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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh yeah, and take a vacation!

A while back…ok, quite a while back I started writing a bit about using a creative team to plan worship services. (If you missed that article check it out here.) Well, here we are back in the saddle again.

This topic among discussions of creativity is probably one of the most important and yet, one of the most overlooked.

1.) Stop saying no to ideas that don’t fit your paradigm. How many times have you shot down and idea instinctively or had one of your ideas shot down in the same manner? This is one of the biggest road blocks to creativity.

You’ve probably heard this before, but it’s worth repeating: If you keep doing what you’ve done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. If you want the best ideas to rise to the top, you have to allow all ideas to rise, not shut them down.

2.) Get out there and see ideas of what others are doing (especially people/churches who do things you don’t normally do. We need to be good at finding resources, ideas that other people have tried and succeeded at doing. We need to be good at sifting through lots of information, looking at a lot of manuscripts until we find the cream of the crop. It’s kind of like a thankless version of American Idol. We go through a lot of auditions to find the one star, the one that stands well above the rest, the one that will speak to the most people. Use your feed readers like google, or even subscribe to blogs like this one in your email program. Get used to sifting through lots of material until you find the one gem.

3.) Take a semi-calculated risk. Some of us think we take “calculated” risks, but in reality we don’t. We calculate them so much that any real risk has been removed from the equation. I know the arguments, there’s too much on the line, we might lose people, we might make people mad, people might stop giving their money and we won’t have a job, etc. In all likelihood the only reason any of us are in the positions that we are is because someone, somewhere along the way took a risk and it paid off.

We have to take some risks. The bigger our organizations get, the harder risks become to take and the more comfortable we get with the way things are. We stand to lose too much, so we keep things the way we are, we make the same decisions.

Take a risk, do something that hasn’t been done before. Think it through, but don’t kill it just because you’ve never done it before.

In order to be creative, we have to remove the filter through which we evaluate ideas. We can’t judge an idea based on what we think we know. We have to learn from other’s mistaks. We have to take risks.

I don’t have any evidence to back this up, but I have a theory. A Senior Pastor once told me that people cling to the music of their youth. In other words, if someone has an emotional connection to a song when they’re young, they’ll likely become attached to that song and to other songs that are in that style and even the style itself. This is one possible answer to why some of the older people you know might cling so tightly to hymns and Gaither choruses.

That’s my theory for what happened this season on American Idol. I’m not convinced that America loved Adam Lambert as much as the judges did. Granted, he is a performer and was able to use the stage, etc., however, the judges pushed him hard all season long. There were very few times that something negative came out of the judges mouths, no matter how ridiculous his rendition of a song was.

Because his voice sounded so much like what all of judges cut their teeth on as performers and producers, they had a stronger emotional connection to Adam than the other contestants and in the process convinced a lot of the impressionable minds in America that he already was the American Idol. As objective as they claim to be, or at least they’re supposed to be, I don’t think that they were able to separate their emotions from their logic (if they even have any). However, if the top 40 is any indication of what America likes to listen to, it’s not KISS or whatever other 80′s rock group Adam could be the lead singer of. (Yes I know a lot of that music is making a comeback, but it’s still no where near the rest of the music in the top 40).

You see, I think America puts up with certain genres of music during American Idol because it’s American Idol. However, once the shows over, I think we all go back to our preferences, which for me would explain why some of the idols have been extremely successful and others have tanked.

It’s something we need to think about. Do we do the same thing? Do we choose music based on what we connect with emotionally or do we pick music based on what we think will connect with our congregations. Sometimes they’re the same, sometimes they’re not. For me, there have been a lot songs that I haven’t connected with that many people in our congregation have, so we do those songs.

So, as you field conspiracy theories about why Adam Lambert didn’t win American Idol, may it be a constant reminder to you to be thinking about the music you’re selecting for your congregation, are you picking it for you, or are you picking it for them.

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.

Today, David and Kevin tackle a topic that has been a point of contention for many worship leaders for many years – what are the guidelines for introducing a new song? How many new songs can you do throughout the course of a year? When you introduce it, how should you teach it to your congregation?

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.

In this weeks episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, David and Kevin do a follow up to the interview of Jodan Fowler from www.worshiptrench.com. It was such a great episode we just had to continue talking about it this week. If you missed last weeks episode, you really should check it out.

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.

What a great episode we have for you this week. We talked with Jordan Fowler of www.worshiptrench.com about doing a Year End Review. It is a very uplifting and encouraging conversation for us and I’m sure it will be for you too.

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.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Creativity lately. I know that many of you are a part of creative teams at your churches and you all have your own process for how come to your end result. I’ve been wanting to write what I know about how to utilize creativity in the local church, and have had trouble narrowing down the ideas, so I just decided to start writing and work it out along the way.

First, let’s start by defining what a Creative Team is (and isn’t). I’ve been doing a lot of research on other creative teams out there, and what I’ve found is that there are two types of creative teams – at least the term gets used in these two ways quite regularly. In the first it is used to describe a team of people who do the creative stuff. They’re the dancers, singers, actors, etc. This is NOT the type of creative team I will be discussing. The type of creative team I will be talking about is the group of people who meet to brainstorm creative ideas about a sermon or sermon series and creative worship elements that will enhance the point of the sermon or sermon series.

With that out of the way, I want to talk about one of the biggest hindrances to the success of a creative team – Patience. I haven’t talked with a ton of people who have been doing this, but one of the common threads in these discussions seems to be that the ideas just don’t seem to come. It seems, in our culture, we can’t be satisified unless we get the resolution we’re looking for immediately. It’s this desire that forces us to settle for the lesser creative ideas and not plow through to find the absolute best ones.

It’s like that at times – plowing. The old school kind, you know using horses or mules, etc. Coming to the best idea can be a lot of hard work and take a lot of time.

So, in your meetings, do everything you can to excercise patience. Wait. Don’t get in a hurry (if you can help it).

Also, don’t be afraid of the silence. People need time to think. You need time to think. Most people (men and women) can’t think their best if someone is always talking. Stop talking. Encourage the silence. This is the hard part, ask others to be silent. If you have someone on your team who jeopardizes the conversation, talk the him/her in private and ask them to try to allow more time for others to talk.

Along with patience and silence you need time. It’s different than patience. You need to have enough notice on what the sermon or sermon series is going to be that you don’t have to be rushed to come up with something. You’ll never get the good stuff that way. This will be something that you’ll have to work with your Senior Pastor on. It might be a hard conversation, but it’s absolutely necessary. If you’re not far enough out in advance, you’ll always be behind the eight ball, only able to do what you can accomplish at the last minute. You’ll also be frustrated. You’ll come up with really good ideas, where if you had just a couple more weeks you could pull off the really good idea, but because the weekend is only days away you’re forced to do what you can not what you could.

One last though is that your patience and time may need to span multiple meetings. (If you’re planning far enough out) you don’t need to feel like you have to come up with the final idea at this week’s meeting. One of the best creative ideas a team I was working with came as the result of four weeks worth of meetings. It won’t always take a long time, but it might. You need to give yourself the time for it to take time. You need to give yourself permission to not make a decision right away. Let it simmer in your brains for a week or two. Then after the whole team has had time to process the idea, make a decision as a team on what the best idea is.

That’s it for the first round. There’s plenty more to come, stay tuned!

Break out the Heresy hat because we’re bringing on the controversy this week on the Worship Ministry Catalyst podcast.

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

All the stars aligned and worship was awesome. So, I don’t actually believe in the stars aligning or whatever, but in a sense they did. We did almost everything this week that prepared us as wholly as we could for the worship this weekend.

I don’t know about you, but for me, it seems like I feel quite regularly (as a worship leader) there is always more I could have done to help us get ready. And it usually shows in some way on the weekend. You know…could have gotten the band the charts earlier, could have worked more on one part during rehearsal, could have communicated better, etc. It wasn’t a perfect week, there were a couple of loose ends that had to be tied up on the weekend….our bass player couldn’t make to the midweek rehearsal, we didn’t have childcare for our Sat. rehearsal, I could have reminded the band what they needed to work on between our rehearsal and the service. But those things aside, we were really prepared for our role to lead worship this weekend. And it showed.

We got a lot of compliments like “Great worship” “There were times that it was hard to sing (in a good way)” & even one who said “That was the best worship we’ve ever had.”

In spite of all we did, the best thing that we did and the best thing that happened was that all of us on the team were being submissive and allowing God is speak to us and through us. In the end that’s what made it so great – our willingness to be led by the Spirit and lead the congregation that way.

Here was our set:

• All the Earth will Sing your Praises (Baloche – Travis Cotrell arr.)
• Lord I lift your name on High (Lincoln Brewster Arr.)
• Welcome & prayer
• Great & Marvelous (Tommy Walker)
• Scripture Reading (Rev. 4)
• Revelation Song (Jennie Lee Riddle)
• Sermon
• I surrender all (on Sat.) Grace Greater than our Sin (on Sun.)

Great and Marvelous.

This was a new song for us. It was challenging to our band (and me), and it was stylistically quite different from what we normally do here on the weekend – which is exactly why I chose it.

Revelation Song.

If this song isn’t in your rotation it needs to be. It’s one of the best, power-worship songs to come out in a long time (in my opinion).

Lessons Learned this week: When I do my part to prepare it frees the worship leaders up to be able to lead and be led in worship.

For more weekend Reviews go check some out at Fred’s Place.

A bit over dramatic…but…sometimes things happen. Sometimes plans fail and sometimes not because of anything we did or didn’t do.

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

In this weeks’ episode Kevin & I talk about some of the shows that we are excited about being back on TV, and then we dive right into our topic of the day, which is the process we use for finding new worship songs.

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 don’t know about you, but I’ve found myself in this situation more than once. You’re getting your charts ready for rehearsal, and as you’re doing so you come across a chart that you know is weak. But, because you’re running out of time, you just go ahead and shove it into the copier. Not long after that you find yourself in a rehearsal and all of a sudden you’re wishing you had taken the time to rewrite the chart that you are now struggling through, having to talk people through all the wrong chords, and chords in the wrong places.

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.

In this weeks’ episode David and Kevin talk about the cool opportunity that he got for his worship team. It’s very cool, and you’ll want to be sure to check that out. We also talked about showing appreciation for your team members as well as more on training up worship leaders.

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.

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 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.

Here’s an article I found on theworshipcommunity.com They offered some good advice on worship leading. Go Check it out:

10 Tips for Worship Leaders: How to Enhance On-Stage Presence

If you’ve ever seen a group of children perform a song for a gathering of parents and spectators, you’ve seen the teacher or leader who places his or herself directly in their line of vision and proceeds to mouth (very clearly and expressively) every word and indicate every gesture at the appropriate time so that the children can follow along and all look like they know what their doing.

That is exactly our “job” as worship leaders! We’re the coaches, the cue card holders, the kind gentleman in Pretty Woman who discreetly aids a befuddled Julia Roberts’ character in choosing the right fork for the dinner course at a fancy restaurant.

http://worshipministrycatalyst.ning.com/

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.

You might be wondering why this week’s episode is only episode 9.5. Well, like I explain in the podcast, I accidentally deleted the podcasts that Kevin & I recorded today, and they are unrecoverable. So, I had to record an episode with just me talking, so it’s only equal to half an episode.

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

In this weeks episode, Kevin, Scott and I talk about the different pieces of technology that are available for worship ministries to use to help improve our effectiveness. We talk about different pieces of gear as well as costs and various uses for each item we talk about.

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

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’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.

In this weeks’ podcast, Kevin & I were joined by Scott Olson mid podcast. We talk about using Hymns in worship, some of the pros and cons to having to fall into a style of music as opposed to using songs based on the content of the lyrics. It’s a topic we are just touching the surface of, but it’s a great start to the discussion.

In this week’s episode, Kevin & I talk about some of the important things in keeping relationships healthy among worship team members and church staff members. This one gets off to a hilarious start – at least I think so. We hope it’s full of helpful insight for you, your worship team and worship ministry.

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

In this weeks’ episode, Kevin and David talk about dealing with confrontation, and to do it in love. All of us, no matter what position we are in will have to confront someone about something, and when that happens we need to be able to do so in a way that not only honors the person we are confronting, but honors God as well. Hopefully what we talk about will be helpful advice for you all.

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.

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.

This last weekend was a pretty good weekend. The set up for the weekend was hectic, (I wouldn’t recommend starting a new series, the day after a wedding) but once we got past that, the actual service was great. The “worship” time might have been perceived as short by some (only 20 minutes) but the entire service had a great flow to it. I tend to think that it’s best to start a new series with high energy, and a low time commitment. In other words, you want to start with lots of upbeat music and videos and what not, and keep the time to a minimum. I think this helps get the momentum going for the series and keeps it going in the right direction.

We did a new song – new to our church anyway – Majestic by Lincoln Brewster. The Worship Choir will be leading this song in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to introduce it to the congregation now. We also did, a song I wrote – Rest in your Peace, Jesus Lead On & Rescue (which is a phenomenal song!)

We also did some creative things. We decorated the stage to look like a beach/pier – and it looks pretty good – Pastor Bill did a great job with that. We had someone make a lifeguard chair, Bill bought some fence posts to make the pier and borrowed some other rope and boat garb to put around the stage. I made a couple of transitional scripture videos to go between songs. 30 seconds long, and they just introduced the key scripture to the congregation prior to hearing it from our senior pastor. We played several ocean clips amongst our announcement loop prior to the service, and at 4 1/2 minutes before the service started, we played a song from the pirates of Caribbean soundtrack. I did a bumper video based on our Senior pastor’s Keynote (powerpoint) presentation – it was 2 1/2 minutes long, set to another pirates track.

Overall, from what I heard people left the service knowing what the theme was, and having been completely engaged. We ended the service with “I will offer up My life.”

The series is called Revolution, and it’s about Jonah. This week’s message was focused on choosing to obey God all the time and not viewing some of the things he asks us to do as suggestions like Jonah did. I really feel like the entire service worked well together, and all in all it was a great weekend.

In this weeks episode, Kevin and I talk about what worship is. (That’s actually what we talk about this week – last week’s episode was mis labeled) We thought about what topic we should start the podcast off with, and really wrestled with whether or not it would be cliche to start the podcast on the topic of worship. We decided to go ahead and do it anyway.

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

I just wanted to let you all know that Kevin & I are recording the first podcast today. We’re both really excited to be finally doing this, and can’t wait to start communicating with all of you.

We’ll be posting the introduction to the podcast very soon, and then our first full-length episode about a week after that.

Worship Ministry Catalyst is about to get underway!

We’ve been saying it for quite some time, but the podcast really is coming. Kevin & I will be getting together on Monday to do our first recording of the podcast and, it will be shortly after that that we will post the first episode.

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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Sometimes the absence of a “critical” component to the worship band can enhance the worship experience.

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.

Who is reaching out to artists?

What, if anything, are we supposed to be doing in our worship ministries to be reaching out the artists in our communities? In ages past, churches were hubs for the arts. The most creative music, the most creative artwork was done in and/or for the church. Now, for the most part, the arts are completely separated from the church.

Art is taught in schools, and displayed in galleries. Yet, the church – the organization that has the most reason to be creative of all other organizations has very little to do with art today. We know that we are made in the image of our creator, the creator that expressed amazing creativity in creating us and the world and universe around us. Today, most churches seem to be the most uncreative places in the world. In some cases, the only more uncreative place is the DMV. That sounds kind of harsh, but I feel strongly that the church should not only be creative, but has a responsibility to do so.

Not only does the church have the responsibility to be creative, but the church has the responsibility to reach out to creative people. Also, the church has the responsibility to reach out to culture in general, and  be a redeeming force not only for people, but also for the culture that lost people live in. Why? Because God not only created people, but he created the earth and all that is in it. How do we reach out to these people? How do we reach out to culture? I’m working on some ways to do this, and as I come up with ideas, I’ll start posting them here