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PWArchive.com Top Songs List

October 19, 2007 in admin,arts,tools,worship with 1 Comment

Billy posted about this last week and I thought I’d pass it along as well.

PWArchive.com has a list of the top songs that people have requested on their site each month. Read Billy’s post about why this is better than CCLI’s top 25 or top 100 lists.

What’s on your list?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

My pastor has a blog…

October 5, 2007 in admin,friends,ideas,tools,worship with 1 Comment

…sort of.

We are beginning another long series next week and one of the new things we’re doing is our senior pastor will be blogging daily through the book of Luke. You can follow along here.

Does your pastor blog?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

“The Mesh”

September 27, 2007 in admin,canada,ideas,worship with 2 Comments

I think yesterday was a landmark day in my life as a leader. I have not always been sure of why God has called me to certain things but it was with great confidence that I went to spend the day with some worship pastors from around Ontario, knowing that God had called me to be a catalyst in connecting these guys on that day.

About a year ago two friends approached me with some questions concerning their roles as worship pastors and how certain things were working in their churches. Out of those discussions we wondered if there was some kind of support network in place for worship pastors. What we found was that there were training and developing events for worship leaders, worship team members and church staff worship pastors but we didn’t really find anything in place that encouraged neworking, support events where worship pastors could connect, develop relationships and share the experience of being on staff at a church with worship/arts as their main ministry focus.

So we decided to dig a little deeper. Was this something that was needed? Would other worship pastors see the value in something like this? The answer was overwhelmingly “YES!”

Yesterday was our first time together. We had 14 worship pastors from all over southern Ontario who came together to meet each other, learn from each other and spend time in worship. It was a great day and I am excited to see what is next for us.

The consensus is that we will facilitate regional gatherings between now and Christmas in 4 or 5 locations in southern/central Ontario and then plan to meet again collectively in January for another day together of encouragement, questions, answers, honesty and spending time in worship without having to watch the clock, worry about transitions, the drummer’s crazy time signature, the crying baby or any of those other things we worry about when we’re leading :)

Are you a part of something like this?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Apparently I had a good idea!

September 19, 2007 in admin,ideas,tools,worship with 4 Comments

Today was fun. Made some friends. Learned some stuff. Put some faces to some names. Good times. Say what you want about Willow but the emphasis they put on training and developing leaders so they can be more effective in the local church is done at an A+ level.

So what was my good idea? Well let me preface by saying that I hadn’t thought of posting this until Nancy Beach said it was a good practical thing she learned during today’s seminar. So I figure if she learned something, we all might as well learn something! :)

Lately the morale and the numbers on our A/V team have been a little low so at our ministry fair two weeks ago I decided that recruiting tech guys (or girls, thanks Nancy!) needed to be our A-1 priority. Since the typical tech guy is usually not the most forth-coming sort of person, I decided I needed some kind of bait.

So basically I took apart a small 4-channel mixer, laid the pieces out on a 6-foot table and waited. I knew that anyone coming to the table and hanging out for 10 seconds would have some kind of tech interest and so those guys would by my prospects.

I’m excited to say that in the two weeks since we did that experiment we have had THREE guys who are not currently serving in any ministry area sign up, get trained and get placed on our A/V schedule. Yesssss!!

Got any tips for finding volunteers?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

This week!

August 27, 2007 in admin,worship with 1 Comment

I am really really looking forward to this week!! Here’s why -

Monday – hang out with my family after crossing like ships in the night for the past few days. My two-year old has become very attached to her four-month old sister and was in a pretty big funk on Saturday when she realized that Emmy was away with mom.

Tuesday & Wednesday – head out to Niagara Falls for a two-day getaway with the ministry staff from our church. This year has been NUTS and it’s really our first time to get away together in about a year and a half. In that past year and a half three of us have had babies (well, our wives have!) and one other staff member is now pregnant. Yes, we are in a baby boom at our church.

Thursday – I’m heading down to Oakville where I lived for a couple years and served on staff at a church before we moved to Orangeville. I’m going to be spending some time with my friend Craig who is the worship pastor at The Meeting House. Craig & I are running a joint songwriting workshop in the fall for our ministry volunteers and thought we’d set the example by doing some songwriting together. Unfortunately our time together will not include a visit to the Colborne Street Cafe, just about my favourite little hang-out spot in the whole world.

Friday – review all of the A/V reports from our consultants to present to our building team at a meeting next week. You may or may not know that earlier this year we went through a fundraising campaign called BEYOND to raise pledges towards several things, including the expansion of our building. I am overseeing the A/V implementation team and we have been having an awesome time coming up with some creative solutions for things like – live audio/video syncing between venues, projection assistance for worship teams, lighting controls for our gym, stage design for our new North Venue, etc etc etc. I love this stuff and doing it with guys who really know what they’re talking about is awesome!!

Of course on top of all that is the regular “get ready for Sunday” stuff and the madness of preparing for the craziness that is September.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

New site, new look, new feed – lots of new!

August 23, 2007 in admin,rss with 1 Comment

I’ve made the move from Blogger to WordPress and now to my own hosted blog.

New site – http://www.chrisfromcanada.com

New feed – http://www.chrisfromcanada.com/?feed=rss2

New look – you’ll see that I’ve moved from Blogger to my own hosted WordPress. I like some of the things that WP does differently and generally like how feeds show up in my reader when they’re coming from WP blogs rather than Blogger. Hopefully the transition is smooth and everything works like it’s supposed to!

All of the previous posts and comments have been imported. Still tweaking a couple of things and getting everything up and running but so far so good!

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

How would you respond to this?

August 10, 2007 in admin,worship with 12 Comments

On Sunday mornings we encourage people to use our “Welcome Pad” – basically a little black folder where visitors can include their info, regular attenders can give us change of address info or prayer needs can be communicated to our staff and elders. Naturally, the WP becomes the easiest way for anonymous “helpful input” to our worship team.

In my time here I’ve received a few doses of helpful input such as:

We really should do more of the traditional hymns.

Why do we repeat the verses so many times? I’ve talked to other people and they have the same concern.

Must someone always be playing while people are speaking or praying on stage? I’m hard of hearing!

Generally it is fairly harmless stuff but unless it’s a significant issue that has already been recognized in our worship ministry, we don’t really give it much thought. We put lots of work, thought and prayer (not necessarily in that order) into our content and presentation of Sunday morning and we don’t expect it to make everyone happy.

This week was a little different. I did get some “helpful input” but this time it wasn’t anonymous. The person (a first-time visitor from out of town) left us this comment in the WP:

Is this a concert or a church service?

To be clear, we pass the WP during our announcements, so this would have been
after our first two songs in the service which were fairly upbeat, good volume,
lots of energy.

So – how would you respond? Ignore it? Thank him for the input? Call or email
and explain the vision for the worship ministry and the Sunday service gathering
as a whole?

What would you do?

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Krazee Arts Camp Recap Video!

August 3, 2007 in admin,arts,camp,krazee,youtube with 1 Comment

We put this video together and showed it to the kids and their parents, neighbours, friends, neighbours’ friends, friends’ parents, dog’s friends’ parents’ neighbours and everyone else that came to our Friday night Variety Show!

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

Planning Centre

July 25, 2007 in admin,worship with Comments Off

I’m Canadian so I call it “centre” :)

If you’re a worship pastor or in any sort of church administration role and you’re not using Planning Centre Online, you should be. The power, flexibility and ease-of-use of this thing has blown me away the past few months. I can put together service outlines so quickly now and everything I need – charts, mp3′s, worship team email addresses, schedules – is right where I need it to be.

Here are some links to check out for more info but you should really do yourself a favour and try it out -
Planning Centre FAQ
Planning Centre Features
Planning Centre Video Tutorials

AND..

Jeff, the guy who put this whole thing together, is super accessible and VERY willing to make this program work to the best of its ability for those who actually use it.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next

Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.

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Chris Vacher Married to Sonya, dad to Avery, Emmy, Isabelle and Anderson. Director of Worship at Orangeville Baptist Church near Toronto. Founder of WorshipRises and doing my best to follow Jesus in the midst of it all.

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PWArchive.com Top Songs List

My pastor has a blog…

“The Mesh”

Apparently I had a good idea!

This week!

New site, new look, new feed – lots of new!

How would you respond to this?

Krazee Arts Camp Recap Video!

Planning Centre

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