Quotes [Part 4]

I like to spread out my ‘quotes’ posts - but these were too good to hold on to for much longer!

WINFIELD BEVINS

“In many ways, worship is theology in motion.”

JOHN ELDREDGE

“Modern worship bands not only need to be extraordinarily talented musicians, young, and beautiful, but their live events employ multimedia to keep your attention as well. Now church service compete with concert-level staging, lighting, special effects, and films. The terrible, unspoken assumption creeping in is this: if you’re going to find God, if you’re going to have more of God, it’s going to come through some amazing experience, something totally wild and over the top. Or we think that once we have God, the proof will be an over-the-top life. Not true. So unhelpful, and immensely unkind. This expectation actually makes those deeper experiences of God seem inaccessible for most of us.”

OSWALD CHAMBERS

“We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself. If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you - and His experiments always succeed.”

ROBERT E. WEBBER

“Worship does God’s story! In worship, we remember God’s story in the past and anticipate God’s story in the future.”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Scheduling a Team

If you are leading in a context where you have enough musicians to serve on a rotation, then considering how to schedule a team will become an increasingly more regular part of your weekly responsibilities gearing up for a weekend.

Of course, you need to think through the practicalities of how you communicate with a team. What kinds of rhythms and expectations to set with the team, you will also need to think through some of the intangibles.

Intangibles like:

What voices sound the best together?

What team members can complement one another’s style of playing?

How can I balance stronger musicians with less experienced musicians?

What are the rhythms for serving that work best in the lives of our team?

How will these songs work with the specific team that will be tasked with leading the setlist in a weekend?

As my team has grown, my month has a similar outline:

• Two weeks before a new month, I send my whole team an email letting them know to enter any blockout dates for weekends they will not be available to serve.

• I start listing out songs that I think will work with the sermon text, determine any new songs, and begin to get a 30,000-foot view of the services a month at a time. This helps me keep an eye out for things like Baptism, Communion, or special announcements that need to be included in our gathering and will shift the time, or amount of songs in a service.

• The week before a month begins I schedule my team via Planning Center. As people confirm or decline, I know there will be specific spots to fill, and as this happens I have a better sense of how to tailor the set list to fit the team.

• Every Tuesday I email the team who is serving to confirm for them the set list and song keys.

This pattern has taken time to develop, and in every place I have served as found a unique rhythm. Consistency is key in your scheduling and communication. But because people are not widgets, you have to invest time into being a student of your team, to serve them well in your scheduling.

If you’re looking for other resources for your team, you may find these posts helpful as well:

How to build a team without musicians.

A team of worship leaders.

Identifying and developing new leaders.

Making space for new leaders here and here.

Trust In Worship

There is a tremendous amount of trust required in leading people in sung worship. Most people are only singing aloud during a commute to work or their morning shower. Apart from singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ when are the vast majority of people singing corporately?

But sung worship is not just a physical act - it is spiritual as well. We are putting words in the mouths of our people for them to know, understand, and respond to the person and work of Christ.

When God’s people are gathered in sung worship they are following our lead - are we trustworthy? Have we invested in the secret place before coming to this public platform? Have we spent time with these songs to be able to lead them with as few distractions as we can manage? Will we provide the people with enough direction that they can relax and follow, or will they feel consistently unsettled because we seem to be unaware of anyone besides ourselves?

As it does in any relationship, trust is built over time. Time and familiarity will either serve to strengthen or undermine the trust you have with the people you lead. So be consistent in your serving on and off the platform. Be gracious with and toward your people knowing that there is a significant amount of trust required in their relationship with and toward you.

Using Tracks

For a long time, I was against using tracks.

Not for any justifiable reason, mainly because I didn’t like being told what to do. And it felt like tracks could potentially determine the structure, style, and progression of a song I appreciated the flexibility of being able to change key or tempo to suit the setlist. But more than that, using tracks felt like lying or cheating - creating something that you were not actually able to reproduce with your given team.

You are likely familiar with tracks, but if not, they are pre-recorded elements that play along underneath the live band. They are often called backing tracks, loops, or simply tracks. They are not necessarily meant to replace instruments, but to enhance and compliment your team, as well as fill in musical holes. This is not a post about the technical side of setting up tracks - there are resources available with far more detail and skill than I could offer in that department. This is not even a post about selling you on using tracks, they are likely not right for every team and every church. What I hope to offer in this post is how to consider and implement tracks if you, like me, had never used them before.

Over the last 18 months, our church has been incorporating tracks into almost every song. And it has surprised me how much I have enjoyed using them. Like most things, there is a learning curve, and it has taken me some time to find the rhythm which works best for our team and our church, but overall, I am really happy with the decision to be using them regularly. There is far more flexibility in use than I had anticipated, and the fuller sound and the opportunity to introduce songs I would not have considered because of the way the production supported the song has outweighed my fear about tracks as lying or cheating.

Using in-ears.

If you are going to be using tracks, at least one person will have to be using in-ears. Because tracks are being played back with a click track (metronome to keep you in tempo and time), at least one person (usually the drummer or worship leader) needs to be able to hear the tempo to follow the track. And because you usually don’t want the congregation to hear a click track along with the song, the best application of tracks is with in-ear monitors. Tracks are just audio being played back, and therefore are not reacting dynamically to the live musicians - they are not slowing down or speeding up based on what other people are playing. You hit play on a track, and you’re into the song.

Start with a click track.

Before you invest a lot of time, energy, money, or effort into backing tracks, start with a click track. Backing tracks will include cues that will count into each part of a song. This is a significant adjustment. So starting with a standard click track will help the team get comfortable with hearing something in their ears apart from one another. It is also fairly low risk - if the team gets off the click, they just need to keep playing until they can find the pocket again - and generally, the congregation won’t be able to tell.

Start small.

Try adding a track to one song in the setlist. How does the team like using the track? Does the sound person feel equipped to be able to mix the song well? Does this feel like something that will work well in your context and with your congregation?

Like many things, there can be a temptation with tracks to go over the top and overboard very quickly. But a good song is a good song is a good song. My encouragement is to let the track complement the song, not overwhelm the song. As worship leaders, we want to utilize technology to enhance and adorn our worship gathering, but never to become the center of the gathering.

30 July: Liturgy + Set List

• ALL CREATURES OF OUR GOD AND KING

  Call to Worship: Psalm 19:8-14

  This is my hope and prayer for you and me this morning - that our words and our hearts would be aligned. That we would sing of the things we have seen - that God is great, good, and kind. Let’s sing together:

• GOD YOU’RE SO GOOD

• KING OF KINGS

  Sermon: Exodus 20:16

  God created the world by His word - and sustains it by the Word of His power. When you and I speak, it is one of the most obvious ways we display that we bear the image of God. Scripture tells us that the power of life and death is in the tongue, and confronts us with the reality that we use the same mouth to bless God and curse our brother. All words - those spoken aloud, and those uttered only in the quiet of our hearts and minds - all come from the overflow of our hearts. You and I do not merely need better control over our tongues, we need new hearts. And as we continue in worship we are going to use our words to confess our sin to God and one another, would you stand if you’re able:

Merciful God,
We confess that we have sinned against You
in thought, word, and deed,
By what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved You with our whole heart and mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

In Your mercy forgive what we have been,
help us amend what we are,
And direct what we shall be,
So that we may delight in your will and walk in Your ways, To the glory of Your holy name. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen. [Book of Common Prayer]

• ONLY A HOLY GOD

• RAISE UP THE CROWN (ALL HAIL THE POWER)

  Benediction

Thoughts On Writing

It has been said, ‘Write what you know…’ or others have said, ‘I write so that I might know…’ There is no doubt that words are formative. As followers of Jesus, we should not be surprised about this because God spoke the world into existence with His words. Jesus is the Word made flesh who sustains the universe by the word of His power. And God has given us His Word through Scripture.

Words are important. And personally, I believe that writing is important. That even if you do not consider yourself a writer, there is value, benefit, and importance to writing in, and for your unique context. Yes, write songs, but also write liturgy. Write in the language of your people, write to stretch them and grow them, write so that the trues of Scripture, deep doctrine, and beautiful devotion may inhabit their hearts, minds, and lives.

When considering writing, here are a few things I believe are worth considering:

Write all the time. Writing doe not just have to be pen to paper, it can also be exploring good writing, filling your own heart, mind, and life with things that are good, beautiful, and true.

Keep writing. I use my iPhone Notes app constantly. Lines, lyrics, phrases. Maybe they will turn into something - like a song, a call to worship, a blog, a responsive reading, a prayer, or devotional writing. Maybe those words are just a place for me to make sense of my own heart, and pour out my own praise. But keeping a running list of words, phrases, or quotes that have impacted me, can often jump-start a more intentional or focused time of writing.

Consider the purpose. If it is a song - is this a corporate worship song, a song of personal devotion, or something just for fun? What is it that the people of God need to hear? What is it that I just need to be able to say to God - or that He wants to speak to me?

Where are the gaps? As I am trying to bridge Scripture, songs, and liturgy, what words will help paint a clearer picture of the truths we are declaring? Does that passage of Scripture, Song, or pre-written liturgy already exist? If not, how might I prayerfully, and intentionally allow God to shape my words to fill in the gaps?

Are you feeling a need, a conviction, or a desire to write? How might you bring those desires to the Lord and allow him to shape them to bless, serve, equip, and challenge you, and those you lead and serve?

23 July: Liturgy + Set List

• PROMISES

  Call to Worship: Psalm 36:5-9

  One of the lies we are tempted to believe is that everything hangs on us. That we feast on the abundance of our own house. That we feast on the abundance of our own effort, labor, and work. And one of the reasons it is essential to make gathering with the people of God a weekly habit is because God in his kindness uses His Word, His Spirit, and His people to confront and expose the lies that we believe, and the lies that we live. We gather this morning acknowledging that in God there is no lack, no need, and He invites His people to feast on the abundance of His house, and drink from the river of God’s delights. He is good, and generous, and kind. Let’s sing to him together…

• GOODNESS OF GOD

• I SHALL NOT WANT

  Sermon: Exodus 20:14

  The Apostles’ Creed

  Communion

• NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD

  Benediction

Don't Jump Off A Bridge

“If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?”

Maybe that was something you heard growing up. The truth is, we are just as susceptible to peer pressure as adults as we were as children. And even as worship leaders, we can feel pressure to participate because it is what everyone else is doing. Song choice, style, format, aesthetic, technology - just because ‘everyone’ is doing it doesn’t mean you have to.

So much of what we do is gray, and requires a knowledge of our people, our culture, and our the communities in which we serve. As worship leaders our decisions about what, why, when, and how should be measured over and against the mission, vision, and values of our church and a philosophy of ministry.

I am incredibly grateful for the way technology, and the internet gives us access to songs, churches, worship leaders, training, and artist we would otherwise not know. But one of the downsides to this reality is that we can only see the outworking of another group’s philosophy of ministry. When we simply adopt the songs, style, or aesthetic of another church, group, or worship leader, our services can easily become cheap, karaoke versions of something that was originally crafted with intention. We want the look, feel, style, and response we see on those beautifully lit, and mixed YouTube videos, when our unique contexts look nothing like what we see online.

I am not saying, ‘Don’t use those songs…,’ I use those songs! But do not let what you see, or what others are doing be the single most significant determining factor in the decisions you make as a worship leader. Do the hard work of understanding your people (the congregation), and your team (the skills, gifts, and weaknesses), and allow the mission of your church, and your philosophy of worship to shape the decisions that you make.

Engaging the Holidays

where I serve, is how we appropriately engage, and speak to cultural holidays… or not.

Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the 4th of July, Memorial Day, the list is endless…

From my observation, many churches fall into one of two categories - all in, or completely ignore. The churches that are all, adapt and orient their service around acknowledging and celebrating these particular holidays. They change their songs to fit, tailor a sermon to match, and have decor and announcements that are designed to highlight the holiday. Those in the completely ignore category don’t acknowledge anything - and apart from the cultural reminders - endcaps at every store, and themed emails from every online retailer, no one would even realize it was a holiday.

Personally, I lean more toward the latter than the former. But I believe there are at least two significant reasons why our people can benefit from acknowledging holidays in our corporate gatherings:

First, when we acknowledge current events or cultural holidays, it is a chance to reframe people’s identity and understanding around the person and work of Christ. To shape their minds, hearts, and affections Scripturally, rather than culturally. To rightly situate the values of the world inside the values of the Kingdom of God.

Second, Scripture tells us to remember. And we are people prone to forget. We should celebrate, but we should also lament. We should rejoice but also grieve. Let’s use cultural holidays to acknowledge not just the joys, but also the sorrows of living in a broken world, as we point our people toward the deeper, truer, eternal hope of Christ.

9 July: Liturgy + Set List

• REJOICE

  Call to Worship: Psalm 19:1-6

  Scripture tells us ‘…out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.’ So often people believe faith, or religion is about doing the right things and avoiding the wrong things. But the truth our actions and behaviors flow from our hearts. And here, the Psalmist beholds the glory of God in creation, and from His heart flows this final verse:

  “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
      be acceptable in your sight,
      O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

  This is my hope and prayer for you and me this morning - that we would behold the glory of God, and from our hearts would flow worship and obedience in all of life. Let’s sing:

• THE GREATNESS OF OUR GOD

• ALL HAIL KING JESUS

  Sermon: Exodus 20:13

• HYMN OF HEAVEN

• COME THOU FOUNT

  Benediction

Keeping Things Fresh

The world we live in shapes who we are. Our world is absorbed in entertainment. In subtle and significant ways, our people arrive at church in a world that has trained them for novelty, change, quick cuts, and the regular expectation of dopamine. So how do we combat this reality, while also maintaining an intentional and focused philosophy of worship as we plan our Sunday gatherings?

Maybe even for you as a worship leader, or person planning and executing weekly services things feel stale or tired. It can be easy to play the same number of songs, in the same order, pray the same prayers, and say the same words, thoughtlessly, mindlessly, and endlessly.

First, recognize that there is a difference between things feeling familiar and things feeling stale. At some level, you want a level of consistency in your gathering, so that people know and understand the general shape of your gathering. Especially if you are trying to tell the whole gospel story in the shape of your gathering. C.S. Lewis said:

“Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best – if you like it, it “works” best – when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.” [C.S. Lewis, The Joyful Christian]

What are some simple ways that you can freshen your weekly service rhythms?

Change the structure of a song. I like to think of each element of the song (Verse, Chorus, Bridge, etc) as building blocks. These are the raw materials I can assemble, and move around to create and build something unique to a service. Start with a chorus, create a medley, repeat a certain line for emphasis, etc.

Change the dynamics of a song. Let the voices carry a chorus, drive the verses. Build and drop in different places than normal. How can you use the music to shape the way a song speaks?

Allow others to lead musically, or verbally. A new voice always offers a fresh perspective - whether that is literally in the tone and texture of a song or the way that someone besides yourself can articulate the what and why of the gathering. Allowing others to speak will require training and development from you. It will also force you to be able to verbalize things that too often live exclusively in our minds as leaders. It will also help loosen your grip on something we can easily be possessive, rather than open-handed about.

Shepherd people through different aspects of worship. When I feel like my leading, or liturgy has become tired, I spend time teaching or speaking about different aspects of our gathering - why do we sing? Why do we gather? Why do we raise our hands? How can you use extra space and time to help build meaning and understanding for those you lead?

Ultimately, your liturgy in all its familiarity and repetition should not be confining, but instead, it should be freeing. And if you are going to make changes, it is important to communicate those thoughtfully and use a rubric that will serve your people.

“O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new…” - Augustine

2 July: Liturgy + Set List

• CHRIST BE MAGNIFIED

  Good morning, Life Church. Welcome to worship with us on this Lord’s Day, this Family Worship Weekend, and this Fourth of July Weekend. It is right and good for us to celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this country, but if you’re here as a follower of Christ, you know that everything good is from God. But you also know that every good thing we experience on this side of eternity is only a shadow, only an arrow of the true freedom that is available to all people through Christ. Freedom that is not determined by countries, governments or politics. So I hope as you celebrate these freedoms this week that you take it as an opportunity to lift your eyes to the deeper, truer freedom in Christ. Let’s hear God call us to worship from His Word:

• Psalm 145

• WHAT YOU SAID

• HOLY (JESUS YOU ARE)

  Sermon: Exodus 20:12

  Reflection Questions

  The Apostles’ Creed

  Communion

• FORGIVEN FOREVER

  Benediction