sing that morning.

-Someone asked me once if the band Kutless was punk rock… They aren’t.

-We worship God with our minds when we listen to a sermon and with our whole strength when we choose to follow what the bible says.

-Read Revelation 5 as a worship service. It’s been heavy on my mind the last few days.

-if you’re the music director do you have a “direction” or just a vision for the status quo.

-I love reverb. More reverb.

No Offense But I Don’t Relate

The Reason I started this blog is that I was looking for blogs and podcasts about leading worship so that I could get better in areas I’m weak in. For me this would be admin, mostly, but I’d like to get better at team development, running practices, etc.

I found that the blogs and podcasts were not dealing with these issues or they were done by guys at a big church. There is NOTHING wrong with big churches, I grew up in a church that was around 2,000 people strong. But the reality is that leading at church of 700 or so and then planting a church that averages below 100 people, the dynamics are a lot different.

Also, a lot of the musical style and expression they were discussing was foreign to me. The expressions I found either leaned towards performance or towards a form of simplicity that was often a cover for laziness and lack of vision. In short I just didn’t relate.

I’m not trying to rag on every worship blog out there… one of the blogs that seemed to me to be from a very performance driven church taught me a lot about admin. One of the podcasts that leaned towards that rigid simplicity reminded me that I wasn’t a rock star. Both sides were used by God to bless, challenge and teach me.

I just felt that I had a perspective I could share here, and  that there might be other worship leaders like me out there who want to grow in their gifts and callings but don’t connect with the currently out there or are looking for a different perspective. I hope as I write more posts that it will be helpful to someone in some way.