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Thoughts on Building a Worship Ministry

October 14, 2009 by livingworship

I hear often from worship leaders and pastors alike of their desire to build a multi-team worship ministry. One that will be a life-giving ministry to their church. In many churches, if one or two musicians are missing on a single weekend, corporate worship in song may not even be possible.

I think one reason churches end up in this position is that we as worship leaders focus too much on “pulling off Sunday”, instead of building a diverse ministry that aids our churches in the worship of Jesus.

Here are some simple considerations on building a multi-team, volunteer worship ministry.

Develop a Plan
Start with where you are right now, and think about where you can grow. If you have one band now, ask yourself what would be needed to begin a second team. If you have multiple teams, think of ways that your musicians could help reproduce themselves.

As the worship leader, you are responsible for recruiting and organizing the musicians in your church. Take that seriously. Learn all you can about building and leading a team with vision and how to plan accordingly.

Build the Infrastructure
Provide an infrastructure that allows for many people to serve your church through the worship ministry. Resist the tendency to only use the most elite musicians every week, never providing space for people to develop. Build and plan regular schedule that will work with your people, and provide a stable rotation.

Set the Standard
Pray for and try to discover talented musicians in your church, or people on the fringe of your church. Set a realistic level of expertise that is required for serving in worship ministry, and don’t lower that level. While the most important part of leading worship is the heart, not the artistic expression, our calling is to assemble and lead a skilled group of musicians. The church platform is about ministering to God in a skilled and holistic way. The standard should be: does this point the attention and affections of people to man or to God?

Be a Leader
 Part of being the worship leader is being that: a leader. Leaders in the church are called to direct and also to pastor the people who follow them. With this in mind, how are you equipping the people who follow you to share vision, grow as disciples, and also in their understanding of worship?

Send your People
 The goal of building a worship ministry is not so you can achieve some sort of status, or to validate your calling as a leader. The goal is to build people up so you can send them out to be a blessing to the world. Intentionally create a culture not of territorialism, but of encouragement, service and love to one another.

The goal of building a worship ministry is to serve Christ, your church, and the world in the most effective way possible. As God continues to build your worship ministry, I pray you will be a faithful steward of all the people and talents God entrusts to your oversight. Vital to all our “kingly” planning, it is essential for us to remember that we can plant and even water the soil, but it is God alone who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 6:3-8) Pray that God would grow you in breadth and depth so that you might bring glory to the name of God and find tremendous joy serving Christ.

Posted in Worship Leading, worship | 1 Comment »

A Plea to Young Worship Leaders

September 23, 2009 by livingworship

There is an entire generation of worship leaders that are being raised in churches that champion the cross of Christ, place God-centered worship as a high priority, and are seeing first hand what it looks like to live out the message of the Gospel. God has used men in recent years to champion the essence and heart of worship, which has shown fruit in the lives of many young worship leaders.  Recently, I have been mindful of the next generation of people who will lead the church in worship. I have a greater passion now to help equip, empower and plea with these young levites to be more than singers of songs. I want them, and all of us who lead in worship, to take our priesthood with weight and gravity.  

When I was a young worship leader I wanted desperately for a seasoned worship pastor to walk alongside me and model for me what it looks like to build and pastor a thriving worship ministry. Thankfully, I have been able to glean from many Godly men from a distance, but have had to learn through hard knocks and grave mistakes over the last fifteen years. I have the joy of walking with some young worship leaders in our church and around our city. These few ideas are central to what I hope to call them to in regard to leading corporate worship in the local church:

Love the glory of God, more than the praise of men.

The glory of God is God’s deepest passion. His greatest faithfulness is to himself. Our faith depends on that truth. (Isaiah 42:8) The glory of God is the goal of biblical worship.  As worship leaders, it is central for us to understand that we are agents of provoking people’s affections and attention not to us, but to the glory of God. 

Love the people you lead more than the songs you sing.

Make it your practice to not love people for what they can do for you, or to help propel your ministry. Love people because this is central to the Gospel. (John 13:34-35) Avoid the tendency to love the experience of music more than your experience with people. Music will end, but the souls of men are eternal. Invest in what is eternal.

Value Biblical truth above art.

Biblical truth in worship is our foundation. (John 4:24) Sift through the endless resources and choose songs that are grounded in truth and accessible for your church. Value art for what it is, a common grace that God uses. However, value the truth of songs more than the artistic affinity you have for them.

View the whole scope of Christian worship, not just the worship service.

Call your church to the entire scope of worship practices: corporate, family and personal. (Deuteronomy 6:5-9) Don’t let the idea of worship end with liturgy. If we over value the corporate experience, our people will not value walking in communion with God in the inextricable practices of family and personal worship.

Walk in character before operating out of gifting.

Gifting in the church today will give you a platform to gain the praise of men. Character will give you the enduring reward of pleasing God. Gifting is vital to the function of leading worship, but character is central to it’s practice. Our greatest calling is not to be a “gifted” people, but people who are holistically impacted by the and sustaining joys and demands of the Gospel. (John 14)

Posted in Worship Team Devotionals, worship | 13 Comments »

Set List: Sep 12/13

September 14, 2009 by livingworship

Great is the Lord – Psalm 145:3 (Boswell)
Corporate reading: John 15:4-5 – A call to abide in Christ and experience communion with Him
Your Grace is Enough – 2 Corinthians 12:9 (Maher/Tomlin)
It’s So Sweet – Psalm 25:1-2 (Stead, Kirkpatrick, Boswell)
Here is Love -Ephesians 5:2 (Rees, Lowry, Redman)

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A Call for Church Planting Worship Pastors

September 9, 2009 by livingworship

The role of the church planting worship leader is unique calling. To fill this role, lead pastors are hoping to find a guy who is anointed, pastoral, artistic, and also a beneficial member to their team. They want a worship leader who functions more like a pastor, who can help champion the mission, vision and values of their church. Adding to this, there are limited budgets, relational equity that must be invested, and a lot riding on the modern role of the worship leader.

Pastors often feel as though they may as well be looking for a “golden unicorn” when it comes to finding the right guy. While this diagnoses is well put, my aim in this post is help aid church planters and worship leaders alike in raising the bar on expectations.

Essentially, as worship leaders, we need to think different. We need to resign the notion of functioning like an artist in residence, and take the priesthood God has given us seriously. Shepherding in any capacity is a great thing to seek, but also comes with the gravity of thinking differently. Here are three ways to help you think more like church planter in the way you lead an emerging worship ministry.

Think like a pastor in the way you lead worship.

If you have the title of worship pastor, then be a worship pastor. As a worship leader, you have a sacred trust in leading the people of your church in worship on a weekly basis. This is your most visible form and influential scope of pastoral ministry. With this in mind, use your stage time wisely.

In scripting liturgy, you should clearly think through the songs you are choosing so that they are biblically faithful, Theocentric, Gospel-centered, and evangelical. Begin to ask yourself if the songs you are choosing are the best songs for your church to be singing. There are so many songs available now to the church, we have to be specialists at narrowing the scope. This is a pastoral function, just as your lead pastor filters through commentaries to separate truth from error. How do the songs you choose affect and teach the theology of your people?

Look for opportunities to serve your people in a pastoral function. Modeling corporate prayers, and praying the scriptures are a great way to teach your people how to pray. Champion and teach on the scope of worship in the church, the family and in personal devotion. The more you think pastorally, the more you serve your lead pastor. These are great ways to start thinking like a pastor.

Think like a pastor in the way you lead volunteers.

As a church planter, you don’t have the opportunity to specialize, you have to function as a generalist until you are leading enough people to help shoulder responsibilities. As the worship leader, you are dealing with many of the same tensions.

You may be the worship pastor of a small church, and also doing student ministry, or helping with small groups. You are probably responsible for all media elements of a weekend service. This can be overwhelming if you are expecting to be able to show up with a guitar, plug and play. The refining process of having to build something will forge the foundations of character. Embrace this season of ministry and allow God to use these things as both a means of sanctification and also a tremendous opportunity to grow as a leader.

Recruit as many people as you can to serve in ministry. I am not calling for mediocrity when it comes to excellence. I am calling us to be better equippers of men rather than assessors of potential. Early on, I did everything except run sound during our services. I wasn’t qualified, but I was available and wanted to serve. As our church grew, I recruited people to help with everything, and have tried to empower them for ministry. Many worship leaders bottleneck their ministry growth by only allowing a few select people to participate in worship ministry rather than actively recruiting people. Think like a pastor in the way you lead.

Think like a pastor in the way you live.

Live the Gospel out in front of your people. Without a heart to see your community impacted by the Gospel, you will end up being a hindrance to the mission of your church. Look at how your lead pastor lives and imitate what he does. What comforts has he sacrificed in planting a new church? There is great sacrifice required in the process of church planting. There is also great reward. Where does he spend his time? Many worship leaders miss the opportunity to invest quality time in strategic leaders within their church. If you are not spending regular and consistent time with people in your church, make it a priority.

Look at your role as worship leader more as a partner in ministry rather than a musician for hire. This again is a different way of viewing your role in the church, which needs to be clearly defined and communicated from your lead pastor. What we need to avoid is pulling the musician card as an excuse for things we are comfortable with, or things that don’t come natural. There are no excuses to not living out the Gospel in a sacrificial way.

My prayer is that we as worship leaders will embrace the fullness of our roles within the context of our local churches. There is a price to pay in spiritual growth, but the prize is Christ. I pray we will walk with a renewed awareness of our priesthood, and operate in its fullness. I pray that you will be a blessing to your church and serve her in a Christ like way, in laying down your life for her – the greatest demonstration of pastoral love.

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The Scope and Necessity of Worship – Part 2

August 26, 2009 by livingworship

Family Worship

4″Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Somehow I missed it. The necessity of championing family worship in our church. The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) has been the center of Jewish thought for centuries.  It was so important to Jesus that he quoted it as the most important commandment given to man. (Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27) Chances are you have heard the Shema quoted many times, both within the church and outside as well. However, there is a stunning fragmentation of context between the end of verse 6, and the beginning of verse 7.

In moving from the ideology of the Shema to it’s implications on how we live it out can easily be missed if we stop short of verse 7.  The way the text bears weight on our lives is wrapped up in the commission to teach them “diligently” to our children.  Or, in modern day time, to live out the Gospel together as a family and to practice spiritual disciplines together.  This diligence implies both an educational impartation and a tangible expression of what it means to walk out loving God with al our hearts, souls and might. Could this often overlooked piece of Christianity in the modern church be the spiritual practice that sustains healthy marriages, strong families, and Gospel-saturated churches? As a worship pastor, I confess I have not done my part in calling men, in calling families to the importance of family worship.

However, I cannot ignore or articulate the possible impact it may have on the life of Christian families.  Matthew Henry, the beloved commentator wrote of family worship, “If therefore our houses be houses of the Lord, we shall for that reason love home, reckoning our daily devotion the sweetest of our daily delights; and our family-worship the most valuable of our family-comforts… A church in the house will be a good legacy, nay, it will be a good inheritance, to be left to your children after you.” In practicing family worship we are walking in obedience to God, by teaching our children what it means to walk in communion with God.

Though since before Jamie and I were married we had begun to read the Scripture together, it never dawned on me to call other men to do the same with their families. I simply overlooked what I believe to be an invaluable tool for the Kingdom. Donald Whitney encourages us to practice three things in family worship: read, pray, sing. In this first post, we will look at beginning family worship with a simple spiritual discipline: reading the scriptures as a family.  I will give three ways to incorporate the scripture into your family worship experience to try and give some resource to those who struggle with the idea of reading together as a family.

Read the Scripture

The life stage of your family is important to take into consideration when it comes to reading the Scriptures. In our house, with three kids under four years old, we have picture bibles we use that outline narratives from the text. When half of your kids vocabulary is animal sounds, the more four legged creatures, the better.  If there’s a lion, a camel, a donkey, a whale, or a snake involved – my kids are in. The important thing at this age is simple starting the practice of family worship, even if it’s messy and chaotic. The thing I’ve learned from this is to not expect more from my kids than they can handle. I want them to love the word of God, but parsing Greek verbs at this stage would kill any attempt of them growing to love the Scriptures. So, contextualizing the Bible to your kids age is necessary.

There are numerous resources available online and at your local book store for age-appropriate devotional books.  As soon as they are of age, Donald Whitney prescribes, “As the Children get older, set a goal of a complete reading of the New Testament, and later of the entire Bible. Read enthusiastically and interpretively. Explain words the children may not understand. Clarify the meaning of key verses.” Psalm 119:97 appeals not merely to our minds in reading, but to our hearts as well, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.” The goal of Scripture reading is not to amass a quantity of information, but to discover the heart of God.  In doing so, our lives are continually shaped into the likeness of Christ.

Memorize the Scripture

Scripture memory in the life of a worshiper should be the blood line to knowing God. The scriptures are useful in teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16) They are the very revelation of God. As the people of God, his word should hold a place in our hearts that is reserved for God alone.  The words of man will crumble and fail, but the word of the Lord is eternal. (Isaiah 40:6-8)

There are many useful tools to help your family memorize scripture. There are flash cards with short verses that are foundational texts, or scripture in song.  You can write them in visible places in your home where everyone will be reminded of them.  I think the key here is to be creative in how you learn them. DIscover your family members learning styles (kinesthetic, visual, auditory, tactual). If you learn visually but your spouse learns kinesthetically, your family worship will have to entail some flexibility.

Scripture memory enables us to hide the word of God in our hearts that we may flee from sin (Psalm 119:11).  It also builds an arsenal for us to withstand the attacks of the enemy and renew our minds (Romans 12:2)

Sing the Scripture

Singing the scripture in song can be a very exciting and memorable way to champion the scriptures in your family worship time. Whether you choose to sing hymns, or songs your church does regularly, or in my case, Jesus Loves Me a thousand times; we are a singing people.  God commands us to sing, and even if singing is not your forte, singing the Scripture is a wonderful way to instill the truths of God deep within you.

In this first post, we have looked at the place of the Scripture in family worship. As we  continue to look at the practice of family worship, we will cover the other two disciplines: prayer and singing. Let us together contend to make family worship a staple in our homes as we continue to make our lives living worship. (Romans 12:1)

(to be continued)

Reflections:

What has been your experience of family worship in the past?

Men, how are you doing at leading your family in worship as the pastor of your home? What are you doing well? Where can you improve?

What practices can you put into place today to ensure you are living out the Gospel in your home?

Posted in Worship Team Devotionals, worship | Leave a Comment »

The Scope and Necessity of Worship – Part 1

August 18, 2009 by livingworship

4“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

A.W. Tozier is most known for his diagnoses of the critical state of worship in the church. He said half a century ago, “Worship is the missing jewel of the Evangelical church.” His observation was aimed at the lack of spiritual fervor and emotive engagement in church services. The aim was for people to turn their hearts to God, and find our greatest source of joy in communion with God through worship. Perhaps, in liturgy the church had seemingly lost the desire to engage with God. Tozier felt that the function of biblical worship had been trumped by the formalities of religion. Biblical worship has seen somewhat of a resurgence over the last fifty years of our unfolding history. We have witnessed a great deal of reclaiming the scope and necessity of worship in the life of both the church as well as the individual.

A cursory study of modern evangelical worship quickly takes us beyond the elements of liturgy. Biblical worship begins much deeper than expression or form. It begins with the ideas that worship is Trinitarian, Gospel-centered, Christ-centered, living obedience, and operates in spirit and truth. While I don’t disagree with Tozier’s diagnoses, I feel in some way it may be misdirected.

My conviction is that the confusion regarding authentic biblical worship begins not with liturgy (the Sunday service), but originates with the lack of spiritual disciplines of the part of the individual worshipper. (Duet 6:4-9) Deficiency in personal worship spills into the very fiber of the family, avoiding the gift and joy of family worship. (Duet 6:7) Finally, this “missing jewel” of the church is manifested in liturgy that does not stimulate the mind, provoke the affection, or enhance communion with God.

Communion is the practice of walking in relationship with God. A relationship in which friendship is exchanged through the cross of Christ.  The sinners become the sons and daughters. God befriends us through his own initiative. Communion is the essence of worship. As elementary as it sounds, often times we neglect the truth that  communion with God is the prize of the Gospel. As evangelicals, we would agree that the spiritual disciplines and practices like prayer, scripture reading, memorization, meditation, reflection are vital to our spirituality.  The trouble is that we neglect to see the vitality of walking in those practices.

Communion was something the Puritans held as the priceless treasure of worship. JI Packer says of the Puritans, “Communion with God was a great thing; to evangelicals today it is a comparatively small thing. The Puritans were concerned about communion with God in a way we are not. The measure of our unconcern is the little we say about it. When Christians meet, they talk to each other about their Christian work and Christian interests, their Christian acquaintances, the state of the churches, and the problems of theology – but rarely of their daily experience of God.” (A Quest for Godliness)

In order to experience communion with God in liturgy, we must first look at the gravity of personal worship. First though, we will uncover the urgency of family worship. Finally, we will be able to study how communion can be experienced with God during the Sunday morning experience for the glory of God and our increasing joy.

(to be continued)

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Gravity and Gladness

August 4, 2009 by livingworship

 

Gravity and Gladness Cover 

We are weeks away now from the release of Gravity and Gladness, a collection of new songs focusing on Christ-centered (Christocentric) content and the Gospel. Thank you to all of you who have been patiently waiting for new original material. Vintage, my last project, was something I deeply believed in and am very glad to have added arrangement to voices of church history.

Gravity and Gladness will be a 12 song album of all original music – most of which was co-written by some amazing guys who share a deep love for the church to be singing Gospel -centered songs. I’ll post soon explaining the title of the album, where it came from, and it’s bearing on writing, leading, and creating liturgy. Thanks for checking in. I covet your prayers surrounding this project, and pray namely that Christ is glorified, and that the affections of believers will be provoked and centered on his work and matchless name.

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