The posts in this category contain helpful advice for worship leaders and pastors. Bob Kauflin draws from his extensive experience in worship leading to provide thought provoking biblical insights and practical advice for worship leaders who lead worship services.
I’m in the midst of rewriting my book for Crossway. Things didn’t go quite as smoothly as I hoped last week. But my good friend, Jeff Purswell, saw I wasn’t doing well and offered to pray for me. I realized I’ve only been thinking of what I have to do and haven’t been focused on what God can do. That changes everything. I’m happy to report my attitude is much better this week.
In any case, I don’t have much time for blogging. So I thought I’d post an excerpt from an unedited chapter. It may not even make it in the final version of the book, but …
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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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Churches throughout the world will celebrate Easter next month, following a church calendar that Christians have used for centuries. Many may also do something unique for Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and/or Good Friday. It should go without saying that Jesus’ substitutionary death for our sins and his victorious triumph over the grave should be our focus not only every Easter, but every week and every day. This is the Gospel of Christ, who is our life - the Gospel that we must continue in and never shift from, the Gospel in which we stand, the Gospel that strengthens us, the Gospel that has been entrusted to us, the Gospel for which we are called to suffer, the Gospel that is of first importance ( Col. 1:23Colossians 1:23
[23]if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and
steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that
you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under
heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. (ESV)
; 1 Cor. 15:11 Corinthians 15:1
[15:1]Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I
preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,
(ESV)
; Rom. 16:25Romans 16:25
[25]Now to him who is able to strengthen you according
to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according
to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for
long ages (ESV)
; …
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I recently finished The Future of
Music by David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard. It was a fascinating read. The
authors discuss how the face of music distribution has changed
significantly in recent years and insist that many changes are still needed. Bottom line, they think that increased access to music and freedom to distribute it legally will benefit consumers, companies, and artists alike. From the intro:
Imagine a world where music flows all around us, like water, or like electricity, and where access to music becomes a kind of “utility.” Not for free, per se, but certainly for what feels like free…A brave new world is waiting for those who can handle it - a world that very likely holds fantastic business opportunities for creative thinkers.
They then go on to list
…
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Kyle wrote in to ask this question:
I am about to start leading a worship team that consists of a good number of talented people and a variety of instruments. To this point, the band has used printed sheet music for all of the songs they play; this means that someone has manually entered everything into a music writing program (Finale) and printed everything out. It also means that for any given song, A) Musicians have four to six pages of material to deal with, B) creativity and freedom of expression are squelched a bit, and C) introducing new songs to the band, and to the congregation, will be very difficult.I have been used to working from chord charts. I feel this creates structure but allows creativity and freedom,
…
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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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This morning the Washington Post business section ran a column called, “To Me, With Love: Retailers Embrace Valentine’s Day as an Excuse for Singles to Celebrate Themselves.” Among other interesting facts, the article reports that Piperlime, an online shoe store owned by Gap, has a “Be your own Valentine” category. Sales are strong for Valentine’s Day gifts you can give to the person you love the most - yourself.
You may not have the nerve to give a Valentine’s gift to yourself, but you’re probably no stranger to self-love. There is an appropriate way to humbly acknowledge that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” ( Ps. 139:14Psalm 139:14
[14]I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
). However that is worlds apart from our therapeutic culture which views low self-esteem as the worst of all evils. We’re told we don’t love ourselves …
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Jonathan sent this question in:
Several members of my church’s A/V team proposed that we begin using NiCd 9 Volt batteries for all of our wireless equipment, following the thought that our church should be good stewards of God’s gifts and not use alkaline batteries, which can be seen as expensive, wasteful, and harmful to the environment. Unfortunately, because of the energy-leaking nature of NiCd batteries, we are quickly becoming frustrated with their lack of dependability, compared to their alkaline brethren. My question is this: as stewards of not only the audio/visual quality of each service, but also finance and the environment, what are your thoughts on the battery issue? I would also be interested to hear what does Covenant Life Church does, considering its resources and needs.
We have two …
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