ideas | Chris From Canada

Archive - ideas RSS Feed

Speed

January 27, 2012 in ideas,worship with 0 Comments

The speed at which you think is not the speed at which you act.

The speed at which you act is not the speed at which you are.

I’m enjoying some time of slowing down, re-thinking some of the ways I act, re-acting some of the ways I am. Thankful for this opportunity.

I led worship with some great friends at a conference this week and the quote above came from the speaker. Is your life too quick that you didn’t even read the quote? Read it again. I’ll wait.

What’s happening too quickly in your life?

My Top 11 Posts of 2011

December 29, 2011 in blogs,canada,funny,ideas with 0 Comments

Ha! You & I both know you don’t need another Top 11 post of anything right now.

Happy new year!

For being a good sport, here’s a video of Canadian icon Don Cherry playing his piano desk –

Square Pegs In Round Holes?

November 21, 2011 in ideas,worship with 2 Comments

Sometimes there are songs which come around that say all the right things, hit all the right notes, put an old thought inside a fresh melody but.. for some reason.. I just can’t picture using them on a Sunday morning with my church.

It can feel like these songs are square pegs that I’m trying to fit in to the round hole of Sunday morning.

“Death In His Grave” by John Mark McMillan is one of those songs. I love the song, I love the lyric, I love the melody. Yet I haven’t been able to wrap my head around using it on a Sunday morning.

Not these guys. Major kudos to Church on the Move for not only putting together an incredible performance but for putting several pieces together to make it work – the intro video, the screens, the look of the stage, the singers, the instrumentation.. everything. What a great song.

Lead Worship Like A Boy Scout

November 17, 2011 in ideas,worship with 2 Comments

As a kid, my mom wanted to make sure that my brother & I had significant male role modeling in our lives since she was raising us on her own. Beavers, Cubs and Boy Scouts were a normal part of my life until I was 12 or 13 and I’ve got tons of memories of camping trips, earning badges, spending time with other kids my age and the constant reminders to be prepared.

I haven’t given much thought to my Boy Scout days in any significant way lately but that encouragement to be prepared has come in handy more than once lately.

What does that have to do with being a worship leader?

On Sunday morning, our band started a song in two keys. Not ideal, obviously.

Most of us were playing in the correct key, some of us were playing in a different key. No names shall be revealed :) We had tried the song in two different keys at rehearsal but somewhere along the way there was a slip-up when it came to communicating which key was the right one for Sunday morning.

So.. imagine that situation for you on a Sunday morning. What do you do? Do you try to get everyone on the same key? Do you stop the song? Do you run off stage?

We can’t have contingency plans for every single possible thing that could go wrong – What if the power goes out? What if my guitar strap breaks? What if the drum shield falls over? BUT.. As leaders, we can be prepared to be the one to step up if – and when! – something goes wrong.

So in our “one song, two keys” case, what did I do? We stopped the song. I politely and sheepishly admitted to the congregation that we had screwed up, thanked them for showing us lots of grace and letting us start over in the right key.

Everyone chuckled, embraced the moment and when we came back in with the song the second time do you know what happened? They sang louder! They gave us their vocal encouragement by lifting their voices together, knowing full well that the worship team is a bunch of humans who make mistakes but are prepared to handle those mistakes with grace and confidence in a way that serves the congregation.

What about you? Have you had a moment in your worship leading recently where it really helped to be prepared?

A Little Encouragement

November 9, 2011 in ideas,worship with 0 Comments

I had coffee this summer with a new friend who leads worship at another church in town. We had lots to talk about and our conversation quickly turned to our own worship teams – people who are incredibly committed, love the Lord, love to serve the church and overall a group of people who just have a ton of fun together.

We started talking about finding a way that we could gather worship ministry volunteers from churches all over our town as an opportunity to encourage them and to provide them with a way of meeting one another. If you are involved in worship at a smaller church you know that it can be frustrating to come up against an issue and feel like you’ve got nobody to turn to. For many churches in our town, the same people are planning and leading worship services every week and there really isn’t a way for these people who are all passionate about the same kinds of things to get connected.

So we decided to do something about that.

To give you a bit of a picture, I live in a town of about 35,000 people with maybe 50,000 people in our region. We are pretty rural, lots of commuters. Most of the churches in/around our town would normally have between 100-250 people attending on a Sunday morning and ours is the only one with a worship pastor/director on staff.

This past Saturday we hosted a breakfast at our church and invited worship team volunteers from any church in our town to come. We ended up having close to 40 people attend from 6 or 7 churches – definitely not every volunteer from every represented but that wasn’t the goal for this first one.

We started at 8:00, welcomed people with Starbucks and a chance to just mingle and talk. Some women from our church put together an incredible (no joke – it was incredible!) breakfast for us to enjoy. I encouraged people to sit with people from different churches at their table. We wanted to mix up the groups a little bit.

After some time to talk and eat, we spent some time working through a few questions we had prepared. We gave tables a few minutes to talk about the question around the table and then asked them to share answers with the other groups. A few examples of the questions we talked through -

How do you learn new songs as a team? How do you teach new songs to your congregation?
How do you involve and encourage multiple generations when you lead worship?
Besides music, what are some other elements you include in the worship portion of your services?

All in all, this was a great way to encourage people who love what they do but who can easily get discouraged. It was a great way to bring people from different churches together and to begin building some bridges between some of the congregations in town. Definitely lots of energy and excitement for this to happen again and I’m sure we’ll get there.

Have you been a part of any events like this? How have you benefited?

Worship Team Auditions

October 25, 2011 in ideas,worship with 17 Comments

Every now and then I’ll get asked about how we do worship team auditions at my church – this post is a current description of that process for us and if it helps you figure out how to do auditions at your church, that’s great!

To say we “audition” people for our teams is actually inaccurate – we don’t do solo auditions in front of a panel. In our worship team setup it is very rare for anyone to play a musical solo on a Sunday morning so it’s actually not all that helpful for me to only hear them play or sing on their own.

Our entry process to joining our worship team actually has three main components -

Observation
Conversation
Integration

(Look at that – I even managed to use three words that sound the same! Coffee must have already kicked in.)

At the core of this process is a care and concern for discipleship – that’s what we’re about, that’s what we do, that’s what we’re focused on, that’s where our priorities are. If the worship team audition process is not about discipleship (for the joiner, for the others on the team and for our congregation) then it doesn’t fit. Joining our worship team is not about finding a place for your creative expression (although we do that), playing music with your buds (we do that, too) or showing the church how you can belt a high C (every now and then we need that!) – it’s about discipleship. It’s about you growing in your walk with Christ, learning how worship is an expression of your love for Him and how leading others in worship is a great act of service for our congregation.

So here’s a bit more on each of those three steps -

Observation

If you come up to me on a Sunday morning, tell me it’s your first Sunday at our church and you want to join our worship team, you’re not getting a “yes” from me. You’re getting a “Well, the timing’s not great for us right now, we’d love to talk in a few months…” I (and others on our team) need to observe that you are committed to a few things – Sunday morning attendance, the singing/worship portion of our service as well as developing relationships with others in our congregation.

If you aren’t regularly attending our church on Sunday morning, you’re not joining our worship team. This doesn’t mean we require an every Sunday attendance (I know churches who do) but if you don’t believe in the priority of Sunday morning, why would you be placed in a position of leadership during that time?

Also, if you come on Sunday morning but are disengaged, disinterested and not singing during the music/worship time, you’re not joining our worship team. Part of our role as worship leaders is to inspire worship in others and part of that inspiration is physical – what we do with our faces, our hands, our bodies while we are worshipping communicates our love for the Lord. (This doesn’t mean we’re mechanical or forced or smile because we have to – we clap our hands because scripture describes that as a way of worship, because it encourages the congregation to do the same, because it shows that we are engaged in the singing beyond simply the words coming out of our mouths.)

So the first stage of our process is simple observation. I (and others on our team) want to see that you are committed to our church, committed to Sunday morning, committed to worship – all as an outflow of your commitment to Christ.

Conversation

People who ask to join our team usually fall into one of two categories – eager beavers or humble hedgehogs. Eager beavers want to join the team yesterday and would like to know what songs they’ll be playing next Sunday. Humble hedgehogs want to know if maybe, possibly there might be a chance for someone like them – although they’re not that good – to have a place, only if they’re needed!

Part of the pastoral role of worship leadership is recognizing pride expressed by either of these two kinds of people. Pride can be displayed as zealous overconfidence but it can also be displayed through an “aw, shucks” false humility. We want people who are confident in their ability, humble in their faith, confident in their salvation, humble in their walk. Yes it’s a tightrope and a balancing act but dealing with issues of the heart like pride before the person enters your team will save you much grief and embarrassment down the road.

Once we’ve observed a person’s commitment level and feel like they’d be a good candidate to join our team, I will usually schedule a meeting with them either at the church or out for coffee. (It goes without saying, of course, that you need to use your brain in when/where/how this meeting happens depending on your age/gender and the age/gender of the person you are meeting with. Use your brain.) During this conversation I ask the person to share their testimony of salvation to see if they can express that clearly. I’ll ask them why they want to join the worship team, what worship is all about for them. I may ask them to describe some meaningful moments of worship that they’ve been a part of – either as part of a worship team or as part of a congregation.

During this time I’m trying to see if they have a heart and a passion for the Lord and His work in their life. I want to hear a heart for the people of our church, that they would grow deeper in their understanding and pursuit of worship. I’m also trying to get a sense of whether or not the person will mesh with our current team – Will they get along with the people who are already serving? Will anything about their personality clash with some other personalities on our team? Is this person going to be a team player? All of those questions are running through my head during these conversations.

Out of these conversations, I may ask people to read a book related to worship (the “Healthy Tensions” portion of Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin is a favourite of mine to pass along). Generally the conversations go very well and we are ready to invite the person to a worship team rehearsal.

Integration

This can be the longest step of the process but it is very important – it’s important for the person joining the team, it’s important for the current members of the team, it’s important for you as the worship pastor/director and it’s important for your congregation. There are all kinds of ways to do this. We have not struck some magic formula, we’ve just found a way that we’re happy with and that works for us.

First, we’ll invite the applicant to come to at least two rehearsals. We rehearse as a full worship team (singers, musicians, sound/projection techs) on Thursday night for two hours. We’ll set them up with everything they need to feel confident when they come – they know the songs, they’ve got chord charts, we explain how rehearsal is going to happen. They will be a full participant in our worship team at the rehearsal – the only major difference is that we don’t run their instrument through the house.

We use the Aviom system for our monitors and all of our band is on in-ears. We set up the applicant with their own Aviom, make sure they get a great mix in their ears so that they can hear themselves play. We don’t put their instrument in anyone else’s mix – what the other singers/musicians hear is what the team will sound like on Sunday.

As we go through the rehearsal, I will occasionally bring that person’s instrument/voice in and out of my mix so I can hear a few things – How are they playing with the rest of the team? Are they listening to what others are playing? Is there a nice mix with the rest of the band?

At the end of our rehearsal, we all make sure to be very encouraging and I’ll invite them back for a second rehearsal. Even if I know at that point they aren’t ready to join our team, I want to give them another opportunity to be a part of our rehearsal – they may have played nervous, they may have been getting used to in-ears, they may not have been as familiar with the songs as they thought, they may have had a bad day at work. All kinds of reasons why it may not have gone well.

During this stage, I never make the promise that coming to rehearsal means the person is joining our team for Sunday morning. I try my very best to be explicit (several times) that we are asking them to come to rehearsal only and once they’ve done a couple of rehearsals we’ll evaluate whether they are ready for Sunday morning. Yes, this comes from a bad experience where I wasn’t clear enough with someone and they came (very prematurely) to our Sunday morning call time, ready to sing with the band that morning. Not a fun conversation out in the foyer of our church that morning!

Evaluation

Even though I didn’t include this in the list up top, evaluation is the last step of the process. Over the course of getting to know this person, hearing their heart for worship and having them join our team for rehearsals, I am constantly evaluating. At this point, the applicant deserves a fair assessment of whether or not they are ready to join our team on Sunday morning.

Typically, the answer falls in to one of three categories -

Yes, you’re ready. You’ve shown a commitment to Christ, a commitment to our church, a love for worship and a heart to see people grow. You have musical ability at an acceptable level for us and we’re excited about how you would fit in our existing teams. Let’s get you scheduled on our Sunday morning rotation.
You’re almost ready, but… I need some more time. I’m concerned about any of these things – a character issue, your understanding of worship, your motivation for being part of the team, your level of musicianship, etc. I can see you being a part of our worship team in the future but just not yet. There may be a way for you to be involved in leading worship for our kids or student ministries, we’d love to see you continue to grow in your understanding & ability and then we’ll come back and reconsider at a future date.
No. Serving in worship ministry is not for you. You may love Christ but you can’t hold a tune. You might run musical circles around everyone else on our team, but you’re a jerk. (Thankfully I’ve never had to say that one!) I appreciate your desire to serve and every follower of Christ is called to serve in some way but the worship team is not a spot for you.

If you are interested in pursuing this a little more, here are some other blog posts you may be interested in reading -

Sunday, December 25 Plans

October 19, 2011 in ideas,worship with 2 Comments

A couple of days ago I asked this question on twitter -

There were some really great replies so now I’m throwing the question to you.

Loading ...

Songs & Scripture

September 14, 2011 in ideas,worship with 16 Comments

Scripture reading is a normal part of our worship services here at OBC. That hasn’t always been the case and congregational, liturgical, out loud, done-by-the-people, public reading of scripture isn’t included in our gathering every week. We have plenty of Bible during our sermon, of course, but we’ve made an effort to include the Bible in our time of corporate worship before and after the message, as well.

Why? A few reasons.

My words are temporary, God’s words are forever. If I’m going to put any words in the mouths of the people of this church as they worship, choosing the words of the Bible is never a bad choice.
Sunday morning may be the only time these people are exposed to God’s word. Of course there are many in our church who read, study, meditate on God’s word during the week but there are clearly some who only interact with Scripture on Sunday morning.
I have been praying that we would be a Colossians 3 church where the word of Christ dwells among us richly. If it’s going to dwell among us, it has to be present in our gatherings.

This may be a normal thing for you, it may not. But if you aren’t reading Scripture regularly as part of your services, I’d encourage you to start. Here’s one idea from something we did on Sunday. Because of the layout of our service, we had time for one song and a bit (you know how those “and a bit” things can work out!) before our pastor came to preach. Instead of just having people stand for one song and then sit again, we decided to take verses from Scripture and make them part of the congregational worship, weaving passages in with the lyrics from “Here For You” off the new Passion record. We’ve done this song a few times with our church and people seem to really like it.

Here’s how it went – words in italics were read by our worship leader, words in bold were read by the congregation. The other words are the lyrics for “Here For You” sung together by the church.

————————-

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
Ephesians 1:18-23

Verse 1
Let our praise be Your welcome, Let our songs be a sign
We are here for You, we are here for You

Let Your breath come from heaven, Fill our hearts with Your life
We are here for You, we are here for You

Chorus
To You our hearts are open, Nothing here is hidden
You are our one desire
You alone are holy, Only You are worthy
God, let Your fire fall down

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Colossians 1:15-20

Verse 2
Let our shout be Your anthem, Your renown fill the skies
We are here for You, we are here for You

Let Your Word move in power, Let what’s dead come to life
We are here for You, we are here for You

Chorus
To You our hearts are open, Nothing here is hidden
You are our one desire
You alone are holy, Only You are worthy
God, let Your fire fall down

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God”
Philippians 2:8-11, Revelation 19:1

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”
Revelation 5:11-13

Bridge
We welcome You with praise, We welcome You with praise
Almighty God of love, be welcomed in this place

Let every heart adore, Let every soul awake
Almighty God of love, be welcomed in this place

————————-

Here’s what happened – the song became a response to the words we had just read. Most church people have heard and know those passages, our church knows that song – but the combination of the familiar passages of Scripture, the deep truth of Christ’s worthiness and supremacy, the opportunity to respond to that through a great song was a pretty great moment for our congregation.

By the time we got to that last Revelation 5 passage, the band was playing pretty solid underneath, all three of our vocalists were reading those verses together and the vibe in the room was incredible. The pace of the reading slowed down – people were really emphasizing the words.. “to receive power.. and wealth.. and wisdom.. and strength.. and honor.. and glory.. and praise!” It was as if each one was an exclamation and we were declaring those things to be true about Christ in that moment.

So, if you don’t read Scripture very much as part of your worship service, I’d encourage you to start. If you already do, keep looking for new ways to include it and be encouraging other worship leaders to do the same.

I should mention that the verses for this responsive reading came from a link on Bob Kauflin’s blog, Worship Matters. If you aren’t interacting with Bob, you should be! Start with his blog, get his book “Worship Matters” and go from there.

“Here For You” Written by Matt Maher, Matt Redman, Tim Wanstall and Jesse Reeves © 2011 Thankyou Music (admin. worldwide at EMICMGPublishing.com, excluding Europe, which is admin. by Kingswaysongs) (PRS) / Said And Done Music sixsteps Music / worshiptogether.com Songs (Admin. at EMICMGPublishing.com) Chrysalis Music LTD (ASCAP) / Valley of Songs Music (BMI)

September 11 Worship Resources

September 1, 2011 in ideas,worship with 2 Comments

The 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks are going to be remembered in different ways all around the world but it is a Sunday and it will be part of many worship services at churches that morning. Obviously in Canada our take will be a little different than those of you in the US but it is still a landmark of a significant day and we will be taking time to acknowledge 9/11 on that Sunday.

I came across this video today and thought it was worth sharing -

My only comment to the folks at Igniter would be that including an American flag in this video makes it harder to use for churches outside of the US.

Here are some other September 11 worship resources I came across -

TextWeek – multimedia, preaching, song ideas

Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America – resources for worship & devotion

Luthern Church Missouri Synod – readings, hymns, collects

Liquid Church – Dave Pettigrew is the worship leader at this church in NJ and wrote a song specifically for this day called “There Is Hope”

WorshipVue released a free video using the song “There Is Hope” from Liquid

Thr-ve released a video called “Remember”

Any others to add to the list? What is your church doing differently on September 11 to mark the 10th anniversary?

STORY Interview – Angela Thomas

August 31, 2011 in ideas with 4 Comments

I’m excited to be attending STORY in Chicago in a couple of weeks and can’t wait to see it live and in person. If you’ve heard any of the talk around this event for the last couple of years, you know that Ben Arment and his team pull out all the stops to inspire artists and leaders as they dream together.

STORY is a conference for the creative class. The theme for 2011 is IMAGINE NATION which speaks to the power of spiritual imagination. In Exodus 35, the artists of Israel came together to build a dwelling place for God. They carved poles, fashioned gold, and constructed curtains “with cherubim woven into them by expert hands.” The job of these artists was to envision the kingdom and use their gifts to heighten peoples spiritual imaginations. An Imagine Nation.

Join a tribe of creative artists attempting to learn more about their craft, story telling, and imagination. One of the story tellers at STORY this year is Angela Thomas and I’m thrilled to post this interview with Angela to let you get to know her a bit more.

Angela Thomas is a gifted storyteller, teacher, and bestselling author. She has written 11 books and five video studies, including Brave and When Wallflowers Dance. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has a master’s degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. Angela calls Greensboro, North Carolina home and enjoys making her husband Scott and their four children her main priorities. For more, visit www.angelathomas.com

What is your best personal definition of a STORY?
My personal definition of STORY is: A tiny snippet of the journey, gift-wrapped in meaning.

What is one way you have found to grow or engage your imagination?
Growing my imagination has been about trying to pursue STORY from the most neglected perspective while still making an application that connects with most people.

In your experience what is the best nontraditional form or STORY telling you have seen, heard, or experienced?
To me, the best nontraditional STORY is one not overly-crafted or slick. Most of the time not even planned. Today I saw a photograph taken at a Navy Seal’s funeral. Beside the casket lay the soldier’s dog. The unplanned and unposed picture told a STORY that keeps moving me to tears this afternoon. God bless the brave SEAL and the dog who loved him.

If you could encourage a creative person with one tip on being imaginative what would you tell them?
If you have heard it, seen it, or read it somewhere else, your imagination is not at work. The STORY of your imagination will begin in your heart. Turn off the internet. Stop scanning what everyone else has done. Be still long enough to let your God-given passion shout above all the other noise. Trust the Creator. The One who placed imagination in your mind is creative enough to give new STORY through you.

What is one thing you are excited about sharing with the tribes attending STORY 2011?
I am coming to STORY 2011 because I’ve had the great privilege of reading other people’s stories and writing about our GOD in their STORY. The project is called The Story of Your Life, co-written with Matthew West. In this book, it has been an honor to interact with someone else’s journey and as a humble observer, point readers to our God of compassion and purpose.

Thanks Angela! If you are looking to register for STORY, head to story2011.eventbrite.com or www.storychicago.com for more info.

Page 1 of 1912 3 4 5 »10...Last »