Can You Hear Them? (10 Tips for Unleashing a Singing Congregation)

 

This past I week I had the chance to be part of the congregation while one of our teams lead worship without me on stage. (It’s one of the great joys of leadership when you get to watch the team you have trained and cared for lead with as much excellence and power as if you were on stage with them.) I had been standing in the back row worshipping until it was time for me to come forward to do the communion meditation and prayer when I got to the front row it hit me. The congregation was singing out LOUDLY! There are few things on earth that I love more than that sound.

Backing up a bit, I was having a conversation with an elder at another church recently and he mentioned that he has noticed a growing trend of people standing and watching the band and vocalists during worship instead of singing along. He then asked me if I thought that was okay? I told him it was not only NOT okay, but that there were some simple ways to make it easier to help and encourage them to do so with joy.

Loops in Worship with iPad and BeatMaker 2

We’ve been using Ableton from a desktop for running loops and tracks in worship for a while now and I’ve been looking for an easy portable alternative. I’m a big proponent of having a backup system so when things go wrong you’re not frantically trying to pull things together or troubleshoot. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to afford a macbook yet so I turned to my handy dandy iPad to look for solutions. There are a couple options out there but I wanted something that I could use immediately without having to upload or process anything and that wasn’t dependent on an internet connection. Additionally, I wanted to be able to control things with the Keith McMillan Softstep that I already owned.

I’m excited to say that after hours of trying out apps and digging through online forums I’ve found something that works like a dream.

Worship/Ministry’s Dirty Little Secret (Confessions of a Worship Leader)

I’m gonna tell you something that you probably already know but most people won’t actually say out loud: we say and do a lot of things under the disguise of ministry that are really motivated by PRIDE.

Shocking I know! It’s hard to believe but if we peel back the self-righteousness, the pointing and accusing and even what seems to be an effort to just point out the truth is really either a reflection of our feeling of inadequacy or an inflated sense of self.

Have you heard these phrases?

Awesome Rehearsals That Rock!

 

Up till this point you have gotten your team the materials they need to succeed, helped them personally practice and prepare for rehearsal as well as gotten the final pieces in place before they show up for rehearsal. All of this is leading up to turning an ordinary rehearsal into a great experience where friends gather and put their pieces of the puzzle together to create a powerful work of art that inspires and encourages worship. This has been a team effort up until now with each person doing their part and rehearsal will be no different.

The major consideration is that time is precious and it’s important for everyone to be considerate of each other. so with that in mind, here is an outline of what I’ve found to be an incredibly effective rehearsal process along with some helpful tips and trick along the way.

Danger- Change in Worship Ahead (tips on transitioning worship style)

So you’ve taken that new job and you’re trying to figure out how to make some much needed transitions without causing yourself or your church unnecessary “bloodshed”.

I’ve been talking to some worship minister friends of mine who are either in this phase of ministry or about to experience it. During these conversations I’ve found myself telling the story of my very first worship mentor and decided to share it with the hopes that it can be helpful even to those of us in established ministries.

You Callin’ Me A Bad Worshiper? (Expressive Worship Leaders)

I’m not up there to put on a show. It’s just not the way I worship. I don’t want to be a distraction. God’s more concerned with my heart than whether I clap or raise my hands.

Over the years I’ve heard phrases just like this from people in worship ministry. They’re usually made in response to talking about expressiveness in worship. In this particular area of worship leadership it’s difficult to know how to approach coaching people on your team to grow. I’ve found that often peoples initial response is really not the main issue.

Worship Design Team (Role# 3: Band Leader/ The Maestro)

Five songs, four chords and the truth. Throw in some skinny jeans, a scarf and a guitar and make sure they’re in their 20’s and you’ve got the perfect guy to lead your worship band. Okay, these are cliches and not real qualifications, however more often than not these tend to be characteristics of what you’ll see in contemporary churches. None of these things should necessarily disqualify anyone from leading a worship band but it’s important to make a list of the things that are non-negotiables, important capabilities and nice perks if they’re available.

Untangling Church A/V

“I’m in over my head” he said with an embarrassed and terrified look on his face. I was leading worship for a conference out of town and as we were setting up I asked the volunteer who was running the sound system a question. The worship leader had left for another church a couple of months previous and the tech director had quit a couple weeks before as well. As we worked together to cobble together a solution I was struck with a powerful realization. I said to myself, “I don’t ever want this to happen to anyone who serves in my ministry!” And then I choked because I realized it could.

Killing Bad Creative Meetings (tips for Creative Teams)

Running effective and productive meetings is hard. As I’ve talked with other worship leaders and ministers I’ve found that running a creative meeting seems to be even harder. When I ask how colleagues run creative meetings, the response is usually something like “not very well”. I’ve been working on killing bad creative team meetings in the last couple of years and have identified some of the pitfalls as well as a couple of solutions. I think that a lot of the difficulty comes from our understanding of creativity. We tend to treat creativity as if it’s this magic inspiration that appears at just the right time.  That explains why sitting in a room and looking at a sermon title with a section of scripture, waiting for the good stuff to come pouring out rarely happens.

Lowes and Worship Ministry (stage design lessons learned)

Check out our Worshipleaderlab Flikr account to see examples of our stage designs.

When I took the job at Lakeside over six years ago, stage design was not even a blip on my radar. I walked in to a “gymnatorium” or a “sanctanasium” (whichever you prefer) and thus began my journey and daily experiment of taking a multi-use room and turning it into an useful worship space.  Over the years I never would have imagined how much time I would spend in home improvement stores problem solving and dreaming up stage designs. As I get a chance, I will go through the individual stage changes and walk through the materials used in the ones we’re particularly proud.  In this post I simply want to point out some of the lessons learned over the past six years of doing stage design. I wish I had known about the website www.churchstagedesigns.com earlier because it would have answered a lot of questions for me. However, I’m glad we did things the way we did because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to pass on the following lessons I’ve learned along the way. Here’s some things that it takes to do stage design in the local church.