If you’re a worship leader or music minister there’s a good chance you’ve heard another leader talking about the new song they just introduced. They describe it as the most “incredible, life-changing, awesome, heaven-releasing, God-calling-down, what-you-haven’t-heard-it-yet” song they’ve ever done. You heart sinks as you realize that not only have you not heard the song, you didn’t even know the CD was out. When you think of the 80 CD’s on your desk you still haven’t listened to, you really feel like a loser. “How can anyone in my church even worship?”
If you’ve ever had those thoughts, you’re not alone. The problem lies mainly in our sinful hearts. We don’t want to be out of the loop when it comes to what’s happening in the worship world. We don’t want …
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Kendall sent me this question:
I think most of us feel the pressure to “pull out all the stops” for Easter, whether that means a drama, special choir number, special communion service, hired orchestra, etc. What are some ways you have sought to make the celebration of the Resurrection special at Covenant Life? Does your congregation and/or pastoral team do anything different to make that Sunday a more focused evangelistic outreach?
Many non-Christians are more likely to attend a Sunday meeting on “special” days like Christmas and Easter. Reasons vary. It may be persistent family members or neighbors. It might be the big production the church is advertising. I’d think for many it helps alleviate the guilt they experience for not going all the other Sundays in the year. On …
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I received this question from Tracy:
My husband has recently become a Pastor in a small Outback Queensland (Australia) church and holds a complementarian view of women in ministry. This is a very uncommon viewpoint in the church movement my husband is Pastoring under. We have had queries as to if I will lead worship which has left both my husband and I with our own questions as we can’t see a biblical precedent for women as worship leaders…What do you see as a woman’s place in worship and is it permissible for a woman to be a worship leader?
I’ve been asked this question numerous times and thought Tracy’s particular situation would give me the opportunity to address some of the nuances of this topic. I’m aware that this question applies …
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Ken Boer, who serves as music director at my church, encouraged me to share some of the thoughts I have as I plan songs for a Sunday meeting.
This past Sunday morning as Josh Harris and I were talking about songs for Sunday, he asked if we could introduce the song, Everlasting God, by Brenton and Ken Riley. It’s taken from the CD of the same name. Here are the lyrics:
Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord,
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord (repeat)
Our God You reign forever
Our hope our strong deliv’rer
You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You do not faint You won’t grow weary
You’re the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You lift us up on wings like eagles
Copyright 2005 …
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I figure it’s okay to answer a Q&A Friday question on Saturday…I recently received this question from John:
We currently have four worship teams, giving 15-20 people a month a chance to lead in music, either by singing or playing an instrument. I’d guess that a quarter of these people are very skilled musically, and have been split among the four teams. We’ve discussed cutting the number of teams down to one or two that would be much more musically adept; the downside of this is that many “moderate” musicians would no longer have a chance to share their musical gifts as a part of worship. We want to be sensitive to everyone, yet provide the highest quality music possible for all of the obvious reasons. What biblical principles should we
…
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More than once I’ve heard Christians claim that worship should be fun, or act like they had a responsibility to prove that Christians knew how to “party” in church. I’ve always been uncomfortable with that connection, so I started thinking about the place of “fun” in worship, if one even exists. I’d like to address this question by answering it as I posed it, and then considering two other ways it might be phrased.
Should worship be fun? If we take the exhaustive testimony of Scripture, the answer would have to be a resounding NO. “Fun” doesn’t seem to characterize many of the scenes where people encounter God in the Bible. We’re told to worship God with reverence and awe, for he is a consuming fire ( Heb. 12:28-29Hebrews 12:28-29
[28]Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom
that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God
acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, [29]for our God
is a consuming fire. (ESV)
). To have “fun” …
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I received this question from Dennis:
What would you say are the benefits of a “worship team” (several singers leading at the front) as opposed to one “songleader”? From what I can see, at least one major benefit is, to have many voices projecting the volume of a song *AT* the congregation, to help them catch on to it. This has been especially helpful when learning new songs. Are there other benefits of a worship team, in your opinion?
No church ever needs to feel as though their corporate worship is less biblical, authentic, effective, or genuine because they don’t have a “worship team.” God doesn’t give us specific direction in Scripture about who is to lead corporate worship. But I can think of at least five ways a group …
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Last week I had the privilege of speaking and leading worship at the Calvin Worship Symposium in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Why I chose to go to Michigan in January is a question I still haven’t answered.
On Thursday, I taught an all-day seminar called Musical Arranging for God’s Glory. I shared thoughts not only on ways we can arrange music, but suggested three biblical reasons behind the choices we make: to serve the word of Christ, to serve the context, and to serve the congregation. Hosting me that day was a gentleman named Greg Scheer, whose book, The Art of Worship: A Musician’s Guide to Leading Modern Worship …
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This question was sent in by Larry:
Yesterday, I was listening/singing to the song, ‘I Will Glory in my Redeemer’ [by Steve and Vikki Cook]…I was struck especially by these words:
I will glory in my Redeemer, My life He bought, my love He owns.
I have no longings for another, I’m satisfied in him alone.
What is the place of lyrics like these in our songs?…Do you ever struggle with feeling like you are lying to God when you say things like these, even if in your heart you have a desire that they would be true? Is it hypocritical to sing them knowing that they are not a true reflection of your heart?
Thanks for a great question, Larry. I’ve heard people struggle with this a number of times.
Let me begin …
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Last week at the Quest conference for men I had two opportunities to speak to groups of worship leaders from Sovereign Grace churches. The first was a group of about 30 guys who lead on Sunday mornings, the other a larger group of maybe 100 guys who lead in a small group context.
One of the questions I addressed in both meetings was the process of choosing a group of songs for a meeting. That process can be one of the more frustrating aspects of leading congregational worship. Here’s a portion of what I shared.
We pick the songs we do for various reasons. Maybe a song is in a key we like or our voice sounds good on it. Maybe everyone knows the song or we’ve had great experiences …
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