A Heart After God - Darlene Zschech

But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)

This scripture kept flooding my thoughts as Mark and I sat and watched the world celebrate the birth of the new millennium. We were so overwhelmed and honoured at the privilege of being born "for such a time as this".

Many thoughts and goals started to rise as we dared to speak life into visions and dreams for the future. Knowing that although we can dream big dreams and see such victory and breakthrough around the corner for so many, that HIS WAYS and HIS THOUGHTS are so much greater than ours.

So how does this relate to us as worshipers, true lovers of Jesus at this critical time in the history of our planet? The principles of God are the same. Here's some gold to remember ..

Diligently seek the Lord and love Him with all your heart

"My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh cry out 4 the living God" (Ps. 84:2).

Is that how your heart beats for Him? Be radical in your pursuit of Christ, your worship to Him will bless His heart as He hears you crying out for more of Him!

Joyful, prayerful & thankful

God's Word is so clear ... "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

When reading through the lives of bible heroes such as Abraham, Joseph and Moses, they were continually fellowshipping with God and worshipping Him. They were not perfect men, but just so THANKFUL to be in relationship with God that worship flowed as a natural response to the Lord.

Live a life of love

I'm often trying to grasp the description of love in Ephesians 3, "a love that surpasses knowledge". Many songs I've written trying to express my love for Him don't even come close to what I'm trying to say. But I realise more and more that I can show the Lord how much I love Him by loving others. Living out my part of the great commission and bringing the author of love Himself to our "love-starved" planet. To love like He loves ...

Be sincere

Sincerity, integrity, honesty, truth ... you've heard it before. Psalm 86:11 says, "Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name." Make this your prayer as you serve God passionately with your life, that your heart would be true and pleasing to Him. It opens heaven on your world ...

Be filled to overflowing in your zeal for God as you continue to build your relationship through His word, and worship Him with a heart that longs just to be with Him.

"This treasure that I hold
More than finest gold
It is You Jesus, it is You
With all my heart
With all my soul
I live to worship You"

How I Write - Tommy Walker

Tommy Walker shares insights into how he writes worship songs

As I touched on earlier, I believe the most honest and most helpful method of teaching I can offer in this booklet is to simply describe the process I use in writing a worship song. So, let's get started with a few examples of how songs come to me.

Usually in the morning, following a time of devotions, I'll meditate on one specific thought that has come to me either through the Word or through prayer. Most creative people will tell you they have a specific time of day (or night) when they are the most productive. I suggest that you try to identify the time when you are at your most creative, then make it a point to reserve that time each day just for songwriting. My time happens to be in the morning. I'll pick up my guitar and begin strumming in a musical style that best seems to communicate the thought I'm working with. Then I just begin to worship. I search for a catch phrase [one line], or a "hook," that best describes the thought. If I can find that one line, half the battle is over. Many times the phrase will already be found in scripture.

At this point I'm already starting to think about how I can create music that will enable the average person to sing along and be touched by this one phrase or truth. In other words, I try to keep the melody within an octave and try to keep the rhythmical phrasing of the lyrics consistent and as simple as possible.

When the song starts taking form it's time to ask a couple of important questions. Does the song sound too much like some other song? Is the song too predictable? Even if the answer to these questions is "yes," it isn't necessarily time to give up.

If the song seems to have potential, I'll focus on either changing the melody slightly, changing the rhythm or groove of the song, or both. None of us can escape the fact that frequently a new song is inspired by some other song. There's nothing wrong with that. But when listening to your new song, consciously think about what parts of it sound exactly like the other song, then tweak it so it's different.

For me, this is where the real work usually begins. I've got the basic idea of the music and the lyrical hook of the chorus. Now I have to come up with all the other lyrics that will complete the song. At this point I find it helpful to look up scripture references that go along with the original text or theme, and I'll use my computer thesaurus. My goal is to avoid using the same phrases I used in my last song. This approach always forces me to be creative when writing lyrics.

As I continue getting ideas, I sing and play them into a hand-held digital recorder. I recommend using a small, portable recording device. It's a good way to make sure a fleeting, but great idea doesn't get away. I'm always looking for interesting or new chord progressions that will serve as a fresh sounding bed for the lyrics to rest on. I am also listening for the correct tempo, and the type of groove the drums will play.

When all the basics of the song are in place, when the framework is complete, it's time to listen to it critically. Playing back a song frequently gives me new ideas. Of course there are often times I find myself beginning to dislike what I've done and wondering why I wasted my time. That's when I take a break and come back to the song at a later time. A little time and distance can work wonders for objectivity.

Once I return to a song, if it's pretty much complete and seems to have even a little potential, I play it for a few people whom I can count on for honest feedback. In my case, two of those people include my wife and my pastor. It is extremely important that every writer have an honest, straightforward and objective friend who can serve as a sounding board for new songs, and new song ideas. Ideally it will be someone you can trust; someone you know loves you, someone who wants you to succeed. Of course, it's also a huge plus if your sounding board has a proven ear for a good song. If you're blessed with more than one objective listener, that's even better.

If my new song passes the listening test of my wife and pastor, then I will teach it to the congregation of my church. Most of the time I usually know right away if the song is "the bomb" or just "a bomb." However, I generally try to keep the song in our worship services for two or three weeks in a row. Giving up on a new song too soon might eliminate the opportunity for me to see if it is gradually being accepted and embraced by the congregation.


Tommy Walker has written over forty worship songs that are currently being tracked by CCLI. These include: Mourning Into Dancing, He Knows My Name, That's Why We Praise Him and No Greater Love. Tommy has been the worship Leader at Christian Assembly Church in Los Angeles since 1990. He has produced worship recordings for Integrity Music, Maranatha Music as well as for his church label, Get Down Ministries.

True Worship - Darlene Zschech

But the hour is coming, and now is, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4: 23-24)

True worship is not about the songs, the vocals, the band or the choir. All of those things contribute towards a great EXPRESSION of worship but the essence of worship is when your heart and soul, the core of your being, connects with and adores the Spirit of God.

Most people are probably more familiar with worshipping corporately as a church, but it is when you worship one on one, as a lover of Christ, that you enter into an INTIMACY that maybe only you and the Lord will ever know about.

Worship is an act of obedience of the heart. It is a response that requires the very core of who you are, to love the Lord for who He is, not just for what He does.

Praise, on the other hand, is an explosion of thanksgiving and faith. It isn't about "fast songs", but a sacrifice of praise is often given in a time when you don't feel like praising, yet you say: "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise will continually be in my mouth, I will run into His presence with thanksgiving in my heart and I will enter His courts with praise."

It goes beyond how you feel, or what circumstances you are facing. It takes you boldly into the magnificent presence of God.

Give to the Lord the glory due His name; BRING AN OFFERING, and come before Him. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! (2 Chronicles 16:29)

Worship is something that is seen by your actions and not just by the words you speak or sing. It isn't a ritual. You don't go to church to go through the motions according to a formula. It involves our heart, mind and will Worship is giving yourself completely, in all truth and honesty, that embodies and reflects the selfless, generosity of Christ.

The word "worship" is a verb - a "doing word". It means to be full of adoration, to bow down, to revere, and to hold in awe the beauty of the Lord.

Worship is more than singing beautiful songs in church on a Sunday. It is more than instruments and music. As a true worshipper, your heart will long to worship Him at all times, in all ways and with all your life.

The scripture tells you to bring an offering, even if you feel like you have nothing to bring. ALL GOD WANTS IS YOUR HEART. He doesn't need your talent, your musical ability or all the things you can do - He wants you!

We can learn so much from the psalmist David. As a shepherd boy, he wasn't so successful or amazing - he was simply very faithful and he truly loved God. God saw that servant heart and described him as "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will." (Acts 13:22)

You don't have to be the greatest singer or musician to be a great worshipper. Whether you are in the body or as an individual, open your heart and adore the Lord from the very core of your being. That's all that He's asking.

The Greatest Name - Dr. Dow Robinson

Worship is the engine that drives worldwide evangelization today so that Christ's followers now come from every nation on earth to worship the One whose Name is above all names.

For a moment, let us try to enter into Moses' experience at the burning bush, a small desert tree that, for a moment, became a resting place for its Creator-God. To Moses' surprise, this humble tree became the instrument by which the Lord God Almighty showed Himself to Moses (Exodus 3:1-9).

The presence of the Angel of the Lord-Yhwh appeared like fire, blazing fire in the midst of the bush, but the desert tree was not burned up. Moses said, "I must turn aside and see this marvelous sight—why the bush is not burned up." (From Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, AMG Publishers,1977). At that moment when Moses turned and started moving towards the bush, God-Elohim called out to Moses, telling him to take off his sandals: "This Ground is Holy! Because I am (Yhwh) is here!" He reminded Moses that He is the same God-Elohim who dealt with his forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And He, Elohim, grieved over the disastrous situation in Egypt where His people (promised to Moses forefathers) lived out their short lives in the grip of greedy owners who expended their slave-lives to build Egypt's glory. Now move over to Exodus 3:10-16.

Yahweh spelled out the situation in Egypt so clearly that Moses saw himself sent on this Yahweh-appointed mission, right into the hands of Pharaoh who had already banned him from Egypt's royal Court for life -- upon pain of death! And Moses would have none of this! He pleaded his own lack of social position and speaking ability, but in effect, Yahweh stated that He would be all the identity that Moses would ever need. Moses, very wisely, then requested the full Name of the One talking with him. Moses figured he would need that Name when he would go to address Israel's leaders about their coming 'Exodus.'
The reply: "I am who I am.' This is the Name Moses is to use with Israel's Leaders because He says, 'This is My name forever and this is My memorial-Name to all generations.'

The Meaning of the Name

In this statement we find the meaning and importance of this Name, the greatest Name of all. The English word, "Lord," represents the Hebrew word, Yahweh, and Yahweh is derived from the Name in verses 3:14, 'I Am Who I Am,' based on the verb, 'to be.' The noun Yhwh, Lord, derives from the verb H-Y-H,' 'to be.' To an outsider, a Westerner, it sounds like God is naming Himself, the 'One who is,' or, 'the One who exists.' That's right. He is!

And Yhwh liked this Name — above every other revealed Name. This Name tells us more about Him. He is the source or the reason for everything that exists, including this space-time universe in which we live. This Name is His eternal Name, His memorial Name, that is, the Name by which He will be remembered in any and all generations.

Let us take a moment and reflect on this Name: Yahweh. It is the same Name from our earlier article, the Dual-Name Yahweh-Elohim, the One who came daily to talk with Adam and Eve in the Garden, the One who lost His connection with them and vowed to remedy that loss. The Dual-Name, Yahweh-Elohim, showed us God in His fatherly relationship with Adam and Eve. We discovered no meanings for the individual Name Yahweh at that time and we had to wait until now -- from the Garden until 1400 BC — to find out what Yhwh meant by His Name.

Now, to us Westerners, the root meanings for Yhwh, "I Am Who I Am," leave us wondering. For us, we find it difficult to comprehend His Name as 'Existence.' Yet that is exactly what He says about Himself. And Moses is to take this Name and use it in Pharaoh's presence as the justification for releasing Israel.


Worship is the engine that drives worldwide evangelization today so that Christ's followers now come from every nation on earth to worship the One whose Name is above all names.


Dr. Robinson is the Director of Ministry Training for Integrity Worship Ministries in Mobile, Alabama. He received his B.A. from Houghton College and a Master of Divinity from Fuller Seminary. He also received a Ph.D. in linguistics from Oklahoma University where he served as a department head of Phonology and his wife Lois served as a department head of Phonetics.

From 1955 to 1979, Dow and his wife Lois served as Wycliffe Bible Translators among the Zapotec Indians in Oaxaca, Mexico as well as among the Aztecs in northern Puebla. Their translation work culminated in the translation of the New Testament into the Aztec language.

Following his linguistic work, Dow pastored churches in Oklahoma and Kentucky. His teaching gift and extensive ministry background also provided additional teaching opportunities for him at Liberty Theological Seminary in Pensacola, Florida, the American Center for Theological Studies in Mobile, Alabama, and Regent University in VA Beach, VA.

Dow has also authored or contributed to a number of books and teaching guides including “Wind of the Son: The Story Of God’s Outpouring Among The Descendents Of The Ancient Aztecs,” “Discipling the Heart: John’s Perspective on the Kingdom of God,” and “The Covenant and the Kingdom.”

Dow and his wife Lois are active members of the Covenant Church of Mobile where he serves as an elder and teacher.

Extravagant Worship - Darlene Zschech

During the year 2000, 'Extravagant Worshippers' was the theme that I felt the Holy Spirit put in my heart to place as a banner over our worship team. As part of our weekly rehearsals we hold regular teaching nights, and everything that was taught that year was on this theme.

Our hunger for more of Him fuelled the year in a magnificent way and by the end of that year I was so excited at what 2001 would bring. So, I diligently sought the Lord for a new 'theme', the new banner and our statement of faith, for the first year of the new millennium.

Well... I was very humbled, as the King gently whispered in my ear... 'Daughter, you're not an extravagant worshipper yet.' When you feel God say something like that, you listen! So, I am not there yet and if we are to continue to call ourselves 'extravagant worshippers', I understand that we have a long way to go.
So... what does it mean to be an extravagant worshipper? It means to be excessive. It means to be over-generous. It means to be elaborate. It's over and above. It's extravagant. It means exceeding reasonable limits. Unreasonable with the cause of Christ just pumping away in your veins. I love that! Excessive, extremely abundant, expensive, superfluous, giving lavishly, costly, precious, rich, priceless and valuable.

Think about who you are as a worshipper... what you do as a worshipper and what you bring to offer as worship to Him. Are you over-generous? Do you exceed reasonable limits? Not just doing what is required. Not just fulfilling the basic level of commitment. Not trying to earn your right of passage. NO WAY! I'm asking you to have a good soul search and give yourself an appraisal. What do you bring to the table that represents extravagance?

I have had the honour of meeting some extravagant worshippers in my time... A young couple in our church that lost their young daughter through sickness, who worshipped their King through their overwhelming grief and are still doing so till this day.

... A young man in our church, left paralysed from the waist down through an accident, who was quickly back in church, tears running down his face, his arms
stretched Heavenward and his heart loving Jesus as he worshipped with thanksgiving.

... A friend of mine, a young married mum of four little ones, whose husband is in our worship team. She is always in church, always early, always full of joy and always found to be worshipping.

The Oxford Dictionary describes 'extravagant' as wasteful. This word particularly grabbed my attention, for one of the most beautiful accounts of worship in the Bible is found in Luke 7... the story of the 'sinful woman' who brought what was considered 'wasteful worship' by those around her. She wet the feet of Jesus with her tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed them... and then proceeded to pour her very costly alabaster jar of perfume on them. As she poured her offering out, He washed away her brokenness. As she loved extravagantly... He forgave extravagantly.

That action of elaborate love towards her King is a powerful example of true, heartfelt worship. Nothing to do with music or song, but all to do with being extravagant in devotion to her Saviour. What a beautiful story.

What is worship? What are we doing when we worship? True worship, the kind of worship that God seeks, is described in John 4:23 where it says... 'Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.'

I have read and read that Scripture and meditated on it for many hours. True worship is when your spirit adores and connects with the Spirit of God. When the very core of your being is found in LOVING HIM... lost IN HIM. It is not about the songs, it is not about how big the choir is. All of those are wonderful expressions of worship, but they are not the essence of it.

The essence of worship is when your heart and soul, all that is within you, adores and connects with the Spirit of God. In fact, regardless of how magnificent the musical moments are, unless your heart is fully engaged in the worship being expressed... it is still only music. The pure song of a heart that is yearning for more of God, and less of himself, is the music that holds the key to so many victories... and delights the heart of our King.

Being A Lead Worshiper - Jeff Deyo

Preparing for leading worship at a church, a small group Bible study, around a camp fire or at a gathering like WorshipCityPraise is VERY important!!! Here are a few things that have helped my band and me strive to serve the Lord in this way.

As worship leaders (each member is a worship leader, not just the lead singer), you need to remember that leading worship is NOT trying to get people to sing. It is WORSHIPING GOD yourselves, SO THAT others will FOLLOW your LEAD!!!! Instead of concentrating on worship leading, focus on being a lead worshiper. Instead of concentrating on keeping your eyebrows up (hoping everyone will think you are happy and in love with Jesus), focus your thoughts and heart on Christ.

For starters, you and your band or worship team MUST worship the Lord together as a small group, alone, away from people and the stage in order to be able to lead worship properly and in front of others. This is not easy. Put in a Delirious CD (and play it loud) or have someone lead on guitar or piano and then have everyone in the band sing along TO GOD!! Force yourselves to spend this time - it is as or more essential as the precious rehearsal time!!! In fact, I would recommend cutting your current weekly rehearsal time in half and spending one half in Bible study, singing, and prayer and the other half rehearsing, in that order. This way you will get the most out of your rehearsal. You might say there isn't enough time for this. But, trust me, you don't have time to NOT do this! Once you've all worshiped together, you will be amazed at how much quicker you learn songs and how much better you all work together.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE - then when you get on stage, forget it all! What I mean is, be very prepared, but be equally prepared to do anything God would have you do once worship begins - you need to be in great unity musically and spiritually so that you can go together where ever God leads you. Maybe you'll do a song you planned to do fast, much slower or the opposite. Maybe you'll do a song that was not even on the set list. Maybe you'll do one song several different ways for 20 minutes! You may even find that you will write new songs while you are on the stage!!!! The best worship comes out of the heart and is SPONTANEOUS, especially from the leaders!!! Don't be afraid of the unknown - just trust God, and sing and play to Him from your heart!

Each member MUST worship God with his instrument AND his voice. One of the keys to worshiping God is getting truth in your spirit. Music has a way of doing that - singing especially. You need to emphasize the need for your band to worship with their instruments - let God lead your fingers and hands as to what to play. AND even if some guys don't sing into microphones, EVERYONE SHOULD be singing most of the time. This helps each of you worship God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. It also helps you to not focus too much on what you play so that God will be more capable of playing through you!

You need to all study Psalms intensely! Get a feel for how David worshiped the Lord. There are times when he was very intense and times when he was still enough to know that God was God. You can read Amos 9:11-12 and Acts 15:16-17 which shows us that God is going to restore the Kingdom of David in our day - and for HIS purpose - SO THAT all men might find the Lord!!! You can also look at passages like 2 Chronicles 5-7 & 20, Psalm 40, Psalm 84, Revelation 4-5. David and Solomon are some of the greatest lead worshipers ever! The first book of Chronicles talks about David bring the ark (the presence of God) to the people, dancing all the way - there is lots of symbolism here. The second book of Chronicles talks about Solomon building the temple to God. The dedication of the temple is especially AWESOME!!! These and many other passages will help you see the importance and power of worship music in the Bible.

You also need to start reading Song of Songs. I know this book is a little strange, but it is actually God's symbolic love letter to us. King Solomon represents God, and we, God's people, are represented as Solomon's bride. The first verse says this book is the song OF songs. That means it is the most important one!! I'd say that means it must be significant for us!!!! As you read it, you will start to develop a new vocabulary for praising God. Verse 5:1 says we should drink deeply of God's love - that is what worship is!!!! When you begin to drink of His love on stage, you will find God drawing people to Himself just like He says He will in John 12:32. That is what it is ALL about!


Article Source: http://www.higherpraise.com/worship/worship_beingaleadworshiper.htm

Goals With Eternal Value

Take a minute more now and let’s talk about some goals with eternal value. A goal that will stand the test of time and eternity. John 4:23 is a familiar scripture when discussing the topic of worship. Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well and telling her that the Father is seeking those that will worship in spirit and truth. True worshipers. Right here I believe that God shares with us as worship leaders and team members the only goal that is important to the Father in the area of worship.

Let’s look at what the scripture says: John 4:23 (amplified)
"A time will come, however, indeed is already here, when the true (genuine) worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (reality); for the Father is seeking just such people as these as His worshipers. 24: God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality)."

Our goal is to become true worshipers and reproduce true worshipers. All of the other things we mentioned, the physical and technical aspects are also something that we should give attention to I believe because they will produce excellence. I believe that people are drawn to excellence and enjoy being a part of something that has quality.

However, we should not look at people as a tool to fulfill those areas we mentioned before. Instead use those areas of sound and skill and ability to give us opportunity to develop worshipers.

Focus on finishing the people through the work, not finishing the work through the people. A true worshipper is to be able to say "Blessed be the name of the Lord, the Lord is God. He is my fortress, my shield; in Him will I trust. He will not fail me or leave me. Regardless of what I see around me, in Him I will trust".


Article Source: http://www.higherpraise.com/worship/worship_goalswitheternalvalue.htm

Evaluating Your Sound System - Ron Huisinga

Your church sound system plays an important supporting role in your worship service. Is it enhancing the worship experience or detracting from it? Three sound tests can help you evaluate your sound system.

Almost every church needs some sort of sound system. From enhancing music and worship, to amplifying the spoken word, to cassette recording, the simple fact is that most churches can't get along without one. When a churches' sound system is appropriate and functioning properly, you never think about it. However, an ineffective or poorly adjusted system can seriously detract from the worship experience. That's unfortunate, because today's system design technology and equipment can almost guarantee a good system for any size church.

High Expectations

Many people, especially young adults, have grown up with high quality stereo systems in their homes, cars, or trucks. They know what good sound is. They also want to hear that same quality in their church sound system. Most of us can accept the sound of speech on a poor system. It is not natural, but as long as you can understand the words, it's easy to get by without improvements. However, if a soloist sings or recorded music is played, it becomes much harder to accept that poor sound system. The reproduced sound is not natural, so we become frustrated and distracted. All too often the system has too much distortion, and that becomes irritating. It is hard to maintain a spirit of worship.

So let's get practical. How can you evaluate your sound system? The following three tests should help you determine the quality of your system.

Natural Sound Test

First, the amplified sound should sound natural. That is, the sound from the speaker system should sound the same as the talker or singer, but only louder. Try this experiment on your sound system. Turn the system off and have a friend read aloud for a while. You should be standing about eight feet away. Listen carefully and imprint the live, unamplified sound in your memory.

Now move to the rear of the room and turn up the sound system. With the same person reading, does your sound system reproduce the same voice tone and quality? Does the sound appear to come from the reader? Is it clear? Can you understand what the reader is saying without straining? If your answer is no to any of the previous questions, then your system may be in need of some improvement or adjustment.

Intelligibility Test

Second, use the following test for intelligibility. Place as many listeners as you can find in different locations in your church nave or sanctuary. Have some sit in areas where people complain about the sound. Put others in the front, the sides, or the rear.

Now have a person with a good clear voice speak on the sound system. The volume should be adjusted to a comfortable level. Using the word list in Figure 1, do this simple test. The reader should say, "Write the word (______) now." One by one, insert the words from the list into the blank. Say the word only once. The listeners should write down the word that they hear. After the test is complete, have the listeners score their word list. Spelling doesn't count, nor do homonyms.

Figure 1:

1. cane
2. there
3. dish
4. hid
5. heap
6. pants
7. hunt
8. no
9. bar
10. pan
11. fuss
12. creed
13. box
14. strife
15. dike
16. not
17. ford 18. end
19. then
20. bask
21. fraud
22. smile
23. death
24. are
25. bad
26. pest
27. slip
28. rub
29. feast
30. dead
31. cleanse
32. folk
33. nook
34. mange 35. such
36. use (yews)
37. crash
38. ride
39. pile
40. rat
41. rag
42. is
43. wheat
44. rise
45. hive
46. grove
47. tow
48. plush
49. clove
50. fern

If several listeners have 15 percent or more wrong, you should be concerned about the intelligibility of your sound system. Regular attendees can probably fill in the missing words based on the context of the sentence. However, new people, unfamiliar with church terminology, may find it impossible to understand. They may get frustrated and never come back.

Music Test

Next, listen to some music from a high quality cassette tape or, better yet, a compact disc. Is it natural? Are the high frequencies from the strings and cymbals clear? Can you hear the bass? Listen from different places. Does the quality change dramatically as you move around?

After conducting these three tests, study the results. If the sound is natural and intelligible throughout your church, that's great. If you do have some concerns, consider talking to other churches in your denomination or area. Chances are good that someone has solved the same problem. Also, an outside consultant or contractor may be able to further evaluate your system and offer suggestions. The Internet Sound Institute can provide more sound system information and assistance in enhancing or improving your system.

Ron Huisinga is the president of New Life Communications (a sound contracting company). He is also the editor-in-chief of the Internet Sound Institute Web site's content. Ron graduated from the University of Minnesota with an Electrical Engineering degree and has been in the sound industry for 20 years.


Article Source: http://www.higherpraise.com/worship/worship_evaluatingyoursoundsystem.htm

What Does a Worship Leader Do?

By Bob Kauflin
Director of Worship Development, PDI Ministries

Worship Matters -- Bob proposes a definition for the role of a worship leader.

PDI Ministries - This year marks a quarter-century that I’ve been leading worship – in one form or another – and how things have changed! Twenty-five years ago the first release from Integrity’s Hosanna Music was almost a decade away, “worship artist” was an unknown concept, and brief Scripture choruses (repeated many, many times) were the hottest thing going. No one could have predicted how worship and music styles would become such a pervasive, and often divisive, issue in the church.
Today, in the midst of this “worship explosion,” we’re better off in many ways. We have an ever-increasing number of contemporary songs that express the truths of our faith in powerful and moving ways. Churches and church leaders are recognizing the importance of worshiping God in every aspect of life. Many people, especially teens and twenty-somethings, are flocking to Christian concerts and buying CDs that point them to worshiping the Savior rather than the singer.

All these changes have heightened the significance of the worship leader. While we used to think that anyone who knew how to play an acoustic guitar (and owned one) could do a great job leading worship, we’ve realized there are a few more questions to consider. What’s the difference between a song leader and a “lead worshiper"? Is the goal actually to “lead” or simply get out of the way and let God do His thing? Does a worship leader need to be a skilled musician?

I do not assume that everyone who reads this column is a worship leader – I know some of you aren’t. However, every Christian can benefit from understanding what our goals ought to be as we gather to exalt and give glory to God in public worship. Who knows – this series may even cause you to think about whether or not you SHOULD be a worship leader!

Churches have taken a wide variety of approaches to the role of the worship leader. Choir directors, accompanists, rock bands, soloists, and organists have all been included in that category. Regardless of the title, those who lead the singing and the worship of God play a prominent role in most Christian gatherings. At every meeting they have significant opportunities to teach, train, and encourage Christians in giving God the glory we were created to give Him.

The New Testament gives us little to go on to establish the specific job description of a worship leader. However, it’s apparent throughout Scripture that singing is important to God, and that it is usually led. Ephesians 4:11-13 tells us that God has given gifts to certain leaders in the church for the maturing and building up of His people. Some of those gifts are pastoring, teaching, prophesying, and evangelizing. In a corporate worship leader we have a leadership role which combines aspects of these and other New Testament gifts in the context of music.

More specifically, I believe the role and goals of a worship leader can be described in this way: An effective worship leader is aided and led by the Holy Spirit, skillfully combines biblical truth with music to magnify the worth of God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, thereby motivating the gathered church to join him in proclaiming and cherishing the truth about God and seeking to live all of life for the glory of God.

We’ll spend the next few lessons unpacking this definition, and gaining a clearer understanding of God’s purpose for the role of worship leader in the church today.

It's not just "worship leading." It's leading people. The question is, in what direction?

An effective worship leader, aided and led by the Holy Spirit, skillfully combines biblical truth with music to magnify the worth of God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, thereby motivating the gathered church to join him in proclaiming and cherishing the truth about God and seeking to live all of life for the glory of God.

What does it mean to be a leader? When someone takes a position in front of a group of people, he or she will, to one degree or another, be leading, whether intentionally or not. Romans 12:6 says leaders must lead with zeal (ESV), or govern diligently (NIV). Both phrases speak of faithfully seeking to direct a meeting. The first duty of a worship leader is to take on that responsibility cheerfully.

Congregational worship in spirit and truth doesn’t just “happen.” God can at any moment choose to manifest His presence in our midst, but He has identified specific activities and attitudes to which He generally responds. Critical words, for example, quench the Spirit, while praise invites His activity and involvement. Thus, there must be intentionality and purpose behind what a worship leader does.

Everything ultimately GLORIFIES God (for example, all sin and rebellion is eventually judged by God, thus magnifying His holiness)…but not everything WORSHIPS God. Worship is all I know of me RESPONDING to all God has shown me of Himself. This response involves a choice, and the use of my mind, will, and emotions. Thus, everything a worship leader does should encourage that response in the people he is leading.

Since we’re leading people (and not just “leading worship”), we need to be clear on what direction we’re taking them in. It’s easy to overuse vague phrases that sound good but don’t necessarily define where we’re going or what we’re doing. For example, In recent years “entering in” has become synonymous with the corporate worship experience. But what do we mean by that phrase? Are we entering in to some mindless, automatic-pilot state of ecstasy? Are we perhaps passing through the outer courts of worship to enter in to the holy of holies?

Both concepts are commonly voiced today. But did you know that neither one finds support in Scripture?

First, worship is neither automatic nor mindless – it’s intentional, purposeful, and very much involves the mind. And second, Jesus has already entered the holy of holies for us (Heb. 10:19-22). The purpose of worship is to enter in to a fresh awareness of who God is, what He has done, and how that affects our past, present, and future.

Finally, a worship leader’s task involves leading people effectively. We should expect good fruit from our labors. Worship leading is not a hit-or-miss proposition. God desires to bless us with His manifest presence when we gather to worship Him.

When we moved into our new home several years ago, my family’s yard was a wasteland. But each fall I aerated, fertilized, and planted grass seed. In the spring I applied fertilizer and weed killer. For a few years it seemed like not much was happening. But here we are five years later with a full lawn. What happened? I sowed, and tended, and then I reaped.

So it is with worship. If we want God’s people to glorify Him, we must sow to His glory. We must paint a compelling, attractive, grand, biblical picture of our great God and Savior.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Next time we’ll look at the importance of the Holy Spirit in leading worship effectively.

We’re in the midst of a series on the responsibilities and goals of a worship leader. Last time we looked at what it means to lead effectively. The second phrase in the definition I proposed is this: an effective worship leader is “aided and led by the Holy Spirit.”

Apart from the activity of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible to worship God. Paul tells us in Philippians 3:3, “For we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” Gordon Fee writes, “For Paul, the gathered church was first of all a worshiping community; and the key to their worship was the presence of the Holy Spirit.” (Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, pg. 884) But what does it mean to worship by the Spirit of God?

In his 1980 book, O Come Let Us Worship, Professor Robert Rayburn sheds light on the relationship between our worship and the Spirit of God. “The enabling of the Holy Spirit, so essential to true Christian worship, according to the Scriptures, means that worship is not just an act of man alone, but in it man is moved and enabled by the Spirit of God. If worshipers are not consciously dependent upon the Holy Spirit, their worship is not truly Christian" (Robert Rayburn, O Come, Let Us Worship, pg. 22).

If we don’t recognize our need for the Holy Spirit’s involvement as we worship Him, what we’re doing can’t be defined as Christian worship. Certainly if Christians in general need the Holy Spirit to worship God, it must be true of the one who is leading them in public praise.

In practice, this involves listening for the direction of the Holy Spirit before, during, and at the close of the meeting. This is not about whether you consider yourself charismatic, nor is it about tossing scriptural principles to the wind and trusting your “spiritual knower.” Rather, this is what the Bible clearly teaches. We MUST in some way be aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence and active involvement in what we do as we gather to worship God.

Some worship leaders excel at having every song, transition, arrangement, and word planned out before the meeting begins. Others thrive on the spontaneous aspects of corporate worship, disdaining all advance preparation and study. The truth is, planning and spontaneity are both important. We must be diligent to plan – without being ruled by our plan. The Holy Spirit wants to be involved in all aspects of our worship. This marks the difference between simply singing songs and expecting God to interact with us.

To be aided and led by the Holy Spirit is also to resist the urge to become familiar with what we do, as though our actions were totally responsible for what transpires during our time together. We need a better reason to do a song than “it really got people going last week.” While songs, format, settings, and sound are important, none of them make the involvement of God’s Holy Spirit any less crucial.

Similarly, leading worship is more than uttering all the right phrases. It involves responding to God’s spontaneous initiatives and promptings. A phrase that inspired faith last week may sound flat and uninspired this week. What part of His truth and character does God want to bring to the forefront of people’s minds THIS week, and what is the best way to do it? That is the question we seek to answer as we are aided and led by the Holy Spirit.

Until next time, may you be freshly aware of God’s kindness in sending His Holy Spirit to apply to our hearts all that Jesus secured for us.

Song Story: I Can Only Imagine - Wendy Lee Nentwig

Bart Millard's beautiful take on what Heaven will be like started out as a way to work through his grief over losing his father. Now, his song "I Can Only Imagine" is helping others heal-and his father keep a promise a decade after his death.

The soaring song "I Can Only Imagine," a track about envisioning the hereafter and our response to meeting God one day in Heaven, has catapulted Texas-based MercyMe to the forefront of the Christian music scene, garnered three Dove Awards and brought tears to the eyes of countless radio listeners. The popular worship track didn't start out as a tool to help better connect people to their Creator, though. Instead, it grew out of the difficult questions MercyMe frontman Bart Millard began asking after losing his father to cancer when the future songwriter was just 19.


"I kept hearing that clich€d phrase, 'your dad's in a better place,'" Millard recalls. Well-intentioned friends would then remind him that if his father could choose to come back to Earth or remain in Heaven, he would certainly choose to stay there. "I heard that so many times after he passed away and for a 19-year-old that doesn't really do it for you."

Millard knew his father, a godly man when he passed away, was in a better place. And as a Christian since the age of 13, Millard had heard all the wonderful stories about Heaven but he was still frustrated. He struggled with how his father died and why it had to take place the way it did. And as he wrestled, he wrote.

"I used to write the phrase 'I can only imagine' on anything I could get my hands on." Millard says he did this for two reasons: "I did know he was in a better place and that would set me off thinking about what he was seeing. Getting strength he never had here and seeing things he couldn't fathom here. And it really brought peace and hope to me. At the same time, I really wanted to know, 'God, what's so great about there that he would want to leave me or not come back?' Call it selfish, but it's just being human."

So the song wasn't written out of some super-spiritual motive to move closer to God. Instead, it was written by a grieving son crying out to his Creator for some sort of cosmic clue.

Years would pass before Millard would stumble across the phrase again in an old journal he was using to compose song lyrics for a 1999 independent release. "In the journal I had written that phrase over and over and over," he remembers. "So I decided to expound on what had been in my heart for so many years. It was one of those 'God things' where it was literally written in five minutes...It was written in five minutes, but at the same time it was something that was on my heart for 10 years.

The song eventually ended up on the band's 2001 INO Records debut, Almost There, and immediately began to strike a chord. In fact, the band got so many responses from people who had lost loved ones or played the song funeral services that when the topic of a video came up, Millard knew what they had to do.

"I just kept seeing all these people holding picture frames that are empty because we all carry these people with us in some way. I've had so many people after a show pull out a picture of someone they've lost. These people embrace these photos and I just thought how can we tap into that?"

The final product features normal, everyday people along with artists like dc talk's Michael Tate, Tammy Trent, Bob Herdman of Audio Adrenaline, Jesse Katina and others. In it, each person appears in the beginning holding an empty picture frame to signify their loss and then as the video progresses, they are holding photos of their loved ones. It makes for a very moving presentation, one that rarely leaves viewers with dry eyes.

Millard can relate. "The first four times I saw it I just bawled my eyes out. The thing that really got me are the eyes of the people holding the pictures. They can tell a million stories."

Like Tammy Trent's. In the video she's clutching a picture of her husband who passed away in a diving accident last September. The photo was snapped as he sat on the side of the boat 30 minutes before he died. When contacted about participating in the video, Millard recalls her saying, "it would be an honor. I never leave the house without that song since he died."

As if responses like that aren't enough, the song is also helping to fulfill a promise Millard's dad made to him shortly before he died. To care for his two sons, he has set up an annuity that would provide them with a smaller sum every year for 10 years exactly instead of one lump payment, "because he knew we'd probably spend it," Millard says. "He used to say 'you're going to get this for 10 years, but don't worry. Even when that runs out I'll be taking care of you."

Millard was in the middle of a radio interview a few months ago when he recalled that promise and realized that his father was doing just what he said he'd do. The annuity ran out in November 2001, the same week the song that he inspired reached the No. 1 spot on radio airplay charts, an almost sure sign of MercyMe's continued success.
Who could have imagined?

Article Source: http://www.higherpraise.com/worship/worship_10QuestionsWithDarleneZschech.htm

Learning To Wait - Don Moen

When you lead worship, how do you know what the Holy Spirit wants you to do at any particular time?

I have had moments in leading worship when I have experienced an unusual sense of the presence of God. In these times, I have found that He has been teaching me how to interpret what the Holy Spirit wants to do - how to "capture the moment."

Let me share a real-life example. I was leading worship at a choir retreat near Atlanta. Because of another commitment, I was on a tight schedule. I needed to leave for the airport immediately following the 30 minutes of music I planned.

As we started singing the second song, "Think About His Love," people began to weep throughout the congregation. But we were only two songs into the set! At the end of the song, it seemed futile to try to move on with the scheduled program. I didn't know what to do. Obviously God was up to something, but what? The subject of the song was pretty basic: His love and goodness.

Feeling it was my duty as the worship leader to pull the worship service up to some joyous point before giving the platform over to the speaker, I stumbled into the next song and finished the set, greatly troubled.

I kept asking myself: "Did I do the right thing? Should I have waited to see what the Holy Spirit would do after that second song?" I heard later that the speaker was sensitive enough to adjust his own program and let the Holy Spirit continue to do what He had started in the hearts of the people. As a result, the congregation experienced a time of tremendous repentance and forgiveness.

As I read the Scriptures that night trying to figure out what went wrong, God led me to Romans 2:4: "The goodness of God leads you to repentance" (NKJV).

We had been singing about God's goodness, and it led people to repentance. Of course - why had I been so confused? I'm learning to be ready at all times to "capture the moments" in our times of worship. Here are some suggestions to help you do it, too:

1.Practice in your private times of worship. Sometimes the Lord will make His joy very real to us. Or we will experience His incredible forgiveness, healing, mercy, grace, peace - all attributes of God.

The Holy Spirit can sensitize us to these in our devotional times. Then, when we lead worship, we can better identify them.

2.Go with the flow. God is more interested in ministering to the hearts of the people than in what our next song is. Looking back on that night in Atlanta, I see I had a real problem with the idea of singing only two songs. On my program, the Holy Spirit wasn't supposed to move on people's hearts until the seventh song. We need to learn to follow God's program, not ours.

3.If God is doing something, camp out there. Waiting is probably the hardest thing a worship leader does.

We think that to have a successful praise and worship service, we must start with thanksgiving, enter into praise, then move into worship. While this is a useful general pattern to follow, we don't want to exclude God from moving on hearts during a time of thanksgiving.

We must allow God the opportunity to speak back to the congregation. I have always believed that worship is more than a monologue - it is a dialogue. In other words, God wants to minister to us as we minister to Him.

Think about it. God wants to be intimately involved in our times of worship. Too many times, because of our own agenda, we miss what could have happened. All too often people come into a worship service and leave the same way they came. If we have truly entered into worship, we should be changed, like Isaiah was changed when he saw the Lord.

I am convinced that if we will be sensitive to capture the special moments ordained by God, our worship times will become more meaningful than we could ever have imagined.

©2000 by Don Moen

Singing the Blues in Church - Hughes Oliphant Old

Is the Preoccupation with Positive Choruses Truly Biblical?

SYNOPSIS
-Worship is not simply about positive edification
-The Bible includes the entire gamut of human emotion
-Honest worship also involves lament, confession and supplication

There are those who might insist that whatever we do in church ought to be positive and uplifting. And I suppose such people would have trouble with singing the blues in church. The problem with this is that so much biblical prayer is simply crying before God.

What else did Hannah do when she went to the sanctuary at Shiloh (I Samuel 1:1-28)? She couldn't have a baby and she poured out her tears right there in church where the priest Eli, and everyone else, could hear her. Eli thought it was disgraceful, but where else are you going to cry if you can't cry before God in church?

Emotional Diversity
The Psalms are filled with lamentations, prayers that were used in the worship of the temple to pour out the sorrows of Israel before God: "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications" (Psalm 130:1-2, KJV).

A psalm which so many Christians have committed to memory and have made part of their prayers day after day is Psalm 51: 1-2 (KJV): "Have mercy upon me, O God, According to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin."

This is a prayer of confession which the Church has prayed for centuries. Sometimes it has been sung as a metrical psalm, sometimes it has been read as a responsive reading, sometimes as a choral anthem, but it has been prayed again and again in all kinds of services.

Even Jesus cried before God. It is He, after all, who sets the example of Christian prayer. When He offered himself up on the cross, that supreme act of human worship, He prayed Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" How profoundly Jesus cried before God! There are times when all of us follow Him as His disciples, and cry before our Father.

A Call to Honesty
Singing the blues in church is a matter of honesty. So many of us come to church with a big load of troubles. We want to lay them down in God's presence, spread them out in God's sight and know that He takes them up and sometimes does away with them. We need to be open about our sins, open to God, at least, and we need to hear a word of forgiveness about those sins.

From the standpoint of Scripture nothing could falsify our worship more than coming to church and acting as though everything were just great. The old theme song of Christian optimism, "God is in his heaven and everything is well with the world," is just not very realistic. There are too many things in this world which are contradicting God's rule. There are too many undercover agents trying to break up God's kingdom. The devil seems to be running wild.

Worshiping by Confession
At the time of the Protestant Reformation many churches began the service of worship with a prayer of confession and an assurance of pardon. Prayers of confession and supplication have been characteristic of classical Protestant worship ever since.

A good biblically grounded prayer of confession might take into account the prayer of the prodigal son when he returned home to his father: "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son" (Luke 15:21, KJV).

There are, of course, all kinds of biblical examples of prayers that pour out our pains before God. There are the lamentations of Jeremiah and the prayer of confession in the ninth chapter of Daniel. Then in the Gospels we find the blind man's prayer: "Son of David, have mercy on me."

A Rich and Full Witness
In my years as a pastor I always found it very helpful to lead the congregation in prayer by means of biblical imagery. I found that people understand the biblical imagery much better than we might imagine. I tried to model my prayers on biblical examples and think them out in the biblical vocabulary. Scripture gives us a very definite prayer language, and those who have the responsibility of leading the church in prayer are wise to study that prayer language, meditate upon it, and adapt it to their congregations.

"Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, nobody knows but Jesus." This is the message of Christians down through the centuries. To make this witness is true biblical worship.

Hughes Oliphant Old, formerly pastor of Faith Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette, Ind., currently teaches worship at Princeton Theological Seminary.


Article Source: http://www.ccli.com/WorshipResources/Articles.cfm?itemID=12

From Glory to Glory - Michael Coleman

As we begin to commune with God in worship, His presence transforms, unifies, guards and protects, and we are marked for life.

As we discovered last time, the glory of God is most definitely for believers to experience in this life. But what does that mean? How will our knowledge of His glory impact us? Remember we read earlier in Exodus that God spoke face to face with Moses? Now look at 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord of being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory just as from the Lord, the Spirit." We're to be changing from glory to glory. Did you know that? We're to be changing, progressively changing.

The Bible says the Father dwells in unapproachable light, that He is light, and in Him there is no shadow of turning. The Bible says that Jesus comes as God in human flesh, sheds His blood, covers us with His blood, redeems us, gives us access to the presence of God, and Jesus is the exact representation of God the Father. "If you've seen me," He said, "you've seen the Father." As we behold the glory of Jesus' life, we get to know who the Father is. As we behold the Lord with unveiled face, we can be changed. This parallels the whole issue of worship: as we begin to commune with God, to have fellowship with God, as we slow down the dust storms of our lives, and begin to behold who He really is, His presence will come to change us. And we can go from glory to glory.

In 2nd Corinthians 4:6, Paul continues to contrast the natural with the Spirit. In verse six, "For God who said light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the, what? Knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Jesus has made a way where we can look into His face. The blood of Christ has taken the veil away. And just like Moses' face shone, there can be manifestations of his light in our lives.
When the disciples went before the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders sensed something different about them. The same is true of Jesus' followers today. Others can see His affect on your life.

Once, when I was at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, an obviously Orthodox Jewish person stopped one of the people in our group and said-out of the blue-"You know Jesus don't you? The person in our group wasn't sure if he should answer, afraid he might offend or cause trouble at this holy site. But he finally answered 'yes," only to hear the reply: "I could tell it. Tell me about it!" Although the Shikinah glory left Israel long ago, Jewish people are still looking for it today. And they know it, when they get around it. There's something different.

People ought to be able to see us being transformed. If Moses' face shone, how much more should believers' faces shine? But what, you might ask, is the glory of God? Well, that's a very big subject-and I'm just touching the surface of it-but His glory is to change us into His image according to 2nd Corinthians 3:18.

There are different dimensions of His presence, different ways God's glory manifests itself. When I'm talking about the glory of God in a worship experience, personally or in a corporate setting, I'm talking something tangible--the 'Kavod' of God, the substance, the weightiness of God. I use that word in a service recently, and a young lady came up to me and said, "I've been telling my husband for some time that I feel this at certain times in God's presence. I tried to describe it to him as this heaviness, but not a depression. It was an awareness, like a blanketing over me. I never understood it until now."

I'm not talking about warm fuzzies here. I'm talking about the Spirit of the Living God blanketing you with His glory, with His manifest goodness. One of the benefits of experiencing His glory is found in John 17:22. "And the glory which Thou has given me, I've given them that they may be one, just as we are one." One of the benefits is unity. Another benefit is that it changes us. A third benefit is it's a protection as in Isaiah chapter 4, when the Lord created a cloud of smoke by day and a flaming fire by night, a canopy for His glory, a covering of protection. Still another benefit found in Isaiah 58:8 is that the glory of God will be our rear guard. And as I've pointed to before, the glory of God is the identifying mark on all believers.

The knowledge of the glory of God has always been my personal desire, but I didn't realize how powerful that desire was until 1995 when we decided to have a new corporate logo designed for Integrity, Incorporated. Most of you have probably seen it by now-- it looks like a circle rainbow. Back then, in working with a designer, we really felt strongly about certain words we shared with the designers so they could capture what we're trying to communicate. We had no idea that what we told the designers, in essence, graphically represented the glory of God. Three years after that, I found Ezekiel 1:26. "And there was a radiance around him, as the appearance of the rainbow and the clouds on a rainy day. So was the appearance of the surrounding radiance." I about jumped out of my skin. The whole mission of our company is to help people worldwide experience the manifest presence of God, and God had given us a symbol that represents His glory. Amazing!

There are so many examples in scripture of what the radiance of His presence is like. I encourage you to study for yourself. Just trying to get your arms around something so big feels like I'm two inches tall trying to describe an elephant with only one angle from which to describe it. It's such a mystery, such a holy subject. I don't understand it all. But I understand it enough from scripture to say the glory of God is the goodness of God made manifest. And it's for the believer today. It's a protection for us. It will bring unity. It's a defense for us; it will be our rear guard.

And I look forward to the day when the knowledge, the experiential awareness of the glory of God, covers the earth like the waters of the sea. Five miles deep. What an awesome day that's going to be. It will happen. He said it. Until then, we must continue to focus on the glory of God, as those who worship Him. In truth, we become like what we worship. If we're beholding the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, His glory will change us into the image of Christ.

Improve Your Ear, Improve Your Serve - John J. DiModica

The keys to serving well as a musician in worship ministry are more common than you think.

Consider this: playing music is dialogue not monologue. It is not a bunch of individual voices speaking simultaneously, but rather a lively exchange between instruments. It's a musical "conversation," if you will, where one musical idea inspires another. Performing, then, should be a mutually enjoyable, interactive experience. For a variety of reasons, however, when music is played, it is often not this kind of engaging dialogue but rather the opposite. The good news is that by developing good listening skills, we can greatly enhance our performing experience. Those we regularly play with will benefit, too.

Let me start with a question that may seem unrelated to the topic. What is your motivation for being on the worship team? It should be, of course, to serve. Our desire, therefore, with our instruments (which includes voice) is to serve the music ensemble. I am not a solo act, nor am I auditioning to get noticed in the band or congregation. We are to serve within the worship music group. So, if we are serving, then we are listening so that our playing is appropriate and complimentary. We should be concerned about blending not standing out. We allow other instruments to lead, and we don't overplay to draw attention to ourselves. We are supportive of the vocalists and the lyrics. We cannot accomplish these objectives if we are self-serving. Therefore, in order to fully serve in a worship group, one must develop good listening skills.

Now that we have the appropriate motivation, let's address some basics.
One thing is for certain: you cannot listen to other instruments if you are unsure about what you are playing on yours! For that reason, to be a good listener, one must be proficient and confident about their own performance. If one is groping and floundering in their own parts, they will not be able to concentrate on the big musical picture.

Practice Makes...

I am a big proponent of the idea that all musicians should strive to improve their skills. This is a matter of stewardship. In other words, if God gave us a musical skill, then it is incumbent upon us to develop that skill. It doesn't matter if you are young or old or busy or not, everyone one of us has a responsibility to improve on the raw materials with which we have been gifted..

I listen to players that are still stuck in a particular musical decade and shake my head. I like the music of the '70s and '80s but not in every worship song in 2002! We should make an effort to learn music from different cultures such as Latin or Caribbean. Take some lessons, learn some music theory, read some music books and magazines, research the Internet, buy some CD's. GROW! The better you are as a musician, the more confident you will be when playing with others. This means you will not be stuck listening to yourself to survive. You will be able to play your parts while listening to others to compliment what they are playing/singing, too. By doing this you will allow for improvisation and spontaneity.. That's where the life and joy in playing comes from!

Set Up for Success


Another important factor that can help or hinder good listening within the ensemble is, frankly, the ability to hear. Some worship groups are set up so that not everyone can hear everyone. My brothers and sisters, this ought not be so. You can't respond musically to what you cannot hear, right? It is important to ask yourself, this "Can I hear everyone? Are the monitors helping or hurting the situation? Is the way our band set up ideal for listening to one another?" It may be time to reevaluate your monitor system and band setup. You are probably way overdue for a good, comprehensive sound check, too.

With regard to setup, each situation has its own unique set of variables. In general you should group similar instruments together- voices together, rhythm instruments together, bass player directly next to the high hat on the drums), horns together, too. By placing instruments of similar function close to one another, they are better able to listen to one another. That is our topic: listening! One of the first things I do when I'm brought in to help a worship ministry is to address the band set up. Often correcting this one thing can solve a number of other common problems.

It is my hope that this article will get you thinking about this important topic and ways to be a better listener. Share these ideas with your worship leader so that he/she can begin to emphasize and develop better listening habits within your worship group. I guarantee by doing so, your worship experience will be more rewarding for you, for the other players and singers in the group and for the congregation. Feel free to email me if you have any questions related to this topic, and be sure to check out the "Archives" link for more helpful articles. Until next time and forever, may the Lord bless and keep you.


John J. DiModica served as Worship Leader and Assistant Pastor at a thriving church in Miami, Florida for nine years. Now living in Tennessee, he has been touring and teaching with Integrity Music since 1995 including performing with Don Moen, Paul Wilbur, Lenny leBlanc, Ron Kenoly and Alvin Slaughter. John has a music degree from the University of Miami (FL), and additional studies at the Eastman School of Music (NY) and Berklee College of Music (MA). Currently, his activities include composing, music production, session musician and private bass instructor. For help in producing a recording or to schedule John to speak, visit his website. www.InFocusMusic.com

Perpetual Vision: A Challenge For The New Millennium - Don Moen

Recently I was asked to share a devotional for a few moments during one of our product planning sessions. As I was praying about what to share I was challenged by the theme of our planning session....... Perpetual Vision. Chris Thomason, the V.P. of the Creative Group and I were discussing the importance of seeing things through God's eyes, not through man's eyes. Creating products that are born of the Spirit and not born of the flesh. God's ideas, not men's ideas. I would like to share with you basically what I shared with the management team of Integrity Music that day. I have modified the article a bit to make it less specific to our product planning session and more appealing to a broad group of people. As we enter a new millennium, each of us need to ask God to open our ears to hear what He is hearing, and to open our eyes to see what He is seeing.

What is Perpetual Vision? It is seeing things that are not as though they were. It is living daily in the dimension of faith. It is viewing opportunities with eternal eyes. Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen."

Yet, it is more than this. Perpetual Vision is living daily in the dimension of faith, knowing that God has given us the ability, through His Spirit, to see into the future. On my recent trip to Asia I was doing a press conference when I was asked the question, " What are the parts of the concert you look forward to?" My response was, "The parts that are not in the program." In other words, I look forward to those moments in the concert when the Holy Spirit does something that I didn't expect. When that happens, I am clearly not leading, but following.

In I Corinthians 2:9-12 the apostle Paul said, "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, THAT WE MIGHT KNOW THE THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN FREELY GIVEN TO US BY GOD"! (NKJ)

Obviously, Paul is speaking about knowing spiritual things here, but if we can get our spirits communicating with God's Spirit on a daily basis, we will be amazed at the ideas that come to us. We will have Perpetual Vision.

Oral Roberts always said, "Miracles and big ideas are coming at you or going by you all the time." If we can learn to communicate with God's Spirit, we can reach out and receive these miracles on a daily basis. Mike Coleman said, "We need to find a way to cut across the infield of the race track and get in front of the pack in order to get a clear perspective on where the race is going". The great hockey player Wayne Gretzky, when asked how he made all the big plays said, "I don't skate to where the puck is, I skate to where it's going to be."

As a young music student, I had to learn to "sight read." The teacher would put a piece of music in front of me and ask me to play it without ever having seen it before. At first, this was very difficult. I would play one bar, stop... play another bar, stop...play another bar, and so on. Then I learned that the art of sight-reading was to always look two or three bars ahead while playing the correct bar. In other words, I learned to anticipate what was coming and prepare for it rather than being surprised by a sudden key change or tempo change.

How do we apply these principles to our lives, both personally and professionally, on a daily basis? First, we need to deal with our fear of the unknown and be willing to step into an area of faith. In 2 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat was told by his advisors that "a great multitude" is coming against you from beyond the sea. Actually there were three armies who had joined forces to fight against Judah. Jehoshaphat's first response in verse three was fear. Yet, he turned his fear into faith by:

1. Repositioning himself to seek the Lord and fasting. vs. 3
2. Remembering what God had already done for them. vs. 5 - 9
3. Reminding God of His covenant relationship with His people. vs. 10 - 12
4. Renewing himself in God's presence and listening for His voice. vs. 13 - 17
5. Responding to God's voice in faith and declaring His goodness. Vs. 19

By listening to God's voice and following His plan, Jehoshaphat was able to overcome incredible odds and experience a mighty victory. He heard God's plan through the Spirit who spoke through a musician. Imagine that! He had Perpetual Vision.

In 2 Kings 6: 8-17, the Syrians were attacking Israel. The King of Syria was concerned because the Israelites always seemed to know his next move. In verse 12 the king's servant told him, "There is a prophet who is in Israel who tells the King of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom!" Elisha was communicating with God's Spirit. He was also seeing through God's eyes, not man's. He had Perpetual Vision.

In verse 15, the King of Syria had the Israelites surrounded. Elisha's servant said to him, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" Elisha responded by saying, "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." He was seeing something that his servant wasn't seeing. So he prayed that his servant would receive the gift of Perpetual Vision. Suddenly, his servant's eyes were opened and he saw that the whole mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

As you reflect on the past year, think about those things that were clearly "God Things" and not just "good things." Think about the many times God intervened for you in a situation. How many times did He protect you without you knowing that He did? As these things come to your mind, begin to thank God for His mercy and love. Now, as you anticipate the next year, the first in the next millennium, what are the things you are involved in that could become huge "God Ideas" if you could see with "perpetual vision?" Now, with faith in your heart, begin to thank Him for what He is about to do in your life.

Today, I believe God is working in each of our lives in ways we cannot see. As we look at the future, let's ask God to let us see the days ahead through the eyes of faith ... with Perpetual Vision. What miracles are coming at us or going by us today? What are we not seeing? Can we see the army of God surrounding us, fighting for us? Can we see the army of God going before us into battle as we worship Him and declare His goodness? Do we have Perpetual Vision?

Growing Through Worship - Jeff Brickhouse

Seminars 4 Worship's Jeff Brickhouse looks at 2 key ways to grow the Body of Christ

On the surface or at a quick glance, the phrase, "growing the Body of Christ through worship" may slip by without much thought. It doesn't take much research to uncover the fact that churches, which have placed an emphasis on corporate worship, are growing. Interestingly, this statement applies to both traditional and modern forms of worship.
Let's look at the word 'growing.' For music ministers and worship leaders, this word has at least two major components:

Growing in attendance

If you're in leadership, I challenge you to seek and embrace physical growth. This is a by-product of worshiping in spirit and truth. Worship that opens the floodgates of heaven and engages us to communicate with The Father is contagious! It's an undeniable fact that people are drawn to this type of church.

The question that probably comes to mind is, "Is this wrong?" No, but honestly there are some dangers. As leaders, we can easily, and I mean easily, become so driven by drawing people in order to grow our physical numbers, that we forget why we're there. We can soon become an entertainment venue rather than a house of prayer.

Honestly, I've come to see that a balance can differ based on where you're ministering. For some churches, dimming the lights is too much show while in other churches, they seemingly haven't experienced worship until the db meter has reached piercing proportions.

Growing spiritually

I also challenge you to embrace spiritual growth. Pete Sanchez, Jr., one of our instructors at Seminars4Worship and the Executive Director for Integrity Worship Ministries, continues to remind me that thousands of churches around the world are singing many of the great new worship songs from Integrity and other publishers. But often the songs aren't having the impact they could. It's not just about singing the newest and coolest songs in worship. It's not just about being the hippest church in town. When we sing, teach and preach, are we leading others to Jesus? Have worshipers grown closer to the Lord as a result of our leadership? These are challenging questions but necessary if we're going to honor God in ministry.

My prayer is that God would bless you as you lead others in worship. May you be wise and full understanding, and may the Body of Christ grow through worship.


Jeff is the Events Manager for Integrity's Seminars4Worship. With years of experience in worship ministry, church ministry, sound reinforcement, broadcasting, and marketing, he is committed to giving church leaders resources and tools to enhance worship in local congregations and to impact others with life-changing worship events and seminars.

The Mess We Make - Kent Morris

Seminars 4 Worship instructor Kent Morris examines 10 common mistakes that worship teams can avoid during worship services.

Why do we make the act of worship so difficult? Is it a fear of divine intimacy that causes us to have a “cannot succeed” mentality? The mistakes worship teams commit while approaching God do not preclude His presence, but they do erect obstacles to the flow of the Holy Spirit. Here, then are ten common errors churches can avoid in the pursuit of God:

1. Turning minor errors into public spectacles
When a vocalist forgets to turn on a wireless microphone or a technician commits a track cueing error, the worst thing a worship leader can do is to proclaim the mistake to the entire congregation. If the audience didn’t notice, why bring it up? And, if it was an obvious error, then everyone already knows about it. Far from being a way to humanize the proceedings, public notifications only hinder the work of the Spirit and demoralize the person responsible. It is better to go on with the service and discuss the incident in the context of love at a later debriefing.

2. Playing too much
Some musicians live to play and feel compelled to use every chord they know each service. Just as too many cooks spoil the pot, so, too many notes spoil the song. If each segment can be giv en some air to breathe in the form of silence around the song, then each part that is played takes on added value and weight. Ed Kerr says it best, “Make every note you play count toward the goal of communication and away from a focus on your ability. ”

3. Playing too loudly
Worship wars are known for their resounding barrage of noise. The goal of the band should not be to destroy the congregation’s hearing, but to play music that encourages the audience to participate in a journey to the throne of God. How loud is too loud is a question each team must answer based on the culture and circumstance of the local assembly. However, a rule of thumb is to keep the stage level low enough that unamplified voices can be at least partially understood from a one-foot distance. The house mix level should be below 95dB-A average response.

4. Choosing inappropriate material
I recently attended a worship service designed for forty year olds that incorporated a musical style more appropriate for twenty year olds. While the audience seemed to appreciate the band’s efforts, they never became engaged in the proceedings. There were, though, a few Gen Xers in another room who were drawn to the sounds emanating from the sanctuary. As a church consultant, I have been asked to referee many battles between the old and new and have discovered the new is more readily digested when coated with cues from the old. No one wants to be outmoded and there will always be someone who lives to hear Journey-esque music performed by a Steve Perry wannabee. Keeping everyone happy is one way to direct people to Christ.

5. Selecting songs average people can’t sing
In a recent informal survey of non-participatory church goers, the majority cited the frustration they feel when they desire to worship in song, but are hindered by a musical selection beyond their range. While the team members may impress themselves with their virtuosity and skill, the average Joe in the pew just gives up and stares into space. Engaging people is never accomplished by making them feel inferior and inadequate. In the words of Chariya Bissonette, “It doesn’t matter what you [the vocalist] can do. It only matters what Christ can do through you. ”

6. Starting the service late
If the service is to begin at 10:00 AM, then it should begin on time, lest those who made the effort to be there promptly are disenfranchised while those who failed to arrive early are greeted with an “it doesn’t really matter mentality.” The most precious commodity people have is time and starting a service late implies their time gift is not important to the staff and team.

7. Treating rehearsal time as practice time
As Jamie Harvill states, “Rehearsal is crafted to polish the song, not to learn it. Individual practice time is when learning occurs.” Curt Coffield uses the time/money scale to weigh the value of rehearsal. If each member’s time is worth $25.00 per hour, imagine the total value of every rehearsal event and treat it appropriately.

8. Buying a Hyundai, then driving it like a Ferrari
Audio and video systems cost what they are worth. There is no way a modest system can perform like an expensive, properly designed system. Churches love to set system budgets, and then try to force the integrator to “make it work.” Unfortunately, God’s laws of physics apply in His house just like they do at an Eminem concert. As the cliché says, you get what you pay for. If a church needs to reproduce video and audio at a high level, it takes the right equipment and personnel to achieve the goal.

9. Presenting a hip image of Christianity in place of the image of Christ
God does not call us to make Christianity cool. There is nothing cool about suffocating to death on a cross while stripped naked. The Gospel is a wonderful message and conveys hope, but not at the expense of truth. Our message must be applicable to all people for all time in all circumstance.

10. Creating virtual music
Performing Muzak versions of rock tunes with guitars played through modeling modules and drums banged out on electronics drums does not endear the message to someone raised on real rock-and-roll. If the situation is appropriate for virtual instruments and the room acoustics are atrocious, then virtual may be the answer. However, if authenticity is the goal, then authentic instrumentation is the means for success. Discernment is needed to understand when to wail and when to use in-ears.


Kent Morris is a veteran media system designer and Seminars4Worship instructor focused on the ministry aspects of technology.

What Does It Mean To Be Friends With Jesus? - Michael Card

It seems too simple a question, doesn't it? What does it mean to call Jesus your friend? Or more importantly, what does it mean when He calls us His friends? We have over simplified and sermonized endlessly on the question, skirting all around the issue but never getting to the point. We have reduced the profound concept of becoming His "friends" to the shallow notion of being His "buddies."

Perhaps the most simple and direct route is to go to the Gospels and simply talk to Jesus' closest friend.

Of course, that person is Simon Peter. After their first meeting on the shore of the lake of Galilee in John 1, it seems Simon rarely left Jesus' side. In time Jesus even moved into Simon's large home in Capernaum, which was located just one door down from the synagogue. If Jesus could ever be said to have had a home, it was Simon's.

Theirs was a genuine friendship with its ups and downs. Peter is the only disciple to say "no" to Jesus. Jesus saves his highest praise and most severe rebukes for Simon Peter. Though Jesus surely was close to more than one of His disciples, theirs is the only fully-formed friendship in the gospels. Let's look briefly to their friendship as a paradigm and see what we can find in answer to our original question: What does it mean to be friends with Jesus?

Being friends with Jesus means allowing yourself to be defined by Him. (Mt 16:13-23)
Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do you say I am?" It is Peter who responds, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." In a few moments Jesus answers back, "You are Peter, the Rock." Real friends help to define each other. In the give and take of genuine relationship, as "iron sharpens iron," the imprint of the true friend becomes indelible on the soul of the other.

Being Jesus' friend means hearing Him say, "Don't be afraid." (Mt 17:7)
The Synoptics tell us that the Three were terrified as they witnessed the Transfiguration. It was the only time any of His disciples would see His unveiled glory. Mark tells us Peter did not know what to say he was so afraid. Matthew says that after it was all over, Jesus told the Three, "Don't be afraid." Most often when He was revealed in a new dimension Jesus had to comfort them with those words. When their nets were miraculously filled for the first time in Luke 5, Jesus responds, "Don't be afraid, from now on you'll catch men." When he approached the boat, walking on the water he called out, "I am, don't be afraid." (Mk 6:50) It is what he tells the women at the tomb as well. (Mt 28:10)

In time, if we walk long enough with Jesus as our friend, He will reveal Himself in newer, deeper and sometimes even fearful ways. "Don't be afraid," He whispers. "I am." If we don't have to be afraid of God, we don't have to be afraid of anything.

When Jesus is your friend you are certain there is Someone in your life who understands your fragileness, struggles and hurts. (Heb 2:18)
Jesus never called Peter or any of the others to do anything or to go anywhere He had not already been. Before He calls them to become "fishers of men," Jesus demonstrates how it is done by first catching them. Before He sends them out to speak His word and do His work, Jesus spends a period of concentrated time preparing them. He would not call upon them to take up the cross until He had first demonstrated that He was determined to go on before them to Golgotha.

As we come closer to Jesus as our Friend, as we get to know Him better through His Word, we will understand that he experienced the full range of human weaknesses. In the gospels we see him hungry and thirsty. We see him misunderstood by his own family. We see a man who tasted all our sufferings during His lifetime on earth and who took upon Himself all our sin and sorrows on the cross.

When Jesus is your friend you know you will never be excluded by your failures or shortcomings. (Rom 8:38)
Even though Peter had denied even knowing Jesus to the stragglers in the courtyard at Caiaphas', later, when He is raised from the dead, Jesus sends word, "Tell the disciples...and Peter I am going ahead of you to Galilee." (Mk 16:7) Even though Luke tells us their eyes met across that courtyard when Jesus heard Peter utter his third denial, still Jesus was willing to turn and go from that place and die on the cross for Peter and for you and for me, knowing the worst in all of us.

We cannot earn more of His love with good behavior. Even as we do not forfeit His love when we fail. He loves us as we are and not as we should be. We don't change so that He will love us. He loves us so we can change. "It is His kindness that leads us to repentance." (Rom 2:4)

These have been only a few fragmented attempts to answer our original question. I leave the question to you now and encourage you to lean into the Scriptures. Listen to your life and find more and better answers on your own. How has Jesus defined you? When have you heard Him say, "Don't be afraid?" Has He met you in your weakness? Have you experienced His unqualified love?

I encourage you to consider Jesus' own answer to this question. You can start by looking at John 15:8-17.


Singer/songwriter/theologian Michael Card uncovers a not-so-simple answer to a seemingly simple question.