When discussing the area of church known as “worship”, people often have different ideas about what it means. In the context I am going to discuss, I will be talking specifically about music, drama, art, etc.

It’s easy in today’s culture to turn worship from what it is truly about (worshiping God) into something it isn’t (entertainment or a means of serving the congregation in some way). There is a delicate balance between both the worship leader and the congregation to understand and know what the purpose for worship is. Too often people get caught up with where they should worship, what music should be played and how it looks to others.

As a drummer in various praise teams over the last 5 years, I often fall victim to that kind of thinking. I get concerned more about what sounds good or what is “fun” rather than remembering that such a time is something that is not about me or anybody else, but about God alone. I am not a worship leader, but I have had the privilege if working with excellent worship leaders and their wisdom. Here are some suggestions and reminders for those who prepare worship services.

1. Worship is not about entertainment. The music that is put together it not done so the people in the congregation are entertained as if they were at a concert. Granted, there is a balance that worship leaders have to take into consideration. If you lead worship at Mars Hill Church in Seattle or at Buckhead Church in Atlanta, you’re not going to pass out hymnals and tell people to start singing, “When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder.” That will only serve to be a distraction. This isn’t to say that hymns cannot be incorporated into the worship service, bu

2. Don’t have the praise team do songs beyond their abilities. Part of the role of those on praise team, whether they are singing or playing an instrument is to play the music and help to lead people into a time of worship where they can place their entire focus on God. Romans 12:1 says, “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship.” What that is saying is that God wants every part of you during that time of worship. Most churches do not have professional musicians or musicians that are professionally trained. Don’t go above their heads because if they have issues pulling it off, that also serves to be a distraction to the congregation. I am thankful to serve alongside a worship leader who will push the praise team to its creative limits, but not past that.

3. Choose songs that aren’t complicated and confusing for the congregation. I visited a church once where the music was great and the band was excellent, but the songs were not very good for corporate worship, despite being presented as such. New Life Worship and Hillsong United are excellent at creating worship songs that sound very intricate, but yet still flow very easily for the congregation.

4. Go easy with the drama. Having some drama scenes whether they are serious or humorous that helps to illustrate what the Pastor is going to be discussing can be invaluable at times to people. However, if it is overdone, it once again becomes a situation where it is used more for entertainment then for true worship. The same can be said of video clips. They can help, but don’t overdo it. We don’t want to get to a point where an entire worship service is an hour long but only includes 10 minutes of biblical based preaching by the Pastor.

It’s important to remember to that some of the responsibility falls on you. While worship leaders should not choose music, select clips, or write up drama scenes for the purposes of entertaining, neither should you as a worshiper be expected to be entertained. The songs played should not do anything for you. I’ve heard people say, “I love that song they did because it made me feel ___________” Unfortunately, such sentiments are selfish.

It is very easy to lose focus of what our time of worship is all about. The enemy seeks to distract and to turn our hearts away from the true purpose of worship. Keep these thoughts in mind whether you help to lead worship or merely take part in it.

What do you think? If you’re a worship leader, do you agree or disagree? What else do you look out for?

In a follow up to my entry yesterday about getting to church on time for the worship time, the next thing logical thing to write about would be the music.

Personally, I like my music loud and I like it to rock. I’m not a speed metal-head the way some people are. When I was a teenager, the heaviest thing I listened to was Metallica or Iron Maiden. I liked Ozzy and AC/CD and Van Halen. I never went in for speed metal like Slayer or industrial type metal like Voivod. The same goes for newer music. I can’t listen to too much of Slipknot or Lamb of God. But when it comes to straight up hard rock, I can listen all day.

As a drummer, I am also drawn to worship music that just kind of allows me to go nuts on the kit. It doesn’t have to be an up tempo song. Even a song like ‘Here In Your Presence’ from New Life Worship, which is in 6/8 just blows me away.

Our church has changed since I started attending over four years ago. When our church first started over 10 years ago, the core group of people were mostly older. Palm Coast, FL was for the longest time a resort/retirement community. When the church band consists of the Pastor’s wife on a keyboard, then you’re kind of limited in what music can be played. When a new worship Pastor arrived after the church moved from movie theater facilities to our current campus, the music changed and we started to integrate more contemporary music. However, there was still a strong traditional element. We even held a traditional service where it was nothing but hymns. Shortly thereafter we dropped the traditional service and went totally contemporary.

When our newest worship Pastor, Derek Overton, took over, the music got kicked up a notch and it was to the detriment of some of the founding members, many of whom have moved on. That will happen when you start to do more driving music from the likes of New Life Worship or Hill Song United and to them, “Lord I Lift Your Name On High” is up tempo. We’ll still do hymns but often it is in the style of David Crowder who has been blessed to where he can make hymns like ‘Come Thou Fount’ and ‘O, For A Thousand Tongues To Sing’ actually sound really cool.

I know people have said it should be about the message and don’t get me wrong, that’s where it does truly stand. You could have Hillsong United playing but if the message was junk, then it wouldn’t matter. That being said, the music is an important part of why we attend the church that we do. I can honestly say that if for whatever reason if our church decided to go to a place where our stage was cleared, amps and drums removed and all that was left was a piano and the voice of somebody saying, “Please turn to page ________ in your hymnals”, I couldn’t stay.

Do you agree? Do churches put too much emphasis on music? Are there ones that don’t put enough emphasis on it?

As somebody sitting in the audience I see it. As somebody on stage I see it.

Lots of empty seats at the beginning of a service. Many of those seats full by the time the Pastor starts his sermon.

After all of the years I have attended church, it still doesn’t make sense to me how people can consistently arrive late to church week after week. They’re missing an integral part of the entire church service. Here are some reasons why I think it so important not to miss this time. I’ve drawn on my own experiences both as a person in the audience and a participant on the stage:

1. It’s what God wants us to do – Psalm 95:6-7 says, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down;let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God,and we are the people of his pasture,and the sheep of his hand.” AW Tozer said, “Worship is important because it’s the reason Christ came; the reason He was crucified; and, the reason He rose again.”

2. It draws us closer to God. – James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”

3. There are times you’ll able to lose yourself in the moment. – When I say this, I am talking about a point where you freely surrender yourself at any given time to God’s spirit while that music is playing. I’ve had the privilege of having this happen to me as both a drummer and somebody in the audience. It’s a point where you’re not thinking about anything or concerning yourself with anything or anybody around you. It’s a just a space in time where it’s just you and God. Read 2 Samuel 6: 16-22. It talks about David dancing and leaping when the ark of the covenant was being brought it. Michal looked at David with disgust. Here was the King of Israel out there dancing around like any other person. David merely explained to her that he was essentially losing himself in God and celebrating him with whole-hearted adoration.

4. You get to enjoy that time with others – During the worship time is usually when you get a chance to say hello to somebody you may not know. You get to worship together with others in song.

5. It’s rude to show up late to church. – It’s as simple as that. A lot goes on behind the scenes to prepare a church service and people work hard to do it and by doing so, you could hinder the worship experience for somebody else. So get there on time!

Anybody else have any ideas? Worship leaders have anything to add?

image via ChrisMoncusPhoto.com

I’ve been familiar with the Catalyst conferences for some time now. Over the last 6 months I have really felt called to attend one of these conferences. My wife Sylvia and I both have leadership positions within our church and we’re being further trained in areas of leadership through a mentoring program we’re involved in.

The Catalyst conference in Atlanta this year is going to feature amongst others, the following speakers:

Andy Stanley
Chuck Swindoll
Francis Chan
Dave Ramsey
Malcom Gladwell
Tony Dungy

That’s an awesome lineup and I know there will be awesome worship as well.

The problem of course (as is often the case) is money. It’s not inexpensive to attend the conference (it would be nice to see one in Florida. Hello Catalyst guys! How about Orlando or Jacksonville?). When you total the cost of the tickets, hotel, gas and food you’re talking about at least $700.

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to start asking people to donate money. The good news is, we’re almost there. This is just a testimony to God’s greatness. At first I started thinking about the different ways that I could get the money to attend. I was getting frustrated of course because every time I thought I had it, a roadblock came up. Then I decided (duh!) to just leave it in God’s hands and not worry about it. I prayed about it. Then different creative ideas came through.

The first thing I decided I was going to do was have a garage sale. My wife said, “Who’s going to buy all that junk?” Remember what they say, “One person’s junk is another person’s treasure.” I told her that if made $75 it would pay for one night in a hotel or cover a good deal of the cost of fuel. So that is going to be coming up here in a few weeks.

Then another idea came up. People want family portraits. I do that. Thankfully the people I’ve done it for liked my work. Enough that they posted the images on their Facebook accounts so others could see. I made an offer to people. I’d give six families 40% off what I would normally charge in order to accomplish two things: 1. Make it a little easier for a family to afford getting portraits done and 2. To put the funds towards the Catalyst conference expenses. I just did this 2 days ago, and so far, 2 families have signed up. One more, and my ticket to Catalyst is paid for. The amazing part is, once my ticket is paid for, so is Sylvia’s ticket.

I had somebody step forward and say, “Jay, if you raise the money to cover the cost of your ticket, we’ll cover the cost of Sylvia’s ticket.”

That’s it. I’m one family away from calling me and saying, “Jay will you do our portraits for us?” from having the main cost taken care of which is the registration fee. Our car is a 2003 Honda Accord that just gets killer gas mileage on the highway. My goal is the $75 for the garage sale. That will easily cover the cost to drive from Palm Coast, FL to Atlanta GA and back.

It gets better. Even if I don’t raise the money to cover the cost of a hotel room, we have friends that live in the area that said, “Come stay with us.” Awesome.

If you don’t know about Catalyst, then please check out the links above. Here’s a great promotional video. And if you’re planning on attending the Atlanta conference, by all means, let me know! It would be way cool to meet some people I’ve connected with over time in person.

People often at times believe that dollars = creativity. That is wrong on so many levels. Let’s examine the world of cinema for a moment.

Do you remember “The Blair Witch Project’? The movie about 3 college kids disappearing in the woods while filming a documentary cost $35,000 to make. Artisan Entertainment spent about $25 million marketing it and the movie made $248 million worldwide.

If you’ve ever seen ‘Spy Kids’ or ‘Sin City’ then you probably know the director is Robert Rodriguez. If you want to read an excellent book, check out his book ‘Rebel without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player.’ Rodriguez chronicles how he made the film ‘El Mariachi’ on a shoestring budget, and was merely hoping to get the movie distributed via VHS in Mexico to make enough money to finance his next film. Instead, you can learn how Rodriguez wound up being wooed by the big studios in Hollywood and how ‘El Mariachi’ became a huge hit at the Sundance Film Festival.

On the other hand, many people can name big budget flops. For instance, ‘The Postman’ cost $80 million to make and earned $17 million at the box office.

It works elsewhere as well. I love photography. Photography is an art. You can hand a person $5000 in camera equipment and they can come back with images you could get with a disposable camera. But take a look at the image below:

It’s hard to see because it was taken with a camera phone. My son grabbed this image. It looks like the sun rising out from behind those trees but actually its the headlights to a car. The sun had actually set, but Michael said the headlights looked kind of like the sun so he snapped away. That’s creativity at work.

How does it work at the church? Well, Buckhead Church near Atlanta did a Good Friday service. You can see some of what they did in this video. Buckhead is a satellite church that is part of Northpoint which is Andy Stanley’s church. Now, in seeing the video, some people might think, “Well yeah. When you have access to those resources, it will be a lot easier to do something like that.” That’s partially true. Northpoint conveniently makes their budget available to view online and yes, the combined operating budget of Northpoint and the satellite churches exceeds $30 million. But does that contribute to the creativity? Watch the video again. Somebody had to think of all that. Money didn’t create it. Somebody’s creativity inspired it. Buckhead has just been blessed by God with the resources to implement it on that scale.

At Parkview Baptist Church where I attend and volunteer, we have nowhere near the size budget Buckhead does. We don’t have their sound system, lighting system, musical budget, etc. But what our church did this weekend was just as creative. You saw some of the images in this entry here. Rather than doing your typical Easter Sunday service, our church leaders took it to a different level. They put into it some art (which I wasn’t able to photograph because of lighting, but will now that it is complete) with young man named David Brazell, painting Jesus’ left hand, right hand, crown of thorns and feet during each of the four services we had at our worship center. The dude has some wild hair so from what I understand, people at school call him ‘Bob Ross’. You know Bob Ross. The “happy trees” painter who would put a work of art together in 30 minutes. David had to do the same as he would complete each painting before the service was over.

Next came a video of several people discussing how their lives had changed forever when they became Christ followers.

After that, men from our church acted out ‘The Last Supper’ while our Pastor would from time to time describe the events and read from the bible. Everybody at the church took part in communion at the same time as the disciples came down from the stage to pass out bread (crackers) and wine (juice!) to the congregation. It was the best Easter experience I have ever had at church. The creative process that went into these services was awesome. The people involved used the resources God has blessed Parkview with to create that experience.

The term ‘think outside the box’ is cliche, yes. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply. Both Buckhead Church and Parkview Baptist Church had people that thought outside the box this Easter weekend and as a result both delivered to people services they won’t soon forget.

Is your church thinking outside of that box?