Worship Ministry Catalyst is going social! And no, there are no political implications in that title. (I also realize that we’re a little behind the times in getting this taken care of, but hey, better late than never…)

For a while, I’ve been trying to use my twitter account to get to know some of you on twitter. Which is actually working quite well. It’s been amazing to just get to know a little about a few of you through it. However, I’ve wondered if my twitter username (@lindnerphoto) may have been a hang-up of at the least confusing for some.

So, now, we have a twitter account specifically for Worship Ministry Catalyst where I will be sending tweets about the blog/podcast and trying to build community among us there! So, here ya go, our username is: @wmcatalyst. We’d love to connect with you over there!

You can also connect with us on facebook. We set up a page for you to “like” over there, and also where we can have some discussions. Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Worship-Ministry-Catalyst/142395799134634.

Of course, we’d love for you to “like” us. But beyond that, we’d love even more to get to know you, chat with you and just be able to share in the journey with you.

So, hope to connect with you soon!

I know that I’m walking a tight-rope with this post, but it’s something I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about (as with worship services in general). (This post is only meant to invoke thought, not bash sermons.)

I know the history.

I know that Jesus taught.

I know that Peter and Paul and others preached.

But why sermons? Why the passive listening? Do we actually learn from sermons anymore? Are that many people’s lives being changed through the power of sermons?

Or could it be, that they were powerful for a time and that time is coming to an end? Could it be that sermons were powerful through the reformation and with revivalists, but that now they’re just what you do at church and no one is willing to bring up the topic of change?

We’ve seen change in other part of the worship service. Music has changed with the times. Some churches have changed the way we take offering, others the way we take communion. Some churches have changed the venue in which we meet and others the venue through which we see the sermon, but how many have changed the sermon?

Sure some have made some changes. A video here. A drama there. A costume here. A song there. But, for the most part and for the majority of the weeks out of the year, the format stays the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily have some other idea for teaching/preaching/sermons (by the way, what’s the point of sermons – to teach?). And I’m not just trying to get more time for the worship guys (though I most certainly wouldn’t be opposed to that). It just seems that, for the most part, with all the change the church has been through the biggest piece of the puzzle remains unchanged. And as culture changes faster than I can type the word change, shouldn’t the biggest portion of our services also be thought through just as carefully as every other slice of the pie?

(Now, I just want to go eat my last piece of birthday apple pie. Maybe pie is the answer….)

If Jesus were to have chosen now to come and show us the way the truth and the life, do you think he’ be preaching sermons? As for me, I don’t know. Jesus’ messages are timeless, transcend all human teaching ability and will never be replaced other than by Jesus himself. But in the time in which Jesus came, that’s what people did. Rabbi’s of the day didn’t have to fight for people’s attention because what else was there? Hanging out with tax collectors?

I just wonder what means of communication Jesus would choose to use in this day and age. Sure it’s kind of a hypothetical question, but from where I sit, it’s a question we need to ask. We may never agree on an answer. We may fail in our attempts to communicate more effectively. But then again, we may become more effective at reaching people for Christ. People who have already heard sermons and found no reason to continue listening.

Let me ask you this, how many people’s lives are being changed (I’m talking real change, not Sunday change) as a result of the sermons that are being preached at your church? If the answer to that question is many, then maybe you don’t need to change anything. Maybe you do. If the answer to that question is few, then maybe you need to change something. Then again, maybe it’s the worship guy’s spiky hair that needs to be changed.

Regardless, in our quest to reach a many people for Christ, let us not leave any stone unturned. The stones you turn may bare the most fertile ground.

And all it needs is a seed.

Just one.

(Chime in! If you have input on this topic, leave your comment below. If you think I’m totally off base, feel free to let me know that you think so! If you have an idea of what sermons should look like today, or what Jesus would do, let us all know!!!)

If you’ve been leading worship for long, you’ve undoubtedly been through a summer lull. I’m definitely there right now. People go on vacation with no consideration, it seems, for your needs as a worship leader. It’s almost as if they have their own lives apart from your worship ministry and that they’d rather be on the beach than playing or singing in your team. The nerve!

Well, as I’ve been thinking about our discussion in our most recent episode of the WMC podcast, it seems that part of the issue may be our perception of what summer is. Of course, summer is a time for vacationing. Of course, summer is a time when people get out of town, restore their souls and get some much needed time with family and some even more needed perspective on life.

And as I thought about that, I thought, shouldn’t we be doing the same thing in our worship ministries? Shouldn’t there be a season in our ministry where we give people a break, where we build relationships and where we get perspective? And the answer to that is yes.

In summer, we have the unique opportunity to build momentum in a way that doesn’t happen during other times of the year. Normally we think of building momentum in terms of recruiting & equipping. We think of teaching our congregations new songs and new ways to worship. But, what if momentum during the summer was different?

What if we decided that summer wasn’t going to be about those things, but that it was going to be about what summer seems to be about? What if we decided that instead of beating down doors to have a team on the weekend, we would replace the time we’d spend on that with time spent building relationships with the people who are around? What if we intentionally gave people the weekend off, so they’d be more ready to serve the next time their name is on the list? What if instead of waiting for them to accept or decline their availability, we declined it for them? What if, instead of trying to plow our way through the summer, we took time to reflect on the last year, gain some perspective for the year to come and allow God to speak into our lives for the year to come?

So, my suggestions are simple. 1.) Give people time off during the summer without making them feel guilty for doing so; 2.)Take the time you’d be spending, preparing for the big team & spend it building relationships with people who are around; 3.)Relax, Rest, and gain some perspective. Allow the weekly grind to pass you by, and let God speak into your life for how He wants worship to look at your church this coming fall.

That’s it. It’s that simple. Re-think summer and I think you’ll be able to enjoy it much more. And in doing so, you’ll start off this fall with momentum. You’ll be ready to go. Your Team will be ready to go.

Oh yeah, and take a vacation!

As a follow up to this last podcast I wanted to give you a little more info on some tech you should definitely be making use of in your worship arts Ministry. I know that Kevin & I may not agree on this list, but to me, these are essentials. They may not be the right fit for you, but I think they’re worthy of trying & checking out.

1.) Planning Center Online

Okay, this is what sparked the debate in our last podcast. It’s an extremely useful to, especially if you’re more the artist personality and less of the organized type. If you always feel like you’re behind in scheduling or in keeping in touch with the volunteers you work with, you’ll love it. If you like to plan ahead, it’s great because you can just go to the plan you’re thinking of, ad in an idea or two for that weekend and then when you’re ready to finish the plan – you have it – right there!

There are some other great features to PCO as well. Song & Chart organization, printing songbooks for the weekend, the community where you can see what other churches who use PCO are doing and others. With all that great functionality, it’s extremely simple & easy to use.

2.) Facebook

If you’re still using email & not using facebook, I’ll be praying for you. I pray for Kevin all the time about this. Facebook is such a great tool for ministry. It provides and easy way for you to keep tabs on your worship personnel & what’s going on in their lives without (and I know this sounds bad) having to have a conversation with each one of them every week. I don’t mean that it’s bad to talk to people in person, but who among us has time to talk to every single volunteer every single week? I know I don’t and because of facebook I don’t have to. We have a group for our Worship Arts Members. If nothing else, I can use this group as a list to go & mingle with all our people, but you can also use the group for discussions, announcements & prayer requests.

3.) A Blog

Obviously I think a blog is an important piece of the puzzle. It’s another way to build community among your team members online. You can use it as a teaching platform, you can use it to get feedback on new songs, and other things.

If adding a blog seems like too much, use facebook. You can have a blog within facebook & you can use your group for this kind of stuff too!

4.) An iPod

I’ve done posts about this in the past, and you can go check that out for more info. But there are many great ways to use your ipod as a worship tool. You can use it in rehearsals to listen to new music, you can put a slew of new worship songs on there and then go through them and decide which songs best fit your congregation. You can put your set on there and use it to practice with or learn new songs. There are a lot of great ways to use this as a tool.

It should also be said that the iPhone, iPod touch and Droid add another layer of functionality & usefulness for you as a worship leader. I haven’t been able to afford one yet, but one day I will. With apps like guitar tuners, metronomes, real time analyzers, etc. there are a lot of useful things in there!

5.) You Tube

Warning! Caution! I just want you to beware that not everything on You tube is, shall we say, wholesome. That aside, there are a lot of useful video tutorials on You Tube that members of your worship Team will find useful. Paul Baloche teaching his new songs, or Lincoln Brewster teaching the guitar lick to his new song, and many others doing the same kind of thing. It can save you & your instrumentalists a ton of time.

Well, that’s my list. What’s yours? Comment on this post with your tech tools that you can’t live without!

Do you want to be on our podcast? We’d love to have you.

Yes, You.

The person reading this post.

Asking yourself, why would they want me.

Well, we want you.

Why you? Because we want real people on the podcast.

Worship Ministry Catalyst is a networking resource for ALL worship leaders and ALL Worship Team members.

That means you.

If you live in the Vancouver/Portland Area, come by & we’ll do it live.

If you live anywhere else in the world, we can do it through skype.

We’d love to have you on the podcast to talk about worship ministry in your church, and to learn from you! Send me an email to david @ worshipministrycatalyst.com or fill out the contact form to let us know you’re interested.

If you don’t have your band playing with a metronome or click track, you most definitely should. We do, almost every song of every weekend. It was hard at first. I’ll give you that. It took us some getting used to, but once we did – oh the joy! There’s no longer a question of who was rushing what part, you can hear it.

It’s kind of natural too.

For a lot of our church musicians, playing to a click track is something they do all the time, they might just not realize it. But, when you’re playing along with a recording of a worship tune, chances are, you’re playing with a click track.

We use the Tama Rhythm Watch. It’s a pretty good metronome for only 90 bucks. It’s not perfect. But you can store presets which is essential for using live. It’s got an output on it, so we run it into our aviom in ear monitors & it’s great.

“That’s great,” you say, “but we don’t have fancy in-ear monitors like you new fangled churches.” That may be so, and there’s nothing wrong with that. (Though, in the future, I’ll talk about the advantages of that, if you don’t already know.) This one, has a little light on it, that your drummer could use. Or, you could give the drummer an ear piece to listen to the metronome. At the very least you ought to consider using one in your rehearsals. It will definitely help sharpen up your performances.

Playing with a metronome will really tighten the band up. I wasn’t a believer before we started trying it & made a commitment to stick to it. But now that we have, it makes a really big difference. Give yourself a few months, and you’ll be wanting to play with videos & loops.

Of course if you go that route, Ableton Live has a click built right in, and it can do other cool things like sync guitar pedals & other MIDI/SMPTE devices.

Below is a good self assessment to see where you are in terms of your ability to play with a click.

The original post is here http://silverlakestudio.com/2010/05/guest-post-are-you-ready-to-record/ .

• Beginner – unable to stay with the click. The playing tempo lopes in and out of time as the player(s) first rush the beat, then compensate by slowing down.

• Advancing beginner – this is where the player is now able to follow the click accurately, but his playing has become stiff and constrained. All the focus is on following the click and not much is left to create a groove or musical feel.

• Accomplished – this is where the player or the band as a whole are able to follow the click precisely while maintaining an infectious and inviting rhythm.

• Advanced – at this level, the player has mastered all aspects of playing with the click and taken it to the level of an advanced skill, or art form. One of the most fascinating tricks I’ve seen studio musicians pull off in this realm is a thing I call the “tempo illusion.” Let’s say there’s a ritard in the middle of the song. By playing ever so slightly behind the click, while gradually playing more softly and using fewer notes and less rhythm –through the course of the ritard, these players create a tempo illusion that sounds exactly like a slowing of the tempo, but the tempo has actually not changed at all. When the click is removed, the listener would swear that the music has slowed down through the “fake” ritard. It’s a fascinating and inspiring thing to watch, and I hope readers might take this as a motivation to work hard on click skills.