Worship Demographics – $100 iTunes Giveaway

Hello Everyone,

We need your help. We are developing a new ad/media packet for those interested in advertising on the network of websites for Highest Praise Productions. These sites include FredMcKinnon.Com, HighestPraise.Com, and TheWorshipCommunity.Com.

It’s a simple survey that should take about 2- 3 minutes of your time and is about worship demographics and ministry. Please complete the survey, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT involved in ministry.

We’ll be giving away $100 in iTunes Gift Cards by a random drawing of those who participate in the survey.

Take the Survey – and SPREAD THE WORD!
(comments closed – please take the survey!)

Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus

Every once in awhile I’ll be leading worship when I’m overwhelmed by a thought that is so novel I think, “If I share this, they will think I’m crazy.” But since I’m kind of a risk taker, I usually say it.
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Creativity: The Missing Piece(s)

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 churces 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.
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“Pieces” by RED

Amazing song of repentance and surrender. Read more

Facing The Shadows

We don’t much enjoy shadows in our world today, and perhaps even less so in the Church. When darkness becomes visible, we try to batter it away and shine all the brighter, hoping that we won’t have to face what the darkness might reveal. Take the current economic crisis for example. We all long to put it behind us and return to life as normal. I see relatively few people taking the time to examine this darkness and learn what it seeks to teach us about economic equity and justice – but that is a topic for a whole different article.

This is why I really like Tenebrae – the Service of the Shadows. In my church it is held every year on the Thursday of Holy Week, the night before Good Friday. It is a time when we explore the shadows that encroached on Jesus in his last hours and ultimately took his life. As we reflect, through gentle song and thoughtful Scripture reading, on the people around Jesus and their response to what was happening, we see our own darkness in them. We recognize that, like Peter, we too easily deny Jesus; like Judas, we too have a price for which we will betray him. We see our own cowardice and self-righteousness, and our own Pharisaical need to control and condemn. We see our own grief in the eyes of Jesus’ mother, and our own despair when death and evil seem to triumph.

I need this service. I believe we all do, because it enables us to do the work of facing our shadows, and until we do this, we cannot be delivered from them. The first step to salvation is admitting that I am sinner. The first step into the light is acknowledging my own shadows.

As an attempt to do this work well, I wrote a dramatized version of the Tenebrae service some years ago. Instead of the traditional readings, this drama uses a series of monologues, spoken by some of the people who went through this dark journey with Jesus – Peter, Judas, Mary, and others – to explore and face the shadows. It has been used many times, by many churches and groups around the world, and has been found to be a helpful and meaningful way to journey, in worship, into the depth of Jesus’ suffering, and to face the sin darkness which lives in each of us and drove him to his death.

If you’re looking for a way to make this Easter a deeper, more healing and restorative time, take a look at Facing the Shadows – A Tenebrae Drama. This link will take you to a page of resources for Holy Week and Easter (Scroll down to the bottom to find the link to a .pdf of the script).

Easter Worship Service: Different, Yet The Same

A Great Opportunity

Easter, Mother’s Day and Christmas tend to be days when attendance at our worship gatherings increases. Generally, these are the times when we roll out our red carpets and bring out the fanfare and “productions” to attract attenders. Many churches put on cantatas, plays and musicals. Other churches dust off the seasonal songs for the worship set list.

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CD Review: Ryan Delmore “The Spirit, the Water and the Blood”

This album has been out for a few months and I’m glad I’ve waited to review until I was really able to dig into it. I’ve known about Ryan for many years, we were both leading worship in the Vineyard in our youth, Ryan was about an hour north of me in the 5 Cities area on the coast of California. We shared many of the same friends but our paths never crossed until recently when I sat down to interview him upon the release of this album.

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Tips For Introducing Original Songs

This year, our Praise and Worship Team is focusing on new and original music. We have a few songwriters, including myself, whose songs have been lying dormant. It is time to revive them. So how do you introduce an original song to your Praise Team? Read on for some ideas to help you out.

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The Sexy Christian

So I have been trying to figure out why I want a Mac so bad. My work provides me with a perfectly good PC to check my email, hop on the internet, and to post this article. In the creative world, Macs are simply better because of their processing power and operating system, but that doesn’t matter too much for me checking my email and posting this article. Besides, I have a Mac Pro for video editing and audio recording, but I don’t need a Powerbook to check my email or to post this article. So why is it that when I walk in to Starbucks, and pull out my Dell, I feel embarrassed?

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Almighty

Almighty by highestpraise
“Almighty” by Travis is a medium-tempo worship song expressing God’s worth in the midst of our trials and questions.  Available by Highest Praise Productions, including free mp3, lead sheet, and chord charts.

“Almighty”by Travis Jones

(visit HighestPraise.Com to download free MP3 and chord charts)

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