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.