Worship Matters

This past June I was out at the Resolved conference in Palm Springs, CA, where the music was ably led by John Martin and Enfield. They’ll be joining us for one of the main sessions at WorshipGod11. Ryan Foglesong and David Zimmer play bass and drums for Enfield and will be teaching two seminars at [...]

Recently I had the joy of being at the Resolved Conference in Palm Springs, CA, along with about 3500 mostly college students. We heard some great messages from Al Mohler, CJ Mahaney, Rick Holland, John MacArthur, and Steve Lawson. While I was there I took a few minutes to interview John Martin about his band, [...]

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on my last post about why you (or someone you know) should get a free registration to WorshipGod11: The Gathering. I was humbled by the responses. Many people shared the challenging circumstances they’re in, while others hoped to win a registration for someone else. Thanks for displaying the [...]

WorshipGod11 is exactly seven weeks away. Registration is going better than I expected and some of the seminars are beginning to fill up. We have a great list of teachers lined up this year, both in the main sessions and the breakouts. Bryan Chapell, Ray Ortlund, Jr., Thabiti Anyabwile, Craig Cabaniss, Don Whitney, Shai Linne, [...]

WorshipGod11 is only two months away.  One of the 40 seminars being offered (4 in Spanish!) is by Jamie Brown, a good friend who leads the worship in song at The Falls Church, an Anglican church in Northern Virginia. Jamie will be addressing the topic “Thinking Surgically While Leading Liturgically.” His specific burden is to [...]

Someone in my church recently sent me an email asking why we play music behind different portions of the Sunday meeting (prayers, baptisms, readings, etc.). It’s a good question. We can be influenced by our musically addicted culture, as well as our traditions and practices, to believe it’s impossible for God’s Spirit to move in [...]

WorshipGod11: The Gathering, (Aug. 10-13), is a little under three months away. I’m excited that Bryan Chapell, Ray Ortlund, Jr., Thabiti Anyabwile, Craig Cabaniss, Enfield, Sojourn, Shai Linne, Don Whitney, and a few others will be joining us as we reflect on what kind of story our meetings are telling. One of the 40 seminars [...]

Do we really need one more worship conference? That’s the question I ask myself every other year as I start planning for the next WorshipGod conference. And since WorshipGod11: The Gathering is on the calendar for Aug. 10-13, 2011, my answer to the question is obviously yes. I did a post in January describing my thinking [...]

Even though it’s still eight months away, I’m in the middle of planning for WorshipGod11, to be held Aug. 10-13, 2011 at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD. This year’s theme will be “The Gathering.” The idea crystalized while I was reading Bryan Chapell’s excellent book, Christ-Centered Worship. When most of us plan our meetings [...]

As a follow up to what I posted on Monday, here’s an example of focusing on the content without ignoring the container. This is a video from the WorshipGod08 conference, where Ryan Ferguson is reciting Psalm 25, using the English Standard Version (ESV) translation.  It’s about 4 minutes and very moving. If you want to [...]

At last year’s WorshipGod conference, I gave a message on The Future of Worship, based on the opening verses to Psalm 78. I’m increasingly aware of is how important it is to pass on the right things from generation to the next, and this message was an attempt to address that topic. Here’s a 3:45 [...]

Last year at the WorshipGod conference I had the opportunity to teach a seminar called, “What Are You Talking About? What to Say When You’re Not Singing.” I wanted to address the age-old question of what to say, if anything, when you’re leading people in congregational worship. What words can inspire people to worship God as [...]

What do you do when you start leading a song in two different keys? At our WorshipGod08 conference, we had the opportunity to find out as Joseph Stigora started “Psalm 96″ in one key and the rest of the band from Covenant Fellowship came in a step higher. I posted on this previously, but here’s [...]

As I review the past year, one of my highlights was definitely WorshipGod09: From Generation to Generation, featuring John Piper, C.J. Mahaney, Jeff Purswell, Thabiti Anyabwile, Keith & Kristyn Getty, Shai Linne, Don Whitney, and many more. Over 1700 worshipers of God gathered for 3 1/2 days of singing, instruction, fellowship, and equipping. From the evaluations we [...]

Here’s another clip from the message I gave at WorshipGod09 on “The Future of Worship.” (You can find two posts from the same message here and here.) In verse 8 the psalmist references a previous generation “whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.” They were remembered as NOT being faithful, and [...]