Leading Worship Without A Microphone

In my opinion, the primary function of the music ministry in our worship services is to do our best to create a distraction-free environment where people can experience and glorify our loving, living God and the life-changing power of grace through His Holy Spirit. At our church the mission slogan is: “Evangelize Seekers, Edify Believers and Glorify God”.

The question is: “How do we best accomplish this?” Is the answer as simple as having great musicians and singers and then letting God take care of the rest? I think we all know that answer is only half true. Yes, God will take what we authentically and humbly offer and use it for His purposes and glory but every church has the people they have and unless you hire out, you’re not always going to be blessed with the most gifted musicians and singers on the planet.

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Worship Concerts: Or How to Perplex Christians Who Think Concert is A Bad Word

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[Disclaimer: No Christians were actually harmed or maliciously perplexed during the making of this article]

Sometimes it seems that Christians hijack words and change their meanings assuming that it makes us more holy or something. We throw around cliches like “worship is not a performance” or “make a joyful noise” to convey our humility (or false humility?). Sure, at times, we really mean well, but I think its time to let words mean what they mean. At least at a basic level.

Two years ago I wrote a piece for The Worship Community titled Is There A Place For Performance In Worship? The basic premise of the article was to point out actual definitions of the word “perform” and to clarify its use for Worship Leaders. We’ve been told (and have said) so many times that “worship is not a performance.” But at its most basic level the word “perform” literally means to render music by singing or playing.

This brings me to a thought about the use of the word “concert.” Where does your “christianese” mind go to when you hear the word concert? Is it possible to have a concert that is worship? Can you actually have a worship concert and still be holy?

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Suffering, Cancer, The Complexities of Life Lead The World’s Best-Known Female Worship Artist, Darlene Zschech, To Declare The Truth of God – Revealing Jesus

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By Melissa Riddle Chalos

Her songs are sung weekly by a world choir with “Shout To The Lord” alone being sung by an estimated 30 million each week. And those songs and recordings have helped produce 16 Gold and Platinum albums. Her books have been translated into 19 languages. Her passion for mentoring worship leaders has fueled and inspired a new generation serving and leading around the world. Her heart for orphans and widows helped launch HOPE: Rwanda and Hope: Global now serving thousands of the world’s poorest children.

Add to that the fact that Darlene Zschech is a wife, mother, new grandmother and a partner in ministry with her husband Mark, and one might wonder what more a woman of such substance can do that she hasn’t already done? [Read more...]

Giveaway: Worship Songwriters Webinar Presented by AllAboutWorship.com & The Songwriter’s Cafe.com

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The fine folks at All About Worship & The Songwriter’s Cafe have put together a great group of Worship Songwriters for their April Webinar series and we’re giving away 1 FREE registration! See giveaway below!

Each webinar will be about 90 minutes long and include: teaching, Q&A time, and critiquing 2 of the pre-submitted songs by the instructor. Instructors include:

  • Dustin Smith
  • Chris McClarney
  • Daniel Bashta
  • James Tealey.

View WEBINAR DETAILS here: http://www.allaboutworship.com/songwriters/songwriting-webinars

Church Impossible

Image from chefirvine.com

Image from chefirvine.com

My wife and I like to watch the show Restaurant: Impossible. If you aren’t familiar with it here is the skinny. A world renown chef, Robert Irvine, goes into failing restaurants with a design and contracting team and turns them around in only 3 days. He identifies problems, recreates environments, trains up deficiencies, tweaks menus, and then leaves with a project that SHOULD succeed if managed well. (I’ve never followed up on the website to track the actual success rate.) [Read more...]

Living Legacy

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Legacy: “anything handed down from the past.”

I think if you asked anyone, “Do you want to leave a great legacy?” they’d probably say yes.

When it’s all said and done, most everyone wants to be remembered in a great, positive light. We want people to say nice things about us at our funeral. After we die, and our name comes up in conversations, we want people to describe us in beautifully positive way.

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Worship Leaders: 5 Ways to Receive Compliments

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Recently, I had the privilege of being part of a group of guys that led worship for a large group of men for our annual men’s retreat. The entire weekend was a blast and I’m already anticipating next year’s! We had a great time in our sessions and contrary to what most would expect about a group of men like this, the “room” (you can see it is actually a large tent) was inundated with bass, baritone, and tenor voices rising in praise and worship. It was great. [Read more...]

Is It Okay For The Congregation To Clap After Worship Songs?

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Have you ever given thought to why we clap our hands during or after we sing a song of praise in our gathered congregation? Have you ever wondered why some congregations are eager to clap their hands while others are reluctant during worship services?

I’ve thought much about this in the last few weeks and months, leading worship at my church. A recent conversation with Sojourn New Albany Worship Director Justin Shaffer encouraged me to ponder these things even more deeply. He and I were observing how at some service times, the congregation is exuberant and often claps their hands after we finish singing our praises and prayers to the Lord. And then there are other times when there’s hardly a peep of excitement after we just finished belting out our praises and acknowledgments of God’s extreme goodness and kindness to us in Christ.

It’s hard for us leaders not to attempt to measure our worth by the responsiveness of our congregation to each song. We should not be measuring “our” success as worship leaders in this way, but it’s a temptation every worship leader must confront. May the Lord help us keep our eyes fixed upon Him and our hearts fully in awe of HIS perfect success in making our praise beautiful and acceptable.

But is there a legitimate reason for encouraging a congregation to clap?

Yes, if we teach that clapping is our applause of His great name, done eagerly in celebration of the salvation we have received by grace through faith in Christ’s redemptive work on our behalf. They shouldn’t clap to applaud and honor the musicians and singers, but they should not fear or hesitate when it comes to applauding our great God.

Where clapping in our worship services is concerned, you may have experienced a conflict in your own heart similar to the one I’m about to describe. There have been times when I — as a worshiper in the congregation — hesitated to clap after a song because I wasn’t sure exactly why I should be clapping, and I didn’t want to do it without conviction. As excellent as the musicians and singers who led the song may have been, I knew it wasn’t really appropriate in the context of our gathered worship of God to applaud the efforts of the worship team. But, neither was my heart fully engaged in awe of God’s splendorous grace that we’d just sung about. I wasn’t considering HIS applause-worthiness and therefore my heart was not convinced to compel my hands to clap.

I’m sure that there are many in our congregations who are experiencing a similar conflict of interests in their own hearts. We have the opportunity to lead them by our example and through exhortations that encourage them to understand why it’s appropriate for us to eagerly applaud our Lord. When we sincerely contemplate who He is and what He’s done for us as we’re singing about who He is and what He’s done for us (because, let’s admit it, there are times when our lips are moving, but our hearts are dull and unresponsive to the grace we’re singing about), our hearts should desire to applaud the great name of the Lord—the name by which we are saved!

Convinced of His worthiness of all praise…

…we should desire to openly and exuberantly celebrate His great grace and love demonstrated to us in sending His only Son to suffer and die in our place. These appropriate heart responses, if we allow them to, may compel us to respond with our whole bodies in sincere worship of the Lord, who is entirely and eternally most worthy of all praise, glory and honor.

Together, let’s freely applaud His great name and celebrate His great love when we gather in worship.

Psalm 47:1-2Come, everyone! Clap your hands! Shout to God with joyful praise! For the Lord Most High is awesome. He is the great King of all the earth.

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As the daughter of a worship pastor, Kristen Gilles became involved in music ministry at a young age.  Accomplished as a vocalist, pianist, guitarist and songwriter, she has led worship in various churches and conferences, toured the United States from New York City to Dallas, Texas and many points in between, and recorded an EP in 2009, Embrace The Bigger Picture. Connect with Kristen at Facebook.com/kristensmithgilles.

Kristen currently leads worship in Sojourn Community Church and was featured on Sojourn’s 2011 album The Water And The Blood: The Hymns Of Isaac Watts, Volume Two.

Originally published at: http://mysonginthenight.com/2012/09/19/is-it-okay-for-the-congregation-to-clap-after-a-worship-song. Republished with permission.

Worship Leader Language: Are You Fluent? (Humor)

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Every worship leader knows that when you take your worship leader entrance exam, you have to be brushed up on your worship lingo. Sure, any old body can tell people to stand up and sing, and pray when the songs are over… but what about those super spiritual phrases in between stanzas? That stuff doesn’t write itself…

Before today, you may have just thought your worship leader was speaking some new form of Christianese, or that there was a book in the Old Testament full of phrases they are supposed to say. If only it were that simple. [Read more...]

Leading Worship With Multiple “Leaders”

One of my favorite things to do is to develop leaders. Especially in the arena of music and “worship music.” I find great personal fulfillment and joy in recognizing, developing, and unleashing leadership potential in people.

Over the years, I’ve been blessed to be in places of ministry where I could pursue that kind of mentorship and discipleship through music. It’s a beautiful thing when someone who is appropriately skilled (or has the potential) and has a desire to serve others through music can be given the time and space to develop their leadership skills. [Read more...]