We’re going to be going through the book God Songs by Paul Baloche & Jimmy & Carol Owens. (If you click on the title, it will take you directly to the store on Paul’s site where you can buy your own copy of the book.) By the way, if you haven’t checked out Paul’s Site: leadworship.com, you should do that. There are tons of great resources there for your worship team.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Simply go to http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We’re going to be going through the book God Songs by Paul Baloche & Jimmy & Carol Owens. (If you click on the title, it will take you directly to the store on Paul’s site where you can buy your own copy of the book.) By the way, if you haven’t checked out Paul’s Site: leadworship.com, you should do that. There are tons of great resources there for your worship team.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Simply go to http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We’re going to be going through the book God Songs by Paul Baloche & Jimmy & Carol Owens. (If you click on the title, it will take you directly to the store on Paul’s site where you can buy your own copy of the book.) By the way, if you haven’t checked out Paul’s Site: leadworship.com, you should do that. There are tons of great resources there for your worship team.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you, as well as we would really appreciate some good feedback on iTunes, if you don’t mind taking a minute to do so that would be awesome!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders. Simply go to http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We’re going to be going through the book God Songs by Paul Baloche & Jimmy & Carol Owens. (If you click on the title, it will take you directly to the store on Paul’s site where you can buy your own copy of the book.) By the way, if you haven’t checked out Paul’s Site: leadworship.com, you should do that. There are tons of great resources there for your worship team.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you, as well as we would really appreciate some good feedback on iTunes, if you don’t mind taking a minute to do so that would be awesome!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders at http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We’re going to be going through the book God Songs by Paul Baloche & Jimmy & Carol Owens. (If you click on the title, it will take you directly to the store on Paul’s site where you can buy your own copy of the book.) By the way, if you haven’t checked out Paul’s Site: leadworship.com, you should do that. There are tons of great resources there for your worship team.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you, as well as we would really appreciate some good feedback on iTunes, if you don’t mind taking a minute to do so that would be awesome!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders at http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Show Notes:

The Gift of Christmas – Click here to download .pdf of the choral Arr. (This songs is protected & is the property of David Lindner Music – please let me know if you wish to use this for your church.

We’re going to be going through the book God Songs by Paul Baloche & Jimmy & Carol Owens. (If you click on the title, it will take you directly to the store on Paul’s site where you can buy your own copy of the book.) By the way, if you haven’t checked out Paul’s Site: leadworship.com, you should do that. There are tons of great resources there for your worship team.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you, as well as we would really appreciate some good feedback on iTunes, if you don’t mind taking a minute to do so that would be awesome!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders at http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

This Sunday, we had one of our missionaries preach.  It wasn’t exactly a “Mission Week” like David had last Sunday, but it was cool and different having this missionary to India preaching on suffering. It gave everyone in the church a really different perspective; plus everyone was listening really well because George was kind of hard to understand

Here’s what our service looked like:

• Scripture Reading: Psalm 89:5-8 / Psalm 47:10-11
• Awesome is the Lord (Chris Tomlin)
• Your Grace is Enough (Chris Tomlin)
• Scripture Reading:  Romans 8:17-18 / Romans 5:2-5
• Still(Reuben Morgan / Hillsong)
• Good to Me (Old Calvary Chapel Song… can’t remember who wrote it; Craig something)
• Blessed Be Your Name (Matt Redman)
• Prayer for Offering
• It is Well  (Special arrangement for lead and tenor vocals; very cool!)
• Message: “An Eternal Perspective on Suffering” (George Varghese; missionary in India)
• Closing Thoughts / Transition into Business Meeting

We had a bit of a struggle transitioning into our Business Meeting.  We were trying to create a very smooth flow, but it didn’t work out so well.  There was some miscommunication, and a bunch of people ended up leaving and causing some distractions.  It’s hard to go from a worship service and then to talk business stuff.  If anyone has any good ideas, let me know!

To check out other weekend reviews, check out Fred McKinnon’s site!

The end result I think was pretty good.  I had several people come up after and thank me for how worshipful the service was.  I’m thinking to myself, “Really?  I was just trying not to end 30 minutes over!”  Isn’t it cool how God still works even when we’re thinking logistics.  I love that!

So here’s what our Sunday looked like:

• Open the Eyes of My Heart(Paul Baloche)
• Mission Focus: Dave & Pat Potts (supported missionaries back from the field)
• Revelation Song (Jamie Riddle… we’ve been doing this song this past couple weeks.  It’s a little tricky to learn, but a powerful song).
• Communion time, with servers passing out elements in between songs
• Holy God(Brian Doerksen… another song we’ve been doing recently that people how really embraced)
• Above All(Lenny LeBlanc and Paul Baloche)
• Welcome Time
• Body Life / Prayer for Offering
• Glorious(Paul Baloche… brand new song that hasn’t been released.  Front edge stuff!)
• Message: God Who? – Psalm 19

Hope everyone is staying fresh in the ministry.  Check out what other people are doing at Fred McKinnon’s blog.  CYA!

The conference that Kevin went to was the Deeper Conference.

Also, if you’d like to check out Paul Baloche’s website, you can do so by clicking here.

If you’re a faithful listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast, we would love to hear from you and we’d also love it if you’d take the time to share us with your friends and other worship leaders you know.

Whether you’re new or have been listening for quite some time, we would love to hear form you, as well as we would really appreciate some good feedback on iTunes, if you don’t mind taking a minute to do so that would be awesome!

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders at http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Do you know what I’m talking about? You know….(long awkward pause)…. quiet song …… (long awkward pause with weird, random instrument noises) …. Loud song (scared to death from the shock of the loud sound, heart rate jumps through the roof). ….. beuler….beuler…. Etc.

Picking up from last week’s episode we’re talking once again about creativity, and specifically about how to create good flow when we’re incorporating some of these creative elements. We don’t want the people whom we are trying to lead in worship to be victims of a worship tsunami, we want them to enjoy worship flow.

If you have some insight to offer on this topic, we’d love to hear from you. One of the ways you can do that is to join our growing network of Worship Leaders at http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

34:48

So, Dan said yes and it was just him and me on Sunday… and it was AWESOME!  I probably had more positive feedback this Sunday then I have in a long time.  People really enjoyed the laid back, coffeehouse vibe.  Dan led most of the songs and I sang tenor and played some backup piano.  Dan did a really great job and I think he realized some of his potential for future worship leadership.

Here’s what we did on Sunday:

• Sing Your Praise (original song I wrote)
• Welcome / Sunday School update
• Commission Lisa for ministry in the Czech Republic
• Body Life / Offering Prayer
• Here I Am To Worship (Tim Hughes)
• Better is One Day (Matt Redman)
• God of Wonders (City on a Hill)
• Knowing You (Billy Foote I think??)
• How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin)

In all, it was very nice and easy Sunday.  And it was great for me because it didn’t require much prep time for me.  Dan didn’t need any charts and we didn’t need any special practices.  It was great coming off vacation and being able to trust in my leaders to take care of business.  Check out more of these reviews at Fred’s blog.

However, everything ended up being pretty good. Practice yesterday was pretty rough, but last night went pretty well, and this morning’s service went even better.

On a sad note, we said good-bye to one of our pastors today. Since our finances have been a little smaller than normal, we had to let go of one of our pastors and today was his last day. That kind of put a certain hamper on things, but I think we recovered fairly well.

Here was our set:

• Awesome is the Lord Most High
• Pastor Send-off
• Indescribable
• God of Wonders (The forgivenmuch arr. we used at Easter)
• Be Thou My Vision (My Arr. with a Bridge I wrote for it)
• Sermon
• I’ll Go Where You Want Me To Go (My Arr. of the old hymn with a few word changes)

This was also the end of our “So You’re Dead Now What?” Series. So, we’re done with trying to find songs about Heaven. I actually ran out of songs that we knew that had a heaven theme, so I went a little different direction.

For more weekend reviews check out Sunday Setlists at Fred’s Place.

Have you ever had that happen?  Where you are frantically trying to get caught up, but in the process other things fall behind?  I hate that.  I hate not being organized and in control; it drives me crazy!  So last week was a great reminder that I’m not always going to be in control AND IT’S OKAY!

I can barely remember what I did two Sundays ago; it was a miracle that I made it through the morning.  Luckily, I had one of my guitarists do most of the leading and singing.  It was her first time stepping up like this and she did great.  And next week I’ll be gone at a Men’s Retreat and am having my number two do the whole service.  Her and I have been planning this service for a while now and I’m excited to hear how it goes.

In the meantime, here’s what we did on Sunday:

• He is Exalted (classic Twila Paris)
• You’re Worthy of My Praise (David Ruis)
• Lord Most High (Can’t remember who wrote it; it’s an older Vineyard tune in 6/8; our people LOVE this song!)
• God of Wonders (another classic)
• Majesty (Done just like the Passion cover off the CD, “How Great is Our God”)
• Mission Focus: Bob DeViney testimony (a guy from our church has been serving in Baja Mexico for 3 months!)
• Pastoral Prayer / Offering
• Instrumental w/Scripture (Mark 11:22-26)
• Message: “Ya Gotta Have Faith” (Hebrews 11:1-6)
• I Exalt Thee(oldie goldie)

We did a lot of classic songs this week; some of them were older… some of them were REALLY older!  In all, it was a great week and I sure felt a whole lot better health wise then the week before.  If you want to see what other worship leaders are doing with music, go over to Fred McKinnon’s blog and check out more Sunday Setlists.  God bless!

Kevin

We dig a little deeper this week as we talk about the “dynamics” of playing with a band. John gives us some very practical and extremely helpful advice for what acoustic guitarists can do when they’re playing with a band, and also gives worship leaders some tips on how to ask your guitarists to do certain things.

We still might not know what we’re talking about, but we’re learning!!!

John is an Associate pastor at Pearl Church, in the Pearl District in Downtown Portland, OR.

John’s original background is as a church musician – he’s led worship for a number of churches and currently works for Pearl Church in downtown Portland. Along the way, he’s played at coffee shops, pubs, churches, and amphitheaters; making music and practicing production. John spent 3 years running a recording studio on the side, producing and mixing records for clients.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Other Links:

• www.pearlchurch.com
• www.johnrossmusic.com

In this first part of a two part series, John covers some of the basics of the Acoustic guitar. It’s not only insightful for those of you who are aspiring to be guitarists, but it is insightful for worship leaders who are wanting to know how to talk guitar.

John’s original background is as a church musician – he’s led worship for a number of churches and currently works for Pearl Church in downtown Portland. Along the way, he’s played at coffee shops, pubs, churches, and amphitheaters; making music and practicing production. John spent 3 years running a recording studio on the side, producing and mixing records for clients.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Other Links:

• www.pearlchurch.com
• www.johnrossmusic.com

In this week’s episode, David and Kevin talk about “Being too hard on ourselves.” As musicians and artists, we have a tendency to only be pleased with how we perform when the performance is perfect, at least to us. It might not actually be perfect, but it’s perfect to us, we don’t notice any flaws. When that happens, we’re happy. When that doesn’t happen, we beat ourselves up thinking of all the things we could have done differently (not matter how small) to make it better.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Other Links:

Click here to Go to Multnomah University’s website to download “Nothing is Impossible” for free.

Os Guinness said in his book Prophetic Untimeliness, “After two hundred years of earnest dedication to reinventing the faith and the church and to being more relevant in the world, we are confronted with an embarrassing fact: Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously; never have Christians been more irrelevant.”

In this week’s episode, David and Kevin breach the topic of “Technological Recontextualizaion” that was brought up at the Recent CB Northwest Conference by Senior Pastor Scott Reavely of New Life Church (formerly known as West Linn First Baptist)

We don’t get very far down this road, but it’s definitely a road worth traveling down. I’m sure this is a topic that will come up again and again as we continue to think about how we do Worship Ministry in the Local Church.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Here are a few links you should check out:

Geeks & God Podcast (Pretty deep podcast about all things tech, especially drupal and other web 2.0 technologies.)

Church Leader Insights podcast about your home page.

In this week’s episode, David & Kevin talk about Time management and particularly how it relates to being prepared for rehearsals and other events. We talk about some of the struggles in getting prepared and some of the things we can do to be more prepared.

This is a very important issue, one that can really add to or take away from our volunteers experience. If we’re prepared, we really set the stage for them to feel like they are succeeding and we also set them up for success. If we aren’t prepared, we’re communicating that it’s not all that important to come to rehearsal prepared, and we’re requiring more of them for all of us to be able to succeed. This is a topic we’ll definitely becoming back to in the future, we’ve only scratched the surface in this episode.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

In this week’s episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, David & Kevin talk about the art of communication (or the lack thereof). It’s a delicate thing, how much should we communicate, and in how much detail, how often, what should we say, etc.

We share some of our personal successes and failures in communicating and talk about some of the goals we have to improve our communication. We hope this episode will really help you in getting thinking about how and what you communicate.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

We truly hope that you’ll find this episode of the WMC podcast encouraging and insightful in your pursuit to continually improve the worship ministry at your local church.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

The service went well… a few little snags on starting the songs.  One of the problems with someone else leading (and one of the things I’m working on!) is that I’m not in control… but that’s a good thing.  I’m learning that I don’t always have to lead everything and be in control all the time and that even if things don’t go perfect, it’s so much more meaningful to have others leading and engaging in ministry.

So… here is what our Sunday looked like:

• Awesome is The Lord (Chris Tomlin)
• Greeting / Transition
• Mission Focus: Ehtiopia (we had a gentleman from Ehtiopia share about a Missionary College he is starting… it was so cool!)
• Body Life / Prayer for Offering
• Show Me Your Glory (Third Day)
• Message: The Believer’s Rest (Hebrews 4)
• Rest (by Skillet… this song rocked!)
• All Who Are Thirsty (straight off the Kutless worship album)
• Still (Hillsong; written by Reuben Morgan… great tune that not a lot of people know about)
• Knowing You (Graham Kendrick)

It was cool doing some of these new songs that rocked a little… and having a chunk of music at the end was a great way to respond to Pastor Mike’s message on rest.  I think it worked!

For more weekend reviews, check out Fred’s Place.  Have a great week!

We talk about some of our thoughts from the interview, as well as give you some of the details for the Reviews we’re doing with our own worship ministries.

If you’re doing a Year End Review, we’d love to hear from you and how the process is going for you.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

Jordan not only shares with us some very helpful insight in how to do a Year End Review, but many other little helpful bits of information along the way.

If you’re doing a year end review and have some thoughts you’d like to share about your process we’d love to hear them.

You can join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes as well.

In the past I’ve been too afraid of compromising our sound to have new people up there without having worked with them a lot beforehand (which we still do) because I was afraid that it would really jeopardize people’s worship experience. I was wrong. People seem to really enjoy it.

Here was our set:

• Let God Arise (Tomlin)
• Everlasting God (Brown)
• Welcome
• Communion
• Sermon
• How Great is our God w/ the Chorus of How Great Thou Art (Tomlin & Hine)
• Hosanna

Our pastor finished his sermon talking about worship so we did a little bit longer of a set at the end of the service this week. It seemed to work well. We were running late, so I was worried that people would be feeling like they wanted to get out of there, but that didn’t seem to be the case for the majority anyway.

That’s what we did, check out what some others did over at Fred’s Place.

Here’s a pic from the blog “Chris from CA” who also got listed. You can see we’re about 6th from the top.

Some of my other Blog friends are listed there as well:

• Fred McKinnon
• Worship Trench
• Chris From Canada
• Rich Kirkpatrick

If I can find a link to the article I’ll post it on the site, but I think it’s a subscription based service to be able to access that article. Thanks for listing us Leadership Journal.

In this week’s episode David & Kevin talk about using Non-Christian Musicians in the Worship Band. For too many of us, we just answer “no” without ever thinking about it. But could it be possible that we’re missing out on an opportunity by not keeping an open mind? Listen in to find out.

You can also join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

That’s what David & Kevin talk about in this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast. What do you do when things Crash & burn?

We would love to hear from you about this topic. Maybe you found yourself in the same situation this last Christmas. If you did, we’d love to hear your story too.

You can also join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

And we’re back! After a little Break around the busy time of Christmas and then vacation, we’re finally back with an all new episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst podcast.

In this week’s episode David and Kevin start talking about doing a year end review. We started this conversation before Christmas, and it sparked both a good discussion and some follow up that is going to bring about another episode or more about doing a year end review.

We hope you’ll dive right in and listen to this podcast and in turn be willing to consider doing some form of a year end review.

In this podcast we also talked about the Worship ministry catalyst network. We were talking specifically about the ability to upload your original worship songs that you’re willing to share with the Worship Ministry Catalyst Network. We hope you’ll start to take advantage of this network and share some of the gift that God has given to you with a group of worship leaders from around the world!

You can also join in the conversation by joining our network, filling out the contact form, or sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Links for this Episode:

• Worship ministry catalyst network.
• Worship Trench

This is and issue that I’m sure many of us deal with. We would love to hear how you deal with the perfectionism problem. If you have some advice on this subject, or you would like to respond to the advice that we give in this podcast, feel free to comment on this post. You can also join in the conversation by joining our network, or fill out the contact form, or sending us an email. david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com.

We truly appreciate your faithful listening. We hope that you find these podcast both entertaining and informative in helping you take the worship ministry you are involved in down a path of excellence. God bless you in your week of preparing for the weekend.

We know that the current state of the economy has affected how we do worship ministry. That’s why we’re talking about this, because we’re pretty sure that it’s affected the way a lot of worship ministries do ministry.

Listen in to this podcast to hear some of the things that we’re doing in our current situation, without money.

We’d love to hear back from you about this podcast, other podcasts or other issues you’d like us to talk about. Feel free to comment on this post, fill out the contact form, or send us an email. david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com.

You can also take your communication with us to the next level on our Worship Ministry Catalyst network.

Thanks for listening!

We would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. If you want to go over to our network, you can comment on podcast episodes over there.

You can also comment on this post, fill out the contact form, or send us an email. david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com.

Thanks so much for listening to the worship ministry catalyst podcast. If there’s anything we can do for you, please let us know. If there’s a topic you’d like us to tackle, get in touch and we’ll do our best to hit it.

Resources

• http://www.practicallyspeaking.org/
• Church Leader Insights

It was also the start of our new series, miracles. We’re trying a new thing for us, we’re doing a sermon intro video that’s 2 minutes long that we’re playing in the front end of the service. We hope this will help people connect to the Big idea of the sermon during the worship time, which will hopefully make the worship seem a little more purposeful (As opposed to expecting people to remember during the sermon the songs we sang and then make the connection).

I was listening to the recordings of the music, and it was actually pretty decent. It’s nice to know that what I’m hearing in my ears is coming out good on the other end. I don’t know for sure what it sounds like out in the congregation. I’ve been here for almost a year, and I still haven’t been able to get out into the congregation during worship on a weekend to be able to hear what the live sound is like. I’m hoping to be able to do that soon.

Here’s what we did:

• Beautiful One
• Welcome
• Sermon Intro Video
• Forever
• Communion
• All Who Are Thirsty
• Sermon
• Blessed Be Your Name

Blessed be your name was the perfect closer for us this weekend. The message was on Jesus turning the water into wine, and the Big idea was “Sometimes the right time for the best wine is one cup at a time.” The idea that God’s provides for our needs, sometimes in abundance and sometimes one cup at a time.

For more weekend reviews click here.

One of the best ways we have found to come across new songs, is by hearing from you. I know that one of the best ways I’ve come across new songs lately (which we talk about in more detail in the podcast) is by reading the blogs of others out in the blogosphere. If you have some new worship songs you’d like to share with us, please feel free to do so by commenting on this post.

Thanks so much for listening to the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast. We would love to hear from you, if you have feedback on this topic or any topic you might like us to talk about, or if you would like to be interviewed on the podcast get in touch with us through the contact page.

I missed last weekend due to a staff retreat, and to be honest I’d much rather review it than this most recent weekend. Last weekend was the final weekend in our Church 1.0 series. It was a great weekend, from beginning to end. To start it off, we had the fullest band I’ve had since I’ve been working here. We had a six piece band – which for some may not seem huge, but for us it was. On top of that, we had several in the band who are committed to doing excellent music. They had gotten together without me during the week to work on the songs so they’d be ready for the weekend. That’s a worship leaders dream!

I also had one of our up and coming worship leaders lead the majority of the songs that weekend. He did a phenomenal job. He did great vocally, and really started to come out of his shell in terms of being a worship leader. He was engaging the congregation instead of just singing in their general direction. It was great.

Here was our set:

• I Will Boast (Paul Baloche)
• I Am Free (New Life Church – Global Worship Now)
• Welcome/2 services announcement
• My Savior My God (Aaron Schust)
• Here Am I (Mike Honholtz Band)
• Message
• Wherever He Leads (Hymn with my Music)
• My Faith Has Found a Resting Place

We had a great response. As you can see in our graphic below, stained glass was a big part of our visual theme for this series. So, our creative team came up with the idea to have people sign a piece of stained glass to represent their commitment to our body. (Actually the idea was to have them etch their name into a piece of glass but we figured that wouldn’t be very feasible for a couple of hundred people to do in one service. So we went with plexiglass.) We used the old window frames we had at the church from helping remodel one of our members houses. We put the glass in and used fake leading from a craft store to make the lines. Then we had people sign a section of the window, and as they are filling in, we’re having someone come in and paint in the sections that have someone’s name in it. It’s really cool to look at. I’ll have to put a picture up here.

10-1112-08

This week was much different. Our Senior Pastor is on vacation, and we are having missions weekend. The musical portion of the service was pretty good. I’m actually really pleased with it. We didn’t have as full of a band as we did last week, but it’s been really great. We have a husband and wife who are on the team this week who have a tremendous background in music as well as an tremendous heart for worship. They’re dynamic. However, there was a huge disconnect between our time of worship and the rest of the service. Without getting super critical, let’s just say it this is one weekend I hope we didn’t have any visitors.

Here was our set:

• All The Earth Will Sing Your Praises (Travis Cotrell)
• Lord I Lift Your Name on High (Lincoln Brewster)
• Welcome
• Shout To The North (passion)
• God of Wonders (Passion)
• Message
• You Said (Hillsong)

Like I said, it could have been better, in terms of the entire service. However, I feel like our worship team had another stellar Sunday, and that we’re continuing to build momentum. I guess I just have to not worry about things that I don’t have any control over. It hasn’t worked yet, but I can try.

For more weekend reviews click here.

We realize that leadership is a huge topic, and is something that we all have a lot to learn about. We also realize it’s probably the most important topic for all of us. Whether we’re in a leadership role as a staff person, a worship leader or even for those who aren’t in a leadership role, leadership is still very important.

If you have some thoughts on vision and leadership, please feel free to leave your comments on this post, or to send us an email through the contact form.

I came across this quote in a book I’m reading, The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes, Posner.

In some ways, leaders live their lives backward. They see pictures in their minds eye of what the results will look like even before they’ve started their project, much as an architect draws a blueprint or an engineer builds a model. Their clear image of the future pulls them forward. Yet visions seen only by leaders are insufficient to create an organized movement or a significant change in a company. A person with no constituents is not a leader, and people will not follow until they accept a vision as their own. Leaders cannot command committment, only inspire it.

This quote really strikes a chord with me right now, as one of the biggest thoughts on my mind is ownership/committment. I realize I am not fully responsible for the actions of others, but it is my responsibility to inspire and lead people into a place of committment.

Posted in leadership   Tagged: Church leadership, committment, leadership, Ownership, The Leadership Challenge    ]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/09/the-leadership-challenge/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/09/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-13-ownership/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/09/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-13-ownership/#comments Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:58:51 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=178 First off, let us apologize for the sniffles and ragged voices. Both Davd & Kevin were fighting colds at the recording of this podcast. David and Kevin talk about building ownership among your worship ministry. We talk about some of the things we are going to be trying to do this church year to try to build ownership among the people who serve in our worship ministries.

We would appreciate any feedback you have for us and other worship leaders who will be listening to this podcast. What ways have you built ownership in your worship ministry? What are some of the things you have done to move people from being marginally involved to taking responsibility for what happens on the weekends at your church?

We would love to hear from you, please feel free to comment on this post, or to send us an email through the contact form.

Here’s the podcast!

Here are some of the things I think to be of highest importance when it comes to a good chart. In part one of this article, I’ll talk about what I do. In part two, I’ll talk about some of the options that are out there for pre-made charts, and in a possible part three I’ll talk about some more advance (time-consuming) methods for writing charts.

1. Start with the right text and copyright info. I know this sounds ridiculous, but you wouldn’t believe the number of charts that I’ve come across that have wrong words and no copyright info. The ironic thing is that it’s not that hard to get either of these. The easiest way is to go to www.songselect.com, find the song you’re looking for, copy the text from right there as well as the copyright info. If it’s for a song you can’t find on songselect, take special care to copy down the words correctly and find as much copyright info as you can. This could be in the CD cover (if you bought a CD), you could find it on iTunes or the artists website.
2. The next key element is get the correct chords. Unless you’re doing your own arrangement, you need to make sure to get the chords as they are played in the artist’s recording – this is for more than convenience in rehearsal (it’s a lot easier for your musicians to learn their parts at home if you have the right chords on the chart) it’s also a part the copyright agreement your church is most likely a part of. If you have a hard time hearing the chords correctly, especially when it comes to inversions and 7th’s, etc., find someone who has can help you do this.
3. Choose easily readable fonts and a big enough font. Unless your church is a church of all twenty somethings or younger, then you’re likely to have people who need some sort of assistance to read. That being the case, you need to make sure your font is easy to read. Don’t get too fancy with different fonts, just find a good looking one, where all the characters are distinguishable and stick with it. Then make sure you use a font size that’s big enough to be easily read at a distance. You don’t want your musicians struggling to figure out the difference between different letters. If they’re doing that, they’re not going to be focused on their primary responsibility – playing the music!
4. Space don’t Tab. Yes, tabbing is faster, but it’s not nearly as precise. Some people tab close to where the chord is supposed to be, then space to get it in the right space, I find this to eventually be more frustrating, especially down the road if you choose a different font and you have to reposition the chords.
5. Use a different and larger font for the chords. I use font size 14 for the text of song and 16 for the chords. So the text is smaller, and a different font and the larger font for the chords sticks out much better and is easier for the musician to read quickly.
6. When you’re spacing the chords over the words, you want to make sure the chords are exactly over the syllable of the word the chord change comes on. This is where it gets a little tricky. Some chords don’t come “over” a word or syllable. Some phrases of songs start after the down beat, and you want to denote that in your chart. I space in 5 spaces on the line of text, and put the chord right at space one. Other times, a chord will change at the end of a line when there are no words. You want to make sure it’s clear that the chords are out beyond the end of the text so people know it’s after the last word.
7. Make it easy to find Verse, chorus, & Bridge. I like to set margin of the verse title (verse 1, verse 2, etc.) half an inch into the margin. This way, it doesn’t blend in with the text of the verse or chorus it’s labeling, and it’s easy for people to find as they quickly scan the chart. I also like to shade the chorus a light gray in the background so that it in particular stands out.
8. Have plenty of space between Sections. You don’t want it to look like the verse blends in with the chorus. Especially if you jump back into the chorus unexpectedly.
9. Use Page numbers and try to keep it to two pages. During rehearsal, it helps to be able to say “at the bottom of the second page.” You also want to try to keep it to two pages so your musicians aren’t having to turn pages in the middle of the song. If you have to do more than two, try to find a place that’s easy to turn the page. A weird, but true suggestion, is during a verse. Verses are usually more laid back, and less involved for musicians, so it’s easier to get a hand free to turn the page. (Not in the middle of a verse, but, put the verse at the bottom of the second page, and put the chorus and then bridge on the top of the third. If you’re going to go back to the chorus after the bridge you want to make sure to have it on the last page so they don’t have to flip back.
10. Leave room for notes. You want your people to be able to write in part specific notes, so make sure they have room to do so.
11. Include Arrangement Notes. Make it as easy as possible for people to remember riffs and other changes in the arrangement.
12. Include Key, Song Structure, capo info, meter, tempo and any other crucial info in the header. For the future, you want to make sure it’s easy for people to look at the top of the chart and know everything they need to know to get the song started.

There are are couple of other things I do in my charts to help denote “musical” things that aren’t on the page. After doing some study of the Nashville Numbering System I came up with a few innovations to help denote measures. It’s always been a struggle for me to denote measures, and exactly where a chord change comes.

• Use a comma to denote measures.
• Underline all the chords in a measure when there is more than one chord in a measure.
• If the chord changes on the and of a beat, put the beat number and an ampersand in superscript.

I’ll attach a couple of examples to this article for you to see what I’m talking about.

rest-in-your-peace – DOC

rest-in-your-peace – PDF

I know this sounds like a tremendous amount of detail, but once you do the first one, then you have a template to work from, and it gets much easier. And you’ll be glad that you have a detailed chart to come back to the next time you do that song. Commit to doing one chart like this a week, and soon you’ll have all new charts that people can follow along with easily.

We would love to hear your thoughts on these and any other worship issue you may be dealing with. You can get in touch with us by leaving a comment on this post, sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com. We look forward to hearing from you. We would also love to know if there are other topics you would like us to talk about when it comes to worship ministry.

I just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be back to blogging – probably tomorrow. I’ve been on vacation the last couple of weeks, and decided it would be good to take a little break. But, fall is here and it’s time to get back into the swing of things. So you’ll be hearing more from me again soon.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/09/coming-back-soon/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/weekend-review-08-1617-08/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/weekend-review-08-1617-08/#comments Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:33:29 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=114

This week was great, we had a great worship time with a trio of musicians up there for the weekend. Keys, Bass & Drums. No vocalists except for me. And it turned out pretty good. The upside – I got to experiment with my coldplay keys technique and try to come up with some catchy hooks for some of the songs that are normally acoustic or electric driven, so that was kind of fun. At the same time, doing that takes away from my ability to focus solely on leading people in worship. If we had another vocalist who could lead some of the songs that would have helped quite a bit.

Here was our Set:

• All The Earth Will Sing Your Praises
• God is Great
• Welcome
• Trading My Sorrows
• Blessed be Your Name
• Message
• Heart of Worship

We did some old songs and some newer songs. The first two songs are still somewhat new to the congregation (even though they’re not new). It was a good weekend. Last night seemed to lack energy, but this morning did not. It felt as though people were really engaging and choosing to worship.

I do have to say though that I’m looking forward to next weekend when we’ll have a full band. It should be really good!

For more Worship Service Reviews Click Here!

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/weekend-review-08-1617-08/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-0011-olympics-china-and-worship-service-evaluation-wrap-up/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-0011-olympics-china-and-worship-service-evaluation-wrap-up/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:20:23 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=101 In this weeks episode David and Kevin spend time talking about their recent Olympics experience and the lack of sleep they have had as a result of staying up too late to watch them. We talk about a topic Rich Kirkpatrick brought up on his blog. After that we get into wrapping up our discussion on Worship Service Evaluation, among other things.

We would love to hear your feedback on any of the topics mentioned in this weeks podcast. You comment on this post, or go over to the WMC Network and subscribe to become a member of our network and join the discussion on the forum there

This weekend was another good weekend. We had a new drummer this weekend – which was great. It’s great to have someone else who’s willing and excited to play. He’s got a big learning curve to pick up a bunch of new songs as he first gets going, but I’m sure he will do great.

We did:

• Rest in Your Peace (my song)
• Portland City Fest Promo
• How Great is Our God
• Holy is the Lord
• VBS Highlights
• Sermon
• Everlasting God

Bill was talking about rest and did a tremendous job talking about how we need to rest like a three year old rests with their mother. It was a great image to get people thinking about rest. Myself having a 2 year old knew exactly what he was talking about.

We only did three songs as a band, and once again, I had another vocalist lead one of the songs. This weekend it was great to be able to do that. It allowed me to focus a little more on working with our new drummer and making sure he & I were on the same page. It also helped for me to be able to fill out our sound a little bit as we only had drums, acoustic & keys.

This weekend had the potential to go really bad, and it went really well!

For more reviews see Sunday Setlists. ]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/weekend-review-08-0910-08/feed/ 1 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-10-worship-band-workshop-drums/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-10-worship-band-workshop-drums/#comments Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:12:42 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=87 In this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast we talk to Lee Campen. Lee is one of our drummers at our church. In the interview we talk about some philosophical issues when it comes to playing drums. We talk about some of the issues that aren’t talked about all that much when it comes to playing drums. We talked about some things a drummer needs to think when they’re playing the drums, playing dynamically, and much, much more.

If you have some feed back for this podcast, if you’re a drummer and you have some further feedback on drums in worship, please feel free to comment on this post, or go over to worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com and talk about this episode of the podcast in the podcast discussion post in the forum.

You can also get in touch with us by using the contact page, or sending an email directly to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Episode

• Modern Drummer
• Drum Tuning Bible

I wanted to write some more about routine. I talked about it last week, and got some interesting feedback on that post. I wanted to talk about it on a very practical level. It’s another way that routine could be a bad thing. Remember last week I said there are some situations in life where routine is good. It’s good to have a rhythm to your life. It’s good to have things you can rely on. On the flip side of that, if everything in our life is predictable – it’s all routine – we will stagnate.

Life will become like the water in tire swing. At first you might not even notice it. Then, while you’re swinging one day, you spill a little bit of water on you, and notice it’s kind of gross. You try to get the water out, but it’s a tire – so it’s extremely difficult. It’s very hard to turn a tire upside down fast enough to get All the water out. There will still be some stinky water left in there. And before you know it, it will rain again, and fill the tire back up with water which will seem to bring life to the old water, but soon the old water takes over and makes the new water smell.

But what about our God who never changes? True. God never changes. But (hopefully) God is always changing us to be more like him. It’s when we stop changing, or stop allowing God to change us that we stagnate. Yes, God takes the old and makes it new. That’s what he does. But that’s not our tendency. Our tendency is to stick to what we know. We cling to what has worked in the past, even thought the magic is gone. It worked at one time, so if we keep doing it, and keep trying hard enough, it has to, it absolutely has to work again. Right?

It doesn’t. It rarely does.

So, as we approach our relationship with God this week, and how we respond to him worship, maybe we need to get out of the routine of what’s worked in the past. Maybe we need to keep the tire from filling up with water in the first place. Maybe we need to keep it moving in new directions as much as possible so that the rain can’t fill it

“Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.” Psalm 33:3

This weekend, we are without a drummer. At first I thought it was going to be rough and awkward, but it actually turned out quite well. This was our set:

• I Will Boast
• How Can I Keep From Singing
• Welcome
• Your Name
• Rescue
• Message
• I’ll go Where He wants me to go (My Arr. of the Hymn)

We had Trevor lead How can I keep from singing and Danielle led Your Name. It’s great as the worship leader to be able to step back a little. I could actually focus on leading the band without having the mic to do that. It presents an interesting challenge, but it is possible to lead the band without having a mic in my face.

We (obviously) went with an unplugged feel for the set which worked really well, especially on How Can I keep from singing. I really botched the intro to Your Name. I didn’t turn the volume back up on my keyboard before I started, which threw me off. But, we did recover. It’s always powerful (for me) to close with Rescue. Definitely one of my favorite songs right now.

I felt like the congregation really entered into worship this weekend, especially as they were being led by people other than me. I think there’s great power in being led by more than one person. When I do it – the worship leader – people have the possibility of thinking “oh, he’s just the worship leader, he’s supposed to do that.” But when it’s one of their peers, there’s more personal connection and influence there which drives people to worship more.

For other worship reviews – click here

Yeah, I know this is very late, but at least I’m doing it. We’ve actually already done our review of the weekend on Tuesday morning in our worship planning meeting, I’ve just not had time to be able to write it down here yet.

I put in a couple of retro songs this weekend. One of them, that everyone seemed to know, and the other one, everyone seemed to know the chorus only. This was our set:

• Your Love Oh Lord
• Here Am I – Mike Honholtz
• Welcome
• Youth Camp Presentation
• Enough
• Hungry
• Message
• Hosanna

The songs that worked well were “Here am I,” “Enough” & “Hosanna.” Your love… worked pretty well, it worked better on Sunday morning than it did on Saturday evening. It was a song the church had done in the past – before I got here – so I figured they would still remember it, but apparently I was wrong. Hungry was the same way, they might have done it back in past a few years ago, and maybe some people new it from the radio, but for the most part people didn’t really sing on the verses.

The youth camp presentation was cool. This was a great approach for fund raising. What Mathias did was instead of asking for money before camp, asking people to give in the hopes their gifts will ambiguously change lives, he waited until after camp and brought some kids up whose lives had been changed and asked people to give money towards paying for it or to come to a car wash.

We’re still in the summer slump. We’ve got a drummer who’s going to start helping us out in August – which I’m looking forward to very much. We’ve got a lot of work to do in the area of building bands and ownership. I’ve really been thinking about how to do this, so if you’ve got ideas feel free to let me know.

That was the weekend.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/08/weekend-review-07-2627-08/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/my-apologies/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/my-apologies/#comments Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:05:08 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=83 I wanted to apologize to you all for not yet getting a podcast up this week. Kevin is out of town at a camp, and I’ve been busy all week working on a new website for our church. I know these are just excuses, but they are the truth.

Next week, I have an interview scheduled with a worship leader at a church in Minnesota. I’m really looking forward to that, and I think we will all benefit from what he has to say. He’s done great work in creative planning as well as doing quite a bit of writing, both of music & drama. I know you all will really enjoy what he has to offer our community.

If you have any questions you’d like us to talk about, please feel free to get them to us, david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com.

We also have a new feature. You can call and leave a message on our voicemail! The Number is 360-356-1175. We hope to hear from you soon.

The Worship Ministry Catalyst Network has arrived! This is a social network (much like facebook) for worship leaders and worship team members. You can upload videos, worship songs, charts, etc. You have your own page you can layout however you want, and have your own content on. This is going to be a great resource for you.

I really look forward to all of us building relationships through this network. We will be much stronger together than if we try to do this all on our own.

Routine is an enemy. It’s a ghost. It will sneak in unnoticed and steal away what was once creative and turn it into a tradition. Routine is something to be avoided at all costs. Routine is not creative. Routine is a pattern, at best done because it worked, at worst because it’s habit.

I’m talking about routine, when it comes to worship services. (However, it should be said that routine in your personal worship will also – most likely – lead you down a road to tradition and habit, not relationship. It should also be said that there are areas of life where routine is good – I’m not talking about those.) I know for us, right now, there are definite routines. We do certain elements in certain places. We do a minimum number of songs and have elements that have to be in a certain place for one reason or another. When I started at the church, I started doing a welcome – just a brief hello to people who were there. It wasn’t routine then. It is now.

Routine is easy. We do it because we don’t want to put any effort or thought into doing something different. We do it because we’re afraid something new won’t work. The irony is that while we’re doing the routine that keeps us from doing the new, different thing that might not work, the thing that used to work stops working. Now, we’re stuck doing something that’s not working, afraid to try something new.

Routine is comfortable. Routine is Selfish. We do routine because it feels like what we know. We do routine because it worked for us. We do routine because we’re so focused on what we want that we lose sight of what’s best for everyone else – the people we’re supposed to be leading.

I have to say, I’m embarrassed about the routine in the worship services I’m responsible for. I do it because it’s easy. I do it because it’s hard work to come up with something new. I do it because I’m lazy. The sad thing is, my laziness is taking away from the possible worship experience of those who attend each and every weekend.

So, what’s the solution. Creativity. More on that later.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/routine/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-07-1920-08/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-07-1920-08/#comments Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:40:54 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=67

I’m finding that I’m still really struggling with the summer slump. Thankfully, I’ve got a drummer who’s committed to the mission of the church and is willing to play sacrificially and has played for the last 4 weekends. We have some bass players who are willing to play frequently right now, as well as vocalists, but we’re really thin in drummers, acoustic guitarists and electric guitarists.

We did the song “Happy Day” written by Cantelon/Hughes. We didn’t have an electric guitarist, so I had to revise the lead part on the keyboard, using a distorted wurli patch, that actually sounded pretty decent. We only had drums, bass & acoustic though, so there were times when it was hard to be driving the song very powerfully.

After that we did announcements & prayer for our Nicaragua missions team, then went into a three song set that started with Wherever He leads – a hymn with music that I wrote, Nothing by the Blood (not the hymn) and Jesus Paid it All – the passion arr.

We were talking about baptism, so I was focusing on songs that dealt with Jesus blood and the washing aspect of redemption. We had one of our female vocalists lead a song in this set, there was one point on Sunday where she got a little off and the band had a hard time finding how to get back on track with her. Part of that was my fault because I was trying to follow her – which is what you do when you’re accompanying someone with the piano – but I don’t think is the right thing to do when you have a band. Instead of having a vocalist sound off, we had a vocalist sound off and the band got off as well.

Our senior pastor closed the service again – which was great. On Saturday, we had a sound/feedback problem, but we took care of that for Sunday. However, the response was great both on Saturday & Sunday regardless of technical errors.

Since it was just me talking, I decided to share a resource that I use very frequently in worship ministry – planning center online. It’s a great resource I’ve been using for some time now. I talk about it quite a bit in this episode.

I also talk about where you go for encouragement. All of us go through times when we need someone to encourage us – the worship world is crashing in on us fast, and we need to have a place we can go. Of course our first place to run is to God and to rest in him and the promises he has made us, but beyond that where do we go?

If you have a resource that you use extensively in your worship ministry, please post a comment on this podcast post. Or if you have some information you’d like to share on how you stay encouraged in the worship ministry, we would love to hear that as well.

This week, Kevin and David talk about doing an evaluation of your worship services. The big question driving this discussion is “how are our worship services going to get any better if we don’t evaluate them?” Evaluating a worship service can be a difficult thing to do, and it’s something that is more complex than we can cover in this podcast. However, we hope that this podcast will serve as a catalyst for discussion on how you can evaluate your services.

Worship Service Evaluation Form

If you would like to join this discussion, please comment on this post or send an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com. We would love to hear ways and questions you use to evaluate your Worship Service.

Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 9 – Doing a Worship Service Review [32:56m]

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-9-doing-a-worship-service-review-2/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-07-1213-08/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-07-1213-08/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:48:27 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=63

Our Senior Pastor has the itch to play guitar. This week, he told a story in his sermon about how he learned to play guitar. He learned the wrong way, so, he had to relearn how to play the guitar. It felt uncomfortable at first, but eventually it became natural. He related this to how when God asks us to do something in following Him, at first it might feel unnatural, but eventually it will feel natural and our old way of living will feel unnatural. So, he closed the service leading the closing song from the guitar. The combination of him playing guitar and relating it to his story had a tremendous impact on many people. It also helped solidify the point in people’s minds.

Our worship order for this last weekend was the following:

• Awesome is the Lord
• Welcome and Announcements
• Take My Life (Passion Hymns Arr.)
• Breathe
• Communion
• Lord, I give you My Heart
• Message
• Everyday

We had a four piece band, Keys, Acoustic, Bass & Drums, and it worked really well. I’m starting to venture out a little on the keyboard. I’ve done this at times in the past, but it’s really starting to work well. I have a keyboard (very fortunately) that helps facilitate this as well. I’ve never considered myself a B-3 player, but I like to use it to add some texture, especially when we’re missing and electric guitar. So, that’s what I’ve been doing. I am fortunate enough to have the Yamaha Motif XS-8, which allows me to fade in/out sounds which smooths out the transition. Yes I know there are other ways to do this, which I will be looking into in the future, but for now this is working great.

It was a great weekend, it was great to do Breathe, that’s a song that’s been in my penalty box for a long time, (years) and it was powerful to lead it this weekend, and the congregation really responded to the song, as well as really responded to the correlation between the song and communion that our associate pastor made.

It wasn’t a weekend that many people will remember for years to come (Maybe for some it was), but we definitely got on base.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-07-1213-08/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/random-thoughts-on-worship/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/random-thoughts-on-worship/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:48:22 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=62

If worship is about God and not about us, why do we hold back when we get together as a body? Doesn’t it make sense that we’d want to give everything we have over to God and do whatever it is that He asks us to do? Doesn’t it make sense that we’d respond to Him how He asks us to respond to Him?

Instead, it seems that we’re more concerned with what others will think about us. What if they see me raising my hands? What will they think? What If I kneel and no one else does, what will all the people around me do?

By being more concerned with what the people around us are thinking of us than we are about our response to God, are we actually worshiping? Really? We might be worshiping something, but it’s not God – it’s ourselves. We don’t want to risk our image among those we know, so we don’t respond to God as he asks us to.

This week, what will your response be?

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/random-thoughts-on-worship/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-9-doing-a-worship-service-review/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-9-doing-a-worship-service-review/#comments Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:41:55 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=58 This week, Kevin and David talk about doing an evaluation of your worship services. The big question driving this discussion is “how are our worship services going to get any better if we don’t evaluate them?” Evaluating a worship service can be a difficult thing to do, and it’s something that is more complex than we can cover in this podcast. However, we hope that this podcast will serve as a catalyst for discussion on how you can evaluate your services.

Worship Service Evaluation Form

If you would like to join this discussion, please comment on this post or send an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com. We would love to hear ways and questions you use to evaluate your Worship Service

We would love to hear what gear you use in your worship ministry and how you use it. Please feel free to comment on this post or send us an email using the contact page, or directly by sending an email to david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

This weekend was a great weekend. Once again, our Lead Pastor played acoustic guitar. And we had the rest of the band there as well. We were fully loaded this weekend, and it made a huge difference in terms of how people responded in worship (At least it seemed to). I think there’s power in having a full band, and an energy that you can’t get any other way. Even if you can have the sounds of a full band, I think there’s still something missing if nothing else than energy that comes from people worshiping on stage.

Saturday night was a little rough, we didn’t have time in the rehearsal to really nail down transitions, we just have time to work up the songs. I realized that we hadn’t had time for transitions when we got about half way through the first song. So, that aspect of the worship time was a little rough.

At another point, we had barely rehearsed the beginning of “All Who are Thirsty” having the drums start the song, but not enough to get it solidified in the drummers head – my fault. So, when I looked at him to start the song, he shook his head, and I had to start the song. Well, my fear of long, awkward pauses in worship services took over, and I just started the song without even pausing for a second to find the tempo in my head. The song was BLAZING fast. That one was all me. The intro for Mighty to Save was supposed to start while I sustained the chord for All Who are Thirsty. We didn’t practice it this way, however, so I had to turn around and nod at the Electric Guitarist – again – all me.

Needless to say, on Sunday morning, I came in early, listened to the recording of Saturday night’s service, and made some notes of things we needed to fix in our rehearsal on Sunday morning. And we did. Sunday morning was great. Nearly all transitions were smooth, and the overall feel coming from the band was much more confident than it was on Saturday Night. I recognize that confidence isn’t a luxury we have right now. We have suspended weekday rehearsals for the summer, leaving us only one rehearsal on Saturday afternoon. So, I know I’m going to have to continue to expect situations like this. However, I also recognize that I need to make sure I do everything I can to help the band succeed.

All in all, it was a great weekend. It’s nice to be able to do songs in the style they were written and not have to do a bunch of modifications to them to make them work with what we have.

But, by far the best part of the weekend was when people responded in worship. It was great to see that people were connecting with God, and that God was using us in that way. Sometimes it’s hard to remember in the moment and even after the services what I say to people all the time. We’re not the point. God is the point, and our objective is to connect people to God. If that happened, we succeeded.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-07-0506-08/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/is-technology-worth-all-the-hassle/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/is-technology-worth-all-the-hassle/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:48:18 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=54

Sometimes I wonder if technology is really all it’s cracked up to be. At times (probably most of the time) it can be a wonderful thing. There are so many pieces of technology that make life easier, and make it easier for us to share our lives with others. There are times, when I do something that wouldn’t have ever been possible before with out it.

But at other times, I wonder. Yeah it’s great, but when it’s not working correctly, it can really be a pain. For instance: we use a VoIP phone. And when it’s working correctly it’s great. It’s cheap, and gives us more features. But when it’s not working it’s a pain. The internet is another example, when it’s up and the network is functioning properly, it’s great, when it’s not, it’s a pain.

Today, the network wasn’t working when we got back from the park, so I had to spent the next 3 or 4 hours getting it back up and working. It’s all working now, and I’m obviously online, but it was a royal pain to go through the process to figure out what was wrong.

Technology also has other issues. For instance, since we use a VoIP phone, it makes it more challenging to have phones throughout the house. So we either had to buy a more expensive phone with more extensions, or I had to figure out how to run the phone into the wiring in the house. I did that, but then there was interference from the phone service in the house. So, I had to disconnect the phone service outside the house. Now we have the phone running through the wiring in the house, which is nice. However, I’m forcing this new technology to fit into the mold of a technology that is becoming extinct. Which means at some point it will be extinct and we’ll have to buy something else to replace it.

I’m online, but thinking about not being so.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/is-technology-worth-all-the-hassle/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-3/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-3/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:48:14 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=53

I have to admit, something kind of cool happened this weekend. My Senior Pastor played on the worship band. Maybe, this is old hat to some of you, but for me, it was something very new and very cool. We’ve been kind of searching for musicians for a little while here at Gateway and since he had wasn’t preaching this last weekend, he offered to play on worship band. Even though he’s an incredibly busy man, and has a lot on his shoulders running the church and many pressures I couldn’t understand, he gave his time to play in the worship band this weekend, and did a great job. It was very cool.

We also had a drummer show up at the last minute, which was also great. We’re really struggling to find drummers right now, so I was thinking we’d be without one this weekend (kind of a bummer on the weekend your Sr. Pastor is playing). But our children’s director (who’s one of our drummers) came through. In spite of being away at camp all week, and having his sister’s wedding on the same day, he came and played drums. It was great!

So something that could have been like last weekend – me, a bass player and a couple of vocalists – turned out to be a pretty well rounded band. So, props to Bob & Lee, a huge thanks for selflessly making the worship at Gateway this last weekend a success.

On another note, we’re in the midst of “One Prayer” at Gateway, and this last weekend we watched Craig Groeschel’s message “Make us One” and I thought it was phenomenal. It was a challenge to find songs that fit well with the message, so I didn’t try too hard to do so. (I actually tried for a long time to find some songs that went well – but couldn’t find any, so I gave up.)

Here was our set:

• All the Earth Will Sing Your Praises
• Joyful, Joyful (David Crowder Version)
• Welcome/Announcements
• Come, Now is the Time to Worship
• Meet Us Here (Mike Honholtz)
• Message
• You Alone

We even had almost the whole band for the closing which is something that we don’t do very often – I like to allow the worship people to leave early if the need to, since they’re there all weekend.

It was a great weekend, and people really joined in as well. Which is one of the biggest goals of what we do on a weekend.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/weekend-review-3/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/lovin%e2%80%99-last-comic/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/lovin%e2%80%99-last-comic/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:48:10 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=52

I’ve got to confess that I absolutely love Last Comic Standing. I know there are a lot of people out there who don’t like it, and in general comedy might not be something the majority of America want to watch, but I love it. It’s great to see the people who are actually funny. You know, the people who don’t have to be dirty to be funny. That’s the kind of funny that takes creativity. It’s also cool because there’s more than one kind of comedy on the show. If you watch a comic, even the best comic, there could very well be times during their performance when you tune out. But, when you have a variety of comedy, it’s much easier to stay tuned in.

If I had one complaint it would be that we don’t see enough of the individual performances. I think we need to see all of every persons performance so we can vote better when that time comes. We do want to be an informed audience and not just guess who’s the best.

If you haven’t, you should try it out. It’s great!

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/07/lovin%e2%80%99-last-comic/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-7-philosophy-of-worship-ministry/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode-7-philosophy-of-worship-ministry/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:33:30 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=51 In this episode, Kevin, Scott and David talk about different philosophies of Worship Ministry. Scott offers a

paradigm that is most likely different from typical worship ministry philosophies, though it might be one that many wi

ll want to adopt. We hope you enjoy this honest discuss about what we do in worship ministry.

Please feel free to offer your comments on this episode and any episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst podcast. You can comment on this post or email us. david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

I’ve been resisting the facebook surge for quite some time now. I did Myspace for a while, and I just wasn’t that thrilled with it, but my wife finally convinced me to get on facebook – (She actually set up an account for me then all I had to do was confirm.) So, after a month or so of waiting to decided if I should or not (I still wasn’t sure that facebook might be the meddling of the anti-christ) I have finally given in.

If you’re interested in adding me – you can do so through facebook.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/i-finally-gave-in/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/my-wonderful-wife/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/my-wonderful-wife/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:44:17 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=48

I just thought I’d take a second a brag about my wonderful wife. We’ve been in the process of moving for about a month now, and she’s been amazing. She packed our entire house while taking care of a two year old and an infant. Since we’ve been at our new house she’s been an unpacking fool, getting the house set up and looking great, as well as painting and a whole slew of other things.

I take her for granted so much, but I’m so blessed to have someone as wonderful as her.

Thank you for all the amazing things you do for our family, and the sacrifices you make!

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/my-wonderful-wife/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/weekend-review-2/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/weekend-review-2/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:44:04 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=45

Here’s my latest post over at www.worshipministrycatalyst.com

“This weekend was kind of a let down for me, being perfectly honest. The band that we had, did a phenomenal job, as did the vocalist and tech team. The reason it was kind of a let down for me was that I was trying to schedule a very full band, and I was pretty sure most of them would be able to make it, and we ended up with only three pieces to the band. But, aside from that it was a good weekend.

We’re in the second week of our Revolution series, and this week was about grace so we did communion at the end of the service. Bob wove it seamlessly into the sermon and tied the whole service together extremely well. It wasn’t one of those weekends where you do communion because you haven’t done it in 6 weeks, it was a weekend where we did communion because it was the right thing to do. The congregation responded very well to communion, and the worship that followed.

There has also been quite a bit of consistency to the experience of the entire weekend. The songs have been consistent with the theme, the decor is also consistent. The mood is set from the moment you walk through the doors with the decorations in the foyer, then pre-service videos and other videos throughout the service.

I love the direction we’re going with our services, we’re really starting to go in the direction of begin far more creative with the entire worship experience and not just trying to get the songs and message to line up. I hope that we really keep going further down this road so that the experience for everyone regular attender and visitor alike is something they remember after they leave the building.”

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/weekend-review-2/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/new-worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/new-worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:43:57 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=44

In this week’s episode, Kevin and David talk about conflict & criticism. We deal primarily (in this episode) with criticism from church members at large. Kevin shares another story about the “touring days” with the MBC Ambassador choir.

Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 3 – Dealing with Conflict & Criticism [31:36m]: Download

Please feel free to give us some feedback about the episode. If you have further insight into the topic of dealing with criticism, please leave a comment on the post over at www.worshipministrycatalyst.com. We really look forward to hearing from you. You can email david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com or you can use the contact page.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/new-worship-ministry-catalyst-podcast-episode/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/starting-to-like-garage-band/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/starting-to-like-garage-band/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:43:53 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=43

So, I’m not really a Mac guy. I have a hard time rationalizing spending ,000 on a computer I could get for 0. And even though PC’s have gotten a bad name lately, I still think they are the best decision for most people. They’re the most commonly accepted platform – worldwide, there are many more companies that offer complete support for them, and most people can afford one. I don’t think Mac’s are more stable than PC’s, my Mac has crashed many times, My PC has crashed too, but when it crashes I can trace it back to a component on the computer that has gone bad, that I bought for cheap. When my Mac crashes I can’t do that. The Mac is supposed to have all great components, made by mac (According to one of their recent commercials) so they’re higher quality. I’m not convinced. My mac will crash at random times, and I lose information, just like I would on a PC.

However, I’m really starting to like Garage band on my mac. I used it today to make some practice CD’s for our choir, and it’s growing increasingly easy. I just drop a recording into Garage Band from my hard drive or iTunes, then with my M-audio Radium 49 – which you can get on ebay for 50 bucks – I play the Soprano, Alto, Tenor & Bass parts. After I play them into garage band, I mute all tracks except for the part I want to highlight, and the master recording, export the song to disk, and I’m done. It’s a pretty fast way to make practice CD’s, I did one song in a little over an hour – which is something that used to take me a few hours.

So, I’m starting to like garage band. However, the more I think about the things that I like about the Mac, most of them are things I can buy for a PC – and still have money left over in comparison. So, I’m not sure which I like better. Let’s just say, if someone gave me a Mac, I probably wouldn’t throw it away.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/starting-to-like-garage-band/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/reasons-not-to-have-a-garage-sale/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/reasons-not-to-have-a-garage-sale/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:43:48 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=42

So, we’re having a garage sale today, (actually my wife is doing the garage sale while I am inside with the kids). And I’ve pretty much decided we’re never doing this again. Here are some reasons why:

1. The paper could get your ad wrong and have people show up an hour earlier than you expected.
2. You can say in your ad “no earlies” but that means nothing to most “earlies.”
3. Those “earlies” will ring your doorbell repeatedly, just to let you know they’re there. (As if you hadn’t noticed the 10 cars in front of your house, and heard their conversations.
4. It takes way more time to separate the stuff you want to sell (half of which is stuff you bought at a garage sale in years past), set up the sale, and man the sale than the money you will take in will give you per hour.
5. Some old biddy will knock a jar of pickled peppers off the table, making a huge mess.
6. The same old biddy will try to help you clean up the mess, and in the process ruin your kitchen broom.
7. Your wife will have to hold your daughter while you clean up the mess.
8. Before you get the mess cleaned up, your daughter will walk through the pickle juice in her socks.
9. Your garage will now smell like pickle juice.
10. By the time you pay for the newspaper ad, a new mop & a new broom, you’ll barely have enough money to buy your wife an ice cream sundae for all her hard work.

All of this in the first hour. I wonder what the next 9 will bring.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/reasons-not-to-have-a-garage-sale/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/like-being-on-vacation-without-the-vacation/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/like-being-on-vacation-without-the-vacation/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:43:43 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=41

My wife and I are moving. I accepted a job at a new church last November and have been commuting 56 miles one way, for the last 7 months. We’re very excited that we have sold our house and have bought a house where our new church is.

The interesting thing about it is that my wife has been packing stuff in boxes for months now, and for the last two weeks has really been hitting it hard. She’s great! The thing is, that it’s kind of like being on vacation. We’re getting more and more to the point of having only the essentials out for our living necessities, and more and more of it is in boxes.

It’s not like a vacation though because we’re moving the boxes and doing things that I wouldn’t normally consider fun. However, in light of the fact that we will be getting a brand new home, and really a brand new life, it makes it all worth it. I’m sore, and I’m tired, but I’m thankful.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/like-being-on-vacation-without-the-vacation/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/being-a-leader-requires-courage/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/being-a-leader-requires-courage/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:43:38 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=40

Don’t be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small steps.
- David Loyd George

Sometimes in leadership something becomes obvious to us, and yet, we ignore whatever it is. Sometimes, it’s extremely obvious, so obvious that all the people around us see that we ought to be doing this thing, and still we don’t do it.

Often times in leadership, we don’t do what we know we ought to do because we’re afraid to even breech the topic. Maybe your doing something in your job that goes against your ethics, yet you keep doing it because you don’t want the confrontation it would take to stop doing this unethical thing. Or maybe your boss is killing you off, giving you way too much to do, and you’d rather die than talk to him about the situation. Or maybe you disagree with the philosophy of your boss, possibly to the point of driving you insane, but you don’t want to even think about talking about this with him.

Let me offer you a word of encouragement, be courageous. Nothing great was ever achieved by someone who didn’t act in a courageous way. At some point, all the leaders we admire, took a step that was uncomfortable, awkward, risky or even dangerous. And it was that step that began their definition as a leader.

Let me encourage all of us to be a little more courageous. Let’s not waste anymore tine being scared of doing what we know needs to be done. Let’s take a step in the right direction and do it.

]]> http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/being-a-leader-requires-courage/feed/ 0 http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/weekend-review/ http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/2008/06/weekend-review/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:41:06 +0000 David Lindner http://www.worshipministrycatalyst.com/?p=39 I’m thinking back on this weekend. It wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t grand. I made a mistake in picking two songs that the congregation didn’t know. Especially when we only did four in the whole service. The songs fit so perfectly with what Bob was preaching about, that I just couldn’t resist using them.

I had to ask myself a question though. Even if the songs were perfect for the sermon, did they add to worship or take away from it since people didn’t know them? Were people sitting in the congregation trying to figure out the song, and as a result were more focused on that than they were on worshiping Jesus? I hope not, but I fear that this is probably what happened.

What made the weekend weirder was that we only had myself on the keys, Alan on bass and Erin as a female vox. So, it was weird instrumentation also. So add that to the new songs, I’m not sure that this weekend was a very big success.

I’d give myself a C+ for the weekend. Largely because there was a redeeming song at the end. The song was absolutely perfect to close the service with, and people really responded to God in worship as a result. So, even though the majority of the worship this weekend may have been a let down to many, there was a redeeming note that people left on.

If you have some helpful advice about maintaining healthy relationships among worship team members and church staff members please feel free to comment on this post with your thoughts. You can also email david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Please feel free to leave a comment on this blog post if you have some helpful advice in dealing with confrontation. If you’d like to get in touch with us you can use the form below, or email david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com.

We’re in the second week of our Revolution series, and this week was about grace so we did communion at the end of the service. Bob wove it seamlessly into the sermon and tied the whole service together extremely well. It wasn’t one of those weekends where you do communion because you haven’t done it in 6 weeks, it was a weekend where we did communion because it was the right thing to do. The congregation responded very well to communion, and the worship that followed.

There has also been quite a bit of consistency to the experience of the entire weekend. The songs have been consistent with the theme, the decor is also consistent. The mood is set from the moment you walk through the doors with the decorations in the foyer, then pre-service videos and other videos throughout the service.

I love the direction we’re going with our services, we’re really starting to go in the direction of begin far more creative with the entire worship experience and not just trying to get the songs and message to line up. I hope that we really keep going further down this road so that the experience for everyone regular attender and visitor alike is something they remember after they leave the building.

In this week’s episode, Kevin and David talk about conflict & criticism. We deal primarily (in this episode) with criticism from church members at large. Kevin shares another story about the “touring days” with the MBC Ambassador choir.

Please feel free to give us some feedback about the episode. If you have further insight into the topic of dealing with criticism, please leave a comment on this post. We really look forward to hearing from you. You can email david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com or you can use the contact page.

If you have feedback for us about this episode, or if you have a topic you’d like us to discuss in future episodes, please feel free to email us. You can use the contact page to get in touch with us, or you can simply email david@worshipministrycatalyst.com

Here’s the link.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-4cabbb3a56c951fc357fac0d04d08e91}

If you have feedback for us about this episode, or if you have a topic you’d like us to discuss in future episodes, please feel free to email us. You can use the contact page to get in touch with us, or you can simply email david@worshipministrycatalyst.com

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Here it Is! The very first episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast. This is Episode Zero. That means it’s just a short episode on what we at Worship Ministry Catalyst are about, and what the podcast is aiming to do.

The first episode will be a short introduction episode to what the podcast and worship ministry catalyst is all about. We’re really excited to get this underway, and are looking forward to hearing back from you.

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We had a couple in our church lead worship this weekend. It was their first weekend leading at our church, and I really wanted to make sure it was a great experience for them, so I was trying to make sure everything was in place, and it just sop happened that this was the weekend that everyone couldn’t participate. We ended up without a drummer or electric guitarist. I was a little nervous.

This couple have led worship before for another church, and have sung together for many years. They did a phenomenal job! The worship had a very cool, acoustic vibe to it, and the congregation responded extraordinarily well to their leadership. It seems to have been a success for this couple and for our church.

This just goes to show you that God had a different plan for this weekend that was different than ours. Had our plan succeeded things would have probably been fine, but likely not as good as this. The connection with our congregation might not have been as strong, and the feeling may not have been as good as it is.

God new the plans he had for our congregation, and they are the plans that will lead our congregation into the future.

I’d strongly recommend you listen to Episode # 77, and then every other one.

Also, I’ll be adding some more information about Kevin & I here in the next couple of days, you’ll be able to get to them through the about page.

I’m stoked for that first podcast. I really am looking forward to the ways God is going to use WMC to build a network of Worship Leaders and Worship Ministries.

Stay Tuned, it will be coming soon!