Links to three interesting articles that I read this weekend -

1. Ligonier Ministries posted some articles from the July 2010 issue of Tabletalk Magazine entitled “Worship Matters.” “…here are further resources to help address public worship, discernment in worship, the regulative principle of worship, legalism, liturgy, and Christian freedom.”

2. ABC News has a video interview with Pastor Tim Keller.

3. Relevant Magazine has free MP3s and live video from Sons & Daughters.

Links to three interesting articles that I read yesterday -

3. Jeff Kapusta writes an open letter to his staff – part 1, part 2, part 3

2. Michael Hyatt announcing he is stepping down as CEO of Thomas Nelson

1. “Curating Worship” – Andrew Jones with a great description of part of the worship leader role

Links to three interesting articles that I read yesterday -

3. New Bible draws critics of gender-neutral language

2. Keith Getty on Hymn Writing, Worship Leading, and TGC11

1. Facebook Doesn’t Kill Churches, Churches Kill Churches

Perry Noble is the senior pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina. He posted this on his blog last week and I loved it –

#1 – The Church Is Not “Their Gig,” – it’s THEIR CHURCH! They love NewSpring Church…they pray for it, work on it, support it financially and do not want to use it to boost their CD sales. They don’t run to it when they can’t find a “better opportunity,” they are here serving each and every week. They love the people in this church and have a heart to reach the community in which they are in!

#2 – They Have A Servants Heart – Our worship leaders do WAY more than sing on Sunday’s. In fact, they would be willing to do ANYTHING to advance the ball down the field. I am not kidding when I tell you that I could call any of them right now and tell them we are scrubbing toilets this afternoon and they would do it.
If a worship leaders thinks “their job” is to just sing then you don’t have a worship leader…you have an arrogant performer who wants people to worship them rather than leading them to worship Jesus. Worship is WAY more than singing…it’s serving Jesus by doing whatever it takes to make His Name known!

#3 – They KNOW the Scriptures – Our worship leaders know God’s Word…they read it, memorize it…CRAVE IT…and it shows as it FLOWS out of them in natural conversation and in their leadership on Sundays.

#4 – They Are Always Striving To Improve – I love that none of them are ever satisfied with the way things are…they are always striving to improve as vocalists and musicians…none of them believe they have “arrived” vocally/musically!

#5 – They Are Not Afraid To Try Something Different – I have gone to them a few times and asked them to attempt a song that isn’t quite their style…and they always says “yes!” They are not afraid of hard work…and if something isn’t familiar to them they will bust their rear ends to make sure that they absolutely kill it when it comes time to make it happen.

#6 – They Call Each Other Out – They love each other enough to tell each other when a vocal or musical part just isn’t right. AND…they also challenge and call each other out OFF of the stage. (Which is essential for a great worship team…if they are only concerned about one another ON stage and not OFF the stage then their obsession is the performance…not the person.)

#7 – They Write Awesome Music – Yes, we do other people’s music…I think it is both arrogant and stupid to not do a song that has a great message; however, our worship leaders also write their own stuff…which is SO pleasing to me because hearing their lyrics gives me a front row seat to what Jesus is doing in their hearts.

Now, listen. Don’t read this post and think “MY senior pastor never says nice stuff like that about me!” Instead, read these seven things and ask if those are things that could be said about you as a worship leader and about the rest of your worship team.

As a follow-up to this last post I thought it might be helpful to post a video from Bluetree (facebook|twitter) telling the story behind their song “God of this City” -

Okay, so it’s not available on iTunes in Canada but if you live in the US you’re able to buy this EP today from fellow re:create peep Carlos Whittaker. You may be familiar with his blog – www.ragamuffinsoul.com – but you should check out these songs.

Here’s a short video that tells some of the story behind these songs and why Carlos is excited about them –

If you’re looking for chord charts for the 3 songs, Carlos has posted them on his blog here – www.ragamuffinsoul.com/music

“You Are” by Mark Roach is on iTunes here or you can check out more of Mark’s website at www.markroach.com

My friend Joshua Seller posted some exciting info on his blog. He’s on staff at Harvest Oakville (part of the Harvest Bible Chapel family) and they are looking to hire a full-time production director. If you’re pumped about serving Jesus with your A/V giftedness and equipping others to do the same, you should check this out –

The church I work at (Harvest Bible Chapel) has a new position open that probably comes once in 20 years. Recently our Audio/Video Director resigned to follow a different path God had for him and his family. With that left a immediate position available.
Because we have seen such rapid growth over the past 5 years, it has been a learning curve for everyone. From multiple services, multiple staffing, volunteers, special events, budgets and now the new building campaign we are in the middle of has forced a lot of us to play ball and “do church”, no matter what it takes, for one reason Jesus Christ!

Job Title: Production Director
If you are a Jesus loving, Audio/Video, Production, Creative, Tech Head, Gear Geek, recording guro or know someone who is and has experience in medium to large size churches then please pass this post on to them.

I’ve been using Planning Center Online for all of our service planning for a couple of years and it has become an invaluable tool for us in scheduling, learning new songs, communication within our worship ministry, etc etc. These guys built an incredible tool on a great platform when it launched – they listened to their customer base and did it right. Planning Center Online has really become the standard for scheduling and song management for me.

They just announced that they’ve made some changes to their mobile functionality which is pretty intriguing to me. Not only have they released an iPhone/iPod application but the first step in mobile scheduling has arrived. From the app, an administrator can schedule a person for a service and request their participation. I am really hopeful that this is the first step in total mobile functionality for Planning Center Online and being able to do full service scheduling from the mobile site.

If you are looking for a way to manage your songs, volunteers and scheduling you should check out Planning Center Online. They’ve got a free 30-day trial so you can give it a spin and see if it works for you.

Great work, guys! Very impressive.

If you live in church-world you’re probably familiar with North Point and all the incredible things that they’ve done over the years. No sense in recapping what they’re about but – like ‘em or not! – they’ve made some bold moves over the course of their history and have been committed to doing whatever they can to make sure lots of people are hearing the gospel.

One new thing that they are just launching is an online campus at www.NorthPointOnline.tv. North Point is not the first church to do this (LifeChurch, NewSpring and others have done this) but you know that  if they are going to do it, they are going to do it right.

Check out this preview video -

Tonight was the soft launch of the online campus in preparation for the live service experience on August 16th and I was able to catch part of what was happening. Andy Stanley & Jeff Henderson talked about the what and why of the online campus and then they spent the last part of the session praying for opportunities and for the people who would be impacted.

All in all, these guys have done a great job so far. John Saddington & Carlos Whittaker have been talking this up like crazy and they did not disappoint. They and their teams have pulled off a great-looking environment and even though not everything worked perfectly tonight, they’ve got time to get it up and running for the August 16th launch dates.

Here are some initial impressions from the session tonight -

• The cohesiveness of the environment branding is impressive – but what else would you expect from North Point? The logo, look & feel of the site, promo videos, etc all have a very modern edge to them and they have definitely spent some time thinking about the vibe they want to portray
• Integrating chat, Facebook & Twitter all on the same page is impressive technically but I wonder if it’s too much all at once?
• The pulled back, out of focus camera shot while Jeff and Andy were praying was beautiful – a really nice way to take the attention off of those two guys and encourage the viewer to be focused on prayer
• I’m intrigued by the “live-to-online” concept that these guys are going with. As far as I know (other than a live stream to the web concept) this is the first true online campus that will be doing the full service live as it happens at the originating church. I’m sure there’s the potential for lots to go wrong with that :)
• I appreciated Andy’s comments around North Point’s view of why they should be doing the online campus and of technology in general. While I might not agree 100% with the HOW of what they’re doing, to know that they’ve spent significant time thinking about the WHY is encouraging.
• So why don’t I agree with the how? That’s a long discussion. Here’s an easy touchpoint – At one point Andy said that North Point hopes that the online campus should be a temporary substitute for a local church congregation until someone gets plugged in and comfortable. I’m not sure that North Point really believes that – I think they would be quite happy with people all over the world making the online campus their ‘home church’. If North Point DOES think it’s important and valuable for online campus viewers/participants to be engaged in a local church congregation, I’m guessing that we will see the movement from the NP experience to the local church not only talked about but also encouraged and facilitated.

All in all, these guys have done it again. They began with a dream, got the right people to take the first steps, put a plan in motion and then got to work. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the potential for a tool like this to facilitate the spread of the gospel is immense! I’m excited to see how this plays out and how North Point will encourage the right use of the right kind of technology in other local churches all around the world.