Interesting site

I just wanted to know what anyone thought about this blog entitled "What I Wish I Could Tell Every Worship Leader."

I feel as if there is a constant struggle within me between worship that is aimed at nonbelievers and worship that is aimed at the saints. The purpose is to point both to worshipping God, but the language, look, and style can be very different depending on group.Furthermore, I haven't seen both successfully done in one setting, which is probably why a church plant is so appealing to me. I saw a worship service on my one channel of television (yes, only one channel but I do get football) last week of a very large baptist church in the area. The worship leader was obviously a very talented young guy with a contemporary style, nice voice, and nice band. The only problem was the church did not follow him. They pretty much stood there as he sang. The members looked to be individuals who fell under the "saints" category while his song presentation was more oriented towards the "new believer/unbeliever" category of "15-35 year olds." As we have visited numerous churches over the past year, I have seen this mismatch occur. There are worship leaders who want so badly to do Hillsong that they end up being two steps out in front of their church, or they are doing a worship set that is more appropriate for a church with a different vision. I gues my thought is that you can't be what your church is not. I'm not sure if I agree with this next statement or not but I will say it since it's what's on my mind, but Worship is not the place to determine the vision and direction of the church but it's a place to express the vision and mission. If you're church is serving in the community and bringing people to Christ, there will be an expression and an excitement in the worship time. If it is not, you can't create that excitement no matter how many Chris Thomlin songs you encorporate (unless you're from a charismatic tradition and then it's a part of the culture). Anyhow, check out this blog as I'd like to know your thoughts on what this pastor says.
http://shawnlovejoy.typepad.com/shawn_lovejoy/2007/08/what-i-wish-i-c.html

Forever Song

hey everyone

i'd like to share a song with you. this past year at powerline church in nc we had an ash wednesday service. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent which is a season of preparation before Easter. it is 40 days before Easter, not counting Sundays (so it's really 46 days before Easter). at the end of our worship, we read Psalm 103. now, i had read the psalm when i was planning the order and everything but when i read it in the liturgy, it was so incredible. ash wednesday is a time of reflecting on our need for grace. another psalm that is read is psalm 51 which is david's cry for forgiveness: create in me a clean heart o God, and renew a right spirit within me. we also read a prayer together that asks God to forgive our sins, individual and corporate. so when we get to the end of the service it has been a very solemn time of realizing how much we are in need of grace, and to be honest, being reminded of how much we don't deserve it. but when we got to Psalm 103 it was incredible. listen to verse 8-11:

the Lord is merciful and gracious
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love
He will not always accuse
nor will He keep his anger forever
He does not deal with us according to our sins
nor repay us according to our iniquitie
for as the heavens are high above the earth
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear Him (nrsv)

it was an awesome time of worship. so the next day, i was inspired to write a song based on verses 1-5.

bless the Lord, o my soul
and all that is within me bless His holy name
bless the Lord, o my soul
and do not forget all His benefits
who forgives all your iniquity
who heals all your diseases
who redeems your life form the pit
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy
who satisfies you with good as long as you liv
so that your youth is renewed like th eagle's (nrsv)

i loved the "who" language. the who is not a question but an attempt by the psalmist to help the reader remember what he's done. "He's the God who forgives all your iniquity, the one who..." i thought it was very unique.

so here's my song lyrics and video of our band playing it.

Forever Song
Jonathan Sprang and Larry Rogers

VERSE
who forgives all our sin
who cleans the stain within
who takes the sting of death
and makes me live again

who loves without end
who calls me His friend
who satisfies my soul
as long as i live
as long as i live

CHORUS
bless the Lord
my soul's forever song
Loving One
i know my only hope is God's own Son
Loving One
Loving One

BRIDGE
before there was time
there lived a Loving One
and at the end of time
we'll see the Loving One



if you'd like chord charts for the song you can leave a comment and i'll get them to you.

blessings

Recording Live

Anyone have good advice on recording services live? This wouldn't be for CD dissemination; just for band review/evaluation, and maybe podcasting.

What's the best way to get a quality sound, and the best way to record (i.e. miniDisc, directly to harddrive, etc.) Thoughts?

Question About Introducing New Songs

I'm curious, how do you guys introduce new songs? How often? How many times do you repeat it (how many weeks in a row), etc.

Here's what we do. I introduce a new song about every three to four weeks, unless people in the church would already know if from the radio. We do it one week before service, then three weeks in a row, take a week off, and then add it to the rotation. More than one (sometimes more than two) songs can be in this process at a time. I'm just curious if others of you have similar tactics, or if you've found a different method works better.

Note:
This is in our second service, btw. It's a modern service with rarely a song over five years old. In our first service, we'll do a new (old) song about every other month or so. It's more of a blended worship style.

Art & The Supernatural

Check out this CNN video. Akiane Kramarik, a 12-yr old girl, claims to have visions from God, and thus paints accordingly. Akiane, raised in an atheist family, has remarkable clarity into the heart and character of God ("masculine, strong...yet beautiful...") and some astounding paintings to match.

New Life for Older Songs

Okay, not that the Psalms are dead, or in need of any rejuvenation, but seeing as how the Hebrew songwriters neglected to leave scores for their music, it's up to folks like Sons of Korah to interpret the Psalms musically. Check it out - really good stuff from the Aussies.

So do emerging music trends like this, the aforementioned Indelible Grace hymn-remixes, and popularity of albums like Passion Bands' Hymns Ancient and New, reflect a fresh return to musical orthodoxy? Or is it just another postmodern rejection of the establishment (i.e. CCM)? And ultimately, does it really matter, as long as we're 'worshipping'?

Some things to remember: history - despite our best efforts - tends to be cyclical. Try as we may, we just can't escape the past. The old will always be 'rediscovered' with each generation. So, lay people, lay off the grumbling about not enough hymns. They'll always be here.

In terms of worship leading, this takes a lot of pressure off of us to 'keep up with those joneses' - the onslaught of new songs, techniques, technology, etc ad nauseum that we're so tempted to make the heart of our worship. I feel exhausted just walking into a Christian bookstore to buy a worship album.

Forget worship trends and hype - go with substance. And 150 songs, written in a largely forgotten ancient language, that still capture our attention? Now that's substance.

New Life for Old Songs

This is Matthew Smith. I met Smith when I was in college. Incidentally, I was close friends with his now-wife, and Smith stayed in my dorm room for a night while visiting her. He belongs to a new generation of songwriters. Unlike most in Nashville, Smith is seeking to give fresh life to old hymns. His "Indelible Grace" movement and band, a by-product of Reformed University Fellowship, brings worshippers into the presence of the Almighty, almost exclusively through hymns and church songs long neglected. This, friends, is a good thing.

Theology and spiritual meat has often to be 'recaptured' by each generation's worship leaders. The bride longs to sing songs that transcend her here and now. I know I do. A diet of K-Love, without meat and veggies, can tire a soul. Hymns (good ones, at least) are the meat and veggies of the worshippers diet: perhaps not the tastiest at the time, but deeply nourishing.

My question is, who of us can breathe fresh life into at least some of the thousands of Wesley's hymns? And what 'new hymns' - celebrating the Triune God of grace and holiness - are being produced in our churches? Sadly, not enough. It's far too easy to crank out a formulaic worship song. But for those who, like Smith, are willing to plum the depths of church history, great worship music is there for the taking.

tools for ministry

1. visuals

when we moved to rowlett, levi and i made a decision that i would begin doing a lot of the print and web media stuff in house, as well as video and music: an arts pastor. for this reason we purchased me a macbook pro as well as the adobe creative suite 3 (photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver, flash, indesign). a few weeks ago, i got the software installed and began working with illustrator to create a doorhanger that we would use to advertise an event as well as our preview services. it was a lot of fun and in about 3hours i had created a look from scratch and i was very excited.

i am looking forward to learning more about these programs and finding a way to be more creative visually than i ever have before.

2. music

when going to an established church, a worship pastor usually has a group of musicians already in place, ready to play. when doing a church plant, i don't have that luxury. luckily, i have my good friend jonofink here who can rock out some electric leads for us, and my wife who can tear up some keys. what about a bass? drums? solution: ableton live.

levi and i went to cornerstone church over in rockwall and the arts guy there, greg, used ableton live in the worship. he played guitar and sang, he had an electric guy playing rhythm and singing, as well as a girl on piano and singing. he used ableton to create the tracks for bass and drums. it sounded awesome! i decided then and there that i had to get this program and learn how to use it. last night i purchased the m-audio triggerfinger and i also downloaded the free trial of ableton live 6. now when i lead worship i can have the full sound of a band, even if its just me and my guitar.

3. website(s)

in the 21st century, you cannot survive without a website. we have been working with will hill from delco designs on our website and it's close to being up and running. the key ingredient to our main website is going to be simplicity. also, our main website (catalystrowlett.org/com/info/net) will not be for our congregation but for our community. we want people in the community to able to jump on the website and find everything they need to about us as a church without being overwhelmed with the business of most church websites. we are very excited about the look and feel of our website and look forward to when we go live.

we realized in our discussion and development of the catalyst website that we were missing some key needs of our congregation. it was very simple but in order to be as simple as we wanted it we had to sacrifice functionality for things like online registration, podcasts, church calendar. in order to provide that information to our attenders we will be utilizing an entirely seperate system: thebeaker. thebeaker will be our informational center. anything that has to do with important info on happenings at catalyst will be provided through some from of thebeaker. weekly bulletin/program = thebeaker.mini, monthly newsletter = thebeaker.monthly, informational website = thebeaker.online.

we think this is a great way of communicating what needs to be communicated. for guests and community people that want to see what we're about, they can go to catalystrowlett.com/org/net/info and get all the basic need-to-knows. for our regular attenders who need a lot more, they can go to thebeakeronline.com and find everything they "need to know." [check out elevation church and see how they have their websites set up, click on resources then blogs to see the informational websites.]

- from CatalystMusic.blogspot.com

Song of the Week

Tim Hughes is a remarkable worship leader. Songs like "Here I Am to Worship" have understandably found their way into church music sets, and the song "Holding Nothing Back", from the album of the same title, is worth doing, especially when you consider the lyrical similarity to a good ol' Chuck Wesley tune named "And Can It Be". Here's a sampling:

My chains fell off my heart was free
I'm alive to live for You
I'm alive to live for You
Amazing love, how can it be?
You gave everything for me
You gave everything for me
Everything

You've washed my sin and shame away
The slate is clean, a brand new day
Free now forever

Now boldly I approach Your throne
To claim this crown through Christ my own
Yours now forever

Really good stuff.

A Question of Posture

It wasn't too many years ago when this picture would have made me uncomfortable. Such displays seemed....well, too attention-getting.

Well, I've mellowed out a bit, and in personal and corporate worship am often in this very position. So here's the question of the day: Is there an appropriate posture(s) for worship? I know all the Biblical examples: kneeling, standing, laying prostrate, etc. And I know all the cultural examples, as well: clapping, dancing, hanky-waving, and so forth. Yet are these some postures (or expressions) that we as worship leaders see as better than others? Is God moving more powerfully if people are prostrate, as opposed to simply raising hands?

We cannot reduce authentic worship to outward form, nor do we marginalize those who, for various reasons, cannot 'express' in these ways. But the connection between spiritual vitility and physical expression is both valid and validated. We are people, body and soul. Worship is more than a cerabral event - at best, it's full-orbed and whole-bodied. Are we ready for the that in our churches? Really?