JAy observes...
Charles Wesley was a genius when it came to song lyrics. But I find his music is best appreciated when studied prior to singing. Unfortunately, I have never been to a church that allows this to happen. The fact that people fail to understand what they are singing is a shame...Now if I only knew how to solve this dilemma...
How do you solve it at your church?
Ryan at reformworship.com has an open letter to his congregation about the structure of worship at their church.
Could your Sunday work like this?
Terry Delaney at saidatsouthern.com reviews James Bartley's book Worship that Pleases God.
Jim Drake blogs about the changes in who's leadin' the singin' over the past 34 years in honor of the retirement of his friend Ty Morris, Jr.
On Monday (Tuesday after a holiday weekend) mornings, we'll post set lists from the prior Sunday. Just post them online and then shoot them to the email address linked on the right column.
This week... only one:
Our own Ed Stetzer blogs about "portable churches" and the tradeoffs that they have (like big weekly setup and takedown, but no building to maintain.)
More on the nomadic church in this book.
ChaplainAndrews.com is the blog of a U.S. Army Chaplain currently serving in Germany. He posts today (yesterday with the time change?) on setting the stage for worship.
Prodigal Jon writes about a fragrance that reminds him of church.
Prodigal Jon, if you email me, I'll get you a new 2008 Baptist Hymnal to roll around in. I can't promise you a bunch though. :D
Rich Kirkpatrick continues his Worship Mythbusters series of posts with MYTH: Worship leading is not performing.
Many in our churches like to use the word “performance� and make it another projectile at the worship team. They enjoy the fact that they can say a worship leader should not be performing, but worshiping as he leads as if the two are mutually exclusive. It means that his preparation is devalued and the attempt at beauty and form are discouraged. Worship expression or liturgy to many is simply a means, not and end. Really, it is an act to be performed.
Three blog posts on "worship":
I don't know if they offer carhop service, but if you're near Port Clinton, OH, you might want to attend the Open Air Worship service hosted by Trinity United Methodist Church at the Mon Ami Restaurant. Sound reinforcement is provided by your vehicle's FM radio, and the service starts with the "Toot Salute" where everyone in attendance honks their horn.
I'd say this is a "unique, new way to reach out to your community" if it weren't for the last line in the article:
The service has been sponsored by Trinity United Methodist Church for forty-nine years.
Does that mean that this is the 50th anniversary... or that next year will be? Someone call Bill Geist!
Christian artist and contributor to the Stephen Curtis Chapman is facing a family tragedy today with the accidental death of his youngest daughter.
We have an iron clad guarantee that none of the hymnals you purchase from us will be delivered to you possessed.
Youthalive Worship has a quick commentary on what worship is.
I just wanted to post this as a reminder to any of you reading: you can blog, just start. This is a "first post!" that is a good start.
Scot Longyear posts about burnout, and links to another post (also by Scot Longyear) that gives some scriptural backup.
We work like the church depends on us. Last time I checked, Jesus said that he would build His church (Mt 16:18).
Whilst digging around on his blog, I also found this series of articles he entitles "Worship Leading Essentials."
How much of this rings true in your ministry?
Stay Off the Paved Road, a blog by a pastor-in-training at Boyce, gives an open letter to pastors about their impact on the worship culture of their church.
WIS TV did a story on the "makeover" of the Baptist Hymnal.
If you see other news coverage that hasn't made it onto the blog, please email us at the link in the right hand column!
While not explicitly about the musical content of a worship service, Tony Morgan's post challenges us to consider the question.
Does anyone have any scripture to back this up? :D
David Wilcox's comment is as close as I've seen:
First is this: I don’t think excellence of any particular type is a specific command of the Bible.... I would also go so far to say that excellence is not explicitly commanded anywhere (however, I haven’t memorized the Bible, so I am open to adjustment here).However, the Bible does expect and call us to faithfulness. And there are at least a couple passages that define human faithfulness when it comes to evangelism and the gospel: in Colossians 4:4 Paul prays that he would make the gospel clear and in Matthew 10:27 Jesus commands his disciples shout the message from the housetops.
Daniel Godden posts an excerpt from Bob Kauflin's book questioning the use of the term. There's the beginning of a good discussion too.
What does your church call "the music guy?"
Although Mike Ratliff takes an extensive route through Purpose Driven and musical style to get there, his post on Spiritual Worship gives some good focal passages and testimony supporting his thesis:
God’s desire is that we live for Him in all parts of our lives
Lest you assume that tech folks are too busy fiddling with the dials, David Baxley, Director of Media and Technical Ministries at First Free Church in Onalaska, WI has two great posts on worship at his blog.
Gavin Brown posts his Wikipedia-length assessment of the evolution of worship music. Do you agree with his last two paragraphs?
IMO, decent theology flies the coop and solidifies the stereotype that worship guys (like me) are clueless about matters of doctrine and have little to no knowledge of scripture outside of the Psalms.Worship music becomes an insanely profitable industry. There are now more worship conferences than Wal-marts (not really, but I’ll bet its close). Christian colleges and seminaries are adding worship leading degrees to their curriculum (my alma mater is one of them), and folks are getting straight-up rich off of worship music.
Have you seen the worshiptogether.com blog? Jimi Williams blogs pretty regularly about topics related to "doing church" for people involved in worship and music ministries... like this open letter to church gear swipers.
Lead Pastor Bill Grandi of Owen Valley Christian Fellowship in Spencer, IN blogs about "full body worship."
There is another type of full-body worship-the kind that takes place every time God’s people get together. When the body (in our case known as OVCF) worships. Some laugh. Some cry. Some raise their hand or hands. Some put their hands across their heart. Some sing. Some are silent. Some whisper. Some sing out loud. Oh, the sweetness of that time!
Jeff Miller at consumingworship.org continues his interview with worship leader Jamey Ketchum of Park Hill Baptist Church.
By the way, if you are reading consumingworship.org in Internet Explorer, the leftmost letter on each line is chopped off. It looks fine in Firefox, and Safari.
Kate Walker has a thoughtful post on whether the performance of "Shout to the Lord" on American Idol was out of context.
Seventeen years ago, you said "hymnal" and everyone knew what you were talking about. In 2008, you say, "hymnal" and everyone thinks they know what you're talking about.
Oh, by the way, if you don't need a hymnal, It's not a hymnal.
Because the LifeWay Worship Project has so many pieces, not just what people think of as a hymnal, we've had to come up with some new terms to communicate the new ideas that are embodied in the products that we've created. This post is about the first new idea...
Extended Collection
Elevation Church talks about how they keep their worship team engaged in worshipping.
What do you do?
Douglas at averyfineline.com is asking... what was the first hymnal with a Gaither song in it?
An interesting post by Thomas at EverydayLiturgy.com about unseen consequences of the projector on congregational song.
When I was a teenager and hymnals began to collect dust as overhead projectors took over I welcomed it as an opportunity to get with the times. Computers were taking over the world, and I had heard of AOL and the Internet---the world seemed like it was ready to ditch the book and go electronic...Yet I am no longer a fan of projectors. I want to get rid of them.
...I used to generally agree with the whole argument that disparaged contemporary worship songs as individualistic and fluffy, about as nourishing as a twinkie. I still agree with that argument when it comes to certain contemporary songs, but for the most part I think that blaming the song, or the band, or the words is not going far enough. Blame the whole presentation. Blame the projector.
How does your congregation "consume" music in the worship service? A song at a time, or a line at a time, and which one impacts them for better or worse?
One of the challenges about the LifeWay Worship Project, frankly, is explaining it. The pieces that make up the puzzle include just about every kind of resource that churches today are using in congregational worship.
As the marketing manager for the project, my job is to tell churches about it, and from about day one, I knew we had a problem. If your church is a Baptist church interested in using a pew edition hymnal, you need to know that Baptist Hymnal™ is a big part of the project. Or, if you're not a Baptist church, you need to know that The Worship Hymnal is a big part of the project.
But, if your church doesn't use a hymnal, you need to know that there are 92 compact disc, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and DVD products in the LifeWay Worship Project that could turn out to be indispensable for your ministry. And, there will be literally thousands of products that will be available online, none of which require the use of a pew edition hymnal.
So maybe we've defined another reason for the blog... to define how you can use those 93 products (counting the hymnal) in your ministry, no matter what your worship resource needs are.
Questions welcome!
Have you ever had an experience like this?
After the concert, some of us who went were commenting, if only our church worship could be like that.
See Daryl's assessment of the situation on his post.
Tim Jack at Crossroads Bible Church in Bellevue Washington blogs about worship at their church. Does your church have a "entire church" service, or do you segment?
Simon Perry at the Baptist Union of Great Britain says:
Worship simply means ‘worthship’, it describes the things in our life to which we attach worth, the things we value and treasure and acknowlege. Politics, on the other hand, refers to the way that human beings organise themselves around the things to which they attach worth. The link between the two is what we call ‘liturgy’.
What do you think? (My question... does "politics" have a different shade of meaning across the pond?)
Michael is starting a series of posts "pitting" songs from the Trinity Hymnal and All the Best Songs of Praise & Worship. I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish...