Worship Leader. Family Man. Jesus Follower.
Here is a video of me trying to do 100 push ups. How many did I actually do?
Watch the video below:
This was part of my initial test on hundredpushups.com. They have a training schedule that shows you how to do 100 push ups in 6 weeks. Quite an ambitious goal, but I’m an ambitious guy so I’ll go for it.
Anyone want to try it out with me?
In a recent post I talked about being a church addict.
I plugged my blog into wordle and this is what came out:
Guilty as charged.
Each month CVC does does a fellowship dinner with singing, a short message, and communion. Last night we had the privilege of hearing from a missionary team we helped send to Rawanda this Summer.
Mike and Mary Wagner from HisGreatPlan.com led the team, which included folks from several churches. Mike shared that on average 100 people profess Christ as their savior for each team member that is sent from Huntsville to Rawanda.
This really hit my heart. People need Jesus.
Sarah wrote about the night here.
Last night at Stearns I got a latte - my drink of choice anywhere. I saw this wicked awesome TV commercial, but didn’t think they really made each cup that way.
They do and I got to drink some beautiful looking coffee.
One of my goals when I moved to Huntsville was to be a “Huntsville worship pastor” and not simply a “Chase Valley Church worship pastor.” I believe there is a responsibility of church staffers to invest in their communities and not simply spend all their time at church.
In the last 6 months I’ve failed miserably at this. I have spent all my time at church. I live, eat, sleep and breathe church. When I’m not at church or doing church stuff from home, I’m thinking about church and doing more church.
My pastors, with loving concern, have told me, “Billy, read a Harry Potter book.” They know all the books on my reading list are church-related. Even the ones I read for “fun.”
A few months ago Pastor Dorothy Ann gave me a flyer for “The Sapient Reader’s Guild.” It totally looked up my ally and I thought, “I need to make it a point to go to this.”
Except I didn’t go. I always found some excuse not to go.
After whining non-stop about how God is calling me to invenst in Huntsville Sarah has told me, “I’m going to be mad at you if you don’t go to that book club.” So last week I got Malcom Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point.” I did the assigned reading, wrote some questions and I’m looking forward to hanging out at Stern’s Coffee house in a few hours.
I don’t know anything else about the guild, beyond what is on their website. I’m not quite sure what to expect, but my hope is that I meet some people who are really different from me. Non-church people. I know every church pastor and his brother has blogged about the church implications of “The Tipping Point.”
Tonight I’m hoping to get a different perspective.
This blows my mind. Vince Antonucci recently announced that he is leaving his church. He is taking off, abandoning his people and going to plant a new church on the Las Vegas strip.
His people gave a standing ovation when he announced he was leaving.
I have been a part of a few different churches where the Lead Pastor announced he was leaving. The reaction was not unabashed excitement. People were scared, angry, hurt and just plain freaked out.
I’m currently serving in a church that saw a Pastoral change over about a year ago. Under the previous Lead Pastor the church was running around 300 adults in Sunday morning Worship. Within months of the previous pastor leaving worship attendance dropped to 100. People are still hurt that the previous pastor left, but that hurt is compounded by fact that they seen 200 of their friends take off as well.
I’m baffled by Vince Antonucci’s courage and the maturity of his people. What the heck did he do as a leader to build up to this point? He’s been a different kind of leader and he’s gotten a different type of response.
Vince’s story gives me hope and inspiration. It takes tons of moxy and huge vision to go for a church plant on the Vegas strip. It takes a lot of guts to tell people you are leaving a year ahead of time. This is not the coward’s way out. I have heard many people say, “I’m not leaving I’m being sent.” In most cases this was a total line of bull. In Vince’s case he actually seems to be able to say this with integrity.
Check out these recent posts on Vince’s blog:
I’m very interested to see what happens next year for Forefront Church.
God’s Pottery is a “Christian Acoustic Duo” that was featured on NBC’s Last Comic Standing.
I can’t decide if these guys are degrading all Christians by falsely portraying us as ignorant or if they are just poking fun at all the hokey “Christian” stuff that deserves to be made fun of.
Funny or offensive?
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What about people who have constructive, helpful insight into how you can do you job better? Are you listening to these people? As worship leaders are we so burnt out on complaints that we’ve closed our ears to an objective word that could help us succeed?
What if I want to share my positive, constructive feedback with my worship pastor? How will she know I really care and I’m not just complaining?
The Openness Factor: Are you sharing your feedback directly with the worship leader or are you complaining behind their back? This one is simple, if you believe what you have to say is relevant and helpful then share it directly with the person who needs to hear it. If you gossip behind their back then you are…well… gossiping behind their back.
“I’ve tried going to them before and they didn’t listen” and “They are so unapproachable.” are not valid excuses here. If you can’t share it directly then keep quiet about it. If it’s not important enough to share with them directly then it’s not important enough to be shared.
The Relationship Factor: Is your worship leader within your sphere of influence? In other words, have you invested in a getting to know them and loving on them. If you have, then they will be more likely to respect your critique and act on it instead of become defensive.
Sending encouragement emails, cooking dinner and giving cards are all nice things people in my church have done for me. I listen to these people more.
If you’ve made no effort to get to know your worship leader then they are probably not going to place a high value on your opinion. On the other hand if you serve on the worship team or make it a point to be helpful to the worship leader then they will probably be more willing to listen and to act on what you’ve shared.
The Solicit Factor: Has the worship leader solicited your advice? If not then it’s probably not the best time to share what you think. Don’t assume just because the worship leader isn’t doing what you want them to do that they don’t have anyone speaking into their life. Most smart guys I know have a several trusted people who they rely on to give them objective feedback.
On the other hand if the worship pastor is having a church-wide event where they are specifically asking for feedback then you should probably go to that event and share what you think. There is one tomorrow night at Chase Valley Church.
If you really want your words to be heard here are five tips to get them to listen more:
1. Don’t Gossip. If you talk behind a person’s back you lose major credibility. People don’t listen to gossips, but if you keep your thoughts to yourself and share them appropriately then your reputation will make you more influential.
2. Go directly to your worship leader. Call them, email them, write a note or set up a time to meet. Most people will at least listen to you if you say, “Can I share something with you? It could be potentially hurtful and I don’t want you to feel you need to be defensive about it. I want you to know because I care about you being successful.” Who’s going to say, “no” to that? Most people will listen.
3. Start/build a relationship. Do things that are encouraging. If you make emotional and spiritual deposits now you’ll be more likely to have the social funds to make a withdrawal later.
4. Wait for them to ask you. If you wait until you get asked then your words will have 10 times the impact. People ask when they are ready to listen. Choosing the right moment to communicate will determine how effective that communication is.
If you share unsolicited advice at a time when someone’s had a bad day or after they’ve already received 30 other complaints then odds are they won’t listen to you no matter how important your feedback is. However when someone asks it’s an indicator that their heart is in the right place - this is the optimal moment when your words will have the largest impact.
5. Trust you’ve been heard. Worship Leaders and church workers in general get tons of advice all the time. Often times the advice is conflicting. Simply because they didn’t do what you think they should doesn’t mean they didn’t listen to and completely hear what you had to say. Insisting that your advice always be acted upon is a surefire way to be not listened to the in the future. Instead, just trust that you’ve been heard. They will talk to God and do the right thing.
I know what you’re thinking right now -
“Darn it all! I thought I was doing good? You mean EVERYONE ELSE is better than me?!”
Yep, everyone. It’s just a sad fact you need to face. Don’t worry though, there is hope. Here is some advice to get you back on track to leading better worship the way GOD wants you to!
Bonus tips:
For even more insight check out Los’ post here.
(In all fairness, Los asked, so I’m not complaining. Ok, maybe I am complaining. I’m complaining about the complainers. Those darn complainers. Uh, when will they stop complaining? I’m so tired of people complaining!)
By the way worship leader - don’t you know it’s not about you it’s all about Jesus? This a reminder. I just wanted to make sure you knew that because the overwhelming majority of worship guys I know are TOTALLY into themselves and have no concept whatsoever that they are supposed to put the focus on Jesus.
I like new songs. I like old songs. “Worship Wars” has always seemed like a silly, trite thing to me. Most of the time I do sets of 4 recently released pieces of music and 1 hymn.
I never heard much feedback on it though.
Today I received several emails thanking me that we do hymns. I thought, “What gives? I’ve been doing hymns since I got here. Why the sudden influx of gratitude?”
Yesterday we did 2 hymns.
Team is so important - today mine shined brilliantly.
One of the frustrating parts of the last six months been rebuilding the team. Before I came on board close to 80% of the worship team (including musicians and techs) left the church. In most cases I’ve been rebuilding from scratch. The large majority of my team is new and few people know how our sound, lighting, and media equipment works. On other Sundays when something goes wrong I’ve been the only one who knows how to fix it. I find myself often running all around the church trying to tie six or seven loose ends together. Of course this type of stress always puts my heart in a great place to then get up on stage and lead worship. Either that or it puts my heart is a lousy place and makes it really hard to lead worship. One of the two.
Over the last six months I’ve been working toward creating a culture of risk-taking. I don’t want people to wait around for me to do everything but rather I’m trying to build up a team of people who act first and ask permission later. When it’s Sunday morning go time there’s no time to explain or discuss. I trust my team and more and more they are getting that.
Today at about 5 minutes to sound check our Media PC died. I didn’t have time to mess with it or to tell someone else how to trouble shoot it, I needed to be on stage.
Thankfully I had an astute crew in the booth that leaped into action. It ended up being a simple connections problem and everything got rolling. The worship production when off with out a hitch and the Holy Spirit totally rained down. It was great morning.
I’m a pretty social guy. For the most part being alone drives me nuts. But every once in a while it’s exactly what I need.
Today I was at the church building doing stage set up and final prep for Sunday. Normally I do this on Saturdays and my girls come in with me to help. Tomorrow we’re headed to Nashville so I came in today instead.
Working for a few hours by myself brought some unexpected, and much welcomed clarity of mind.
Thank you for your prayers. They were felt and appreciated.
Man I’m just stressed out today. Nothing has really happened today to make that happen, it’s only 10am, but the collective happenings of the last week or so are weighing heavily. I’m finding it hard to get going today or get motivated.
I love the question “What’s one thing I could get done today that would make me successful?”
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to apply right now. I have 30 things that all need to get done yesterday. Maybe they don’t really “need” to get done. Maybe other people just want me to get them done and I’m just scared of hurting people or offending people. Maybe my struggle isn’t with my own calendar - I tend to be pretty good at being ruthless with myself. I can cut the non-essential down to the bone and focus like a mad man when it comes to my own heart.
When it comes to other people I wimp out.
I’m a people pleaser. I need people to like me and so I want to accomplish everything that everyone wants me to do - my bosses, my co-workers, my worship team, my family I want to keep them all satisfied. In that pursuit I’ve really haven’t impressed anyone at all.
Something needs to change. This way is not working.
Over last year The Worship Community Forums have a been a great place for disscussion and sharing ministry insight. Today Version 2.0 launched with feature articles, resources, and reviews.
Check it out and join the worship disscusion.
Last Friday I stood on stage speaking to the end-of-day VBS crowd and announced into my microphone a reminder to come back on Sunday morning and sing on stage. A custom graphic lit our screen behind me announcing “Kids Sing on Sunday: Be here at 9:30 AM.” I’d primed the pump by visiting each class and personally speaking with each VBS leader. In moments they’d be engaging the crowd of parents by offering personal invitations to come back on Sunday and have their child sing in our worship service. I felt confident that my well coordinated effort that would pay off with a big crowd on Sunday. Then I heard a shout come from the back of the room.
Tomorrow is long sock day, wear your long socks!
It was Matt, our resident youth sound engineer and didgeridoo player. He himself had been sporting long, knee-high, baseball-style socks all week, and now he was offering an invitation for everyone else to follow suit. Right in the middle of my invitation!
I thought, “He doesn’t have a mic. Who authorized long sock day? That’s not official. Can he do that?”
The next day I was shocked to witness a myriad of long socks in a spectrum of colors. A few words of encouragement from the teens had gotten the kids talking and sprouted a frenzy of children who all bought into the idea of wearing longs socks. Even my own daughter, who’s vapid shyness hinders her from participating in all things silly, wore her long socks with pride.
I’m sad to say I don’t own any long socks and had to settle for some calf-highs. Oh the humiliation.
When Sunday rolled around we ended up having around 30 children sing on stage. Last year only 20 kids showed up on Sunday, so we increased participation, but it’s still a small number considering both years had 60 total kids come to VBS during the week. I’m impressed that we got 30 kids to show up on Sunday. It took some intentional effort and strategy to pull off. But I’m even more impressed by the result Matt got through his non-strategic gorilla campaign to clad VBS kids in long socks.
What made the difference?
I went around to every VBS volunteer, looked them in the eye, asked them about their kids, listened to their story and then pitched them on my idea to personally invite parents to our Sunday morning worship service. I had a microphone and on-screen graphics. My idea should have caught fire with all that marketing. How did Matt’s idea catch on so much more quickly with less effort?
Matt had something I didn’t have. Mine was an invitation to be inconvenienced - to go out of your comfort zone to talk to parents and to inconvenience them by holding them up when they just wanted to get out with their kid. Matt’s was an invitation to have no-strings-attached-unadulterated fun. Matt taught me something that day about why some ideas go viral and others fail to spread regardless of the effort.
We can’t forget the fun.
Fun spreads. Inconvenice fizzles.
As part of the 40 Day Fast my beautiful wife has forgone the food in favor of praying for persecuted Christians.
I am super proud of my girl for doing a series full of some great content:
Steven Russell, who has a very snazzy looking and cleanly designed site, is also blogging about his fast today.
Check it out.
Sometimes the Church has this ‘charity’ mentality that the solution to our success, or to our problems, the way out of our crisis is for someone to give us money rather than asking the question, ‘How can we make such an incredible contribution that it would benefit everyone to invest?’
- Erwin McManus
You can listen to the whole interview on the Catalyst Podcast Episode 52:
My RSS feed is a simple, easy way for you to get notified when I update my website. If you like what you see on my site then you can subscribe to my feed for free and get updates in your email inbox or RSS reader.
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When I put up a new post it goes into my “feed.” If you subscribe by email my website automatically sends you an email when I post something new. If you subscribe in an RSS reader then my posts appear in your reader.
If you don’t use an RSS reader I highly recommend it. Using a reader makes using the internet easier and more effective. I use Google Reader. It is an RSS reader that is free and easy to use . If you have Gmail, or any other Google account, then you can use the same login name for Google Reader.
Still confused? This video called “RSS in Plain English” can help explain more:
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I love flip flops in the summer.
Even if it does lead to the occasional cut or stubbed toe.
I love being the father of 2 daughters.
Even if it does lead to a limited bandaid selection.
We showed up to the church picnic today and totally got pounded by the whole church. After an action packed softball game we shared a meal. Then we went into a set of worship music and had communion together in the park. No sooner did I finish leading worship than my pastor took the mic and announced that my family was getting, “pounded.”
Everyone who came had brought a pound of food for us to put in our pantry!
We could barely fit it all in the van. This totally made my wife’s day.
I am itchy. A sharp stabbing pain is emanating from the line around the back of my neck where the collar of my t-shirt ends. It all happened yesterday at the post-VBS pool party. I had a great afternoon eating pizza, teaching my daughter to swim and getting trounced by our youth group in a game of “How fast can we launch wet Nerf projectiles at each others’ heads?” Then I got home and the UV rays had taken their toll. I put on some SPF 50 before I went out, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. Even my arm hair is itching right now.
The verdict is in and I’m just not a fan of the Sun. I love swimming. I used to be a life guard and a camp counselor, but these days I can’t stand to be outside for more than 20 minutes.
I may have to boycott all pool activities for the rest of summer.
Have you ever heard a sermon that drudged on with rehashed blither no one really cared to hear about? We want sermons to be impacting, but often they don’t pack a punch. If people come to worship looking for spiritual insight, but leave none the wiser something has gone awry. In today’s world there is an increasingly spiritual hunger. People are looking for answers.
Perhaps the problem is that we who are church leaders are not asking the right questions.
Kevin Kelly talks about the concept of never asked questions. He highlights how a product FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) can become an NAQ (Never Asked Questions.) Instead of offering real answers, they become marketing attempts to push more drivel. If you look at the FAQ you’ll find answers, but in reality they are answers to questions no one is asking.
Does the same thing ever happen with sermon content?
Perry Noble has an upcoming series that I am extremely intrigued about. To get through the dip of irrelevant information and find out what people really wanted to know, Perry simply asked them.
He writes,
Back in April we asked people to submit questions that have about life, the Bible, God…and anything else and the response was tremendous. After going through hundreds and hundreds of questions we then categorized them into the 18 most asked about topics and then set up a website where people could vote on their top pick.
Mark Driscoll kicked off 2008 with a similar series.
Although these are very high tech approaches that utilize the best of web 2.0 goodness, other more low tech approaches can also be effective. CFC, my church in Evansville, did a series entitled, Questions You Want to Ask God. They handed out 3×5 note cards on Sunday mornings for a few weeks and had people write down their questions. (Note the similarity in topics that came up: CFC and Marshill both asked “Why is there Evil?” and CFC and NewSpring both asked about sexual sin and salvation.)
Admittedly, the Evansville series does lack in comparison to the other churches. By limiting your sample to church people you are also limiting the response and the potential interest in the series. By offering a website for anyone to interact on Driscoll and Nobel reached a large, diverse group of people who then became emotionally invested in a series they helped to produce.
As church leaders it’s easy to become isolated and insulated to what goes on in the real world. It seems that if we want to answer the right questions, then we need to find some real world people and ask them,
What are the questions you have?
Jason Bedell has been rocking some guest blog posts for his pastor Vince Antonucci. This past week he’s posted super pragmatic, usable insights and worship ministry “how to’s.” The series includes videos of Jason giving candid behind-the-scenes talks from his experiences as the creative arts pastor at Forefront along with tons of links and helpful PDF files.
Terrific series J. Excellent blogging here.
I don’t want to kick up a fight, but I gotta severely disagree with my buddy Jeremy. He asked for responses to his post, Worship Is Not Meant to Teach. This is something I’m hugely passionate about so check the response below.
Worship has a dual function. It is meant to both celebrate and describe God. It is good to worship by singing songs to him. It is also good to worship God by singing songs about him. To do one and neglect the other is simply wrong. You need a good mix of both to get the full effect.
Jeremy says,
worship is not about teaching or learning anything.
and
…the Psalms were not designed to teach us about God. They were designed to praise, celebrate, and worship God.
Let’s look at the psalms.
Psalm 86:1, a psalm of worship, asks God to teach us,
Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.
In Psalm 32 having “understanding” is a desirable quality,
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
Psalm 11 is a worship song that used “about God” language rather than “to God” language. It teaches theology like “The LORD is righteous, he loves justice.” If the psalmists wrote songs about God and not simply to him then I’m down with following their example.
The Greatest Commandment
When Jesus is asked what the most important commandment is he quotes Deuteronomy 6:5. Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” It’s important to note that loving God (and I would argue worshiping him) involves not only our heart and soul, but also our mind. If we want to really worship God we should be bleeding out emotion from the very innards of our soul. It also doesn’t hurt us if we learn a thing or two in the process.
Should the focus of our worship be theology? No. Worshiping God = good. Worshiping theology = idolatry. Don’t put the cart before the horse. Theology is a means to worship God. Don’t make theology an end in and of itself. Kept in the proper context theology is a rockin’ way to worship God and worship songs should most definitely teach.
I’m passionate about the importance of deep theological worship. I’m equally passionate about soulful/heartful worship. Check out this post where I spar with another guy. I pretty much say the same things and quote the same verses, but argue the other side of the equation.
What do you think - should worship teach?
In this section of the whiteboard we brainstormed new ideas. We asked the question, “What can we as a community, or I as an individual, do to encourage powerful worship experiences?” People were encouraged to imagine money and resources are no object and that no idea is a bad idea. We responded by completing the second half of the question, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we…” I compiled the list below based on table leader notes and what was shared in group discussion along with what was written on the whiteboard.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we…
The Next Step
The people of Chase Valley Church are being asked to pray over this list. All of these ideas are great but we can’t do them all at the same time. Ask God, “What’s the best of the best of the best that you would have us do?” Pick the 3 most compelling ideas and email them in. Let’s keep the conversation going.
This is part 3 of a 3 part series on The Worship Round Table Responses
In this section of the whiteboard we looked for the “common threads” that linked the stories together. We asked,
What common elements do we see developing among these stories?
This is part 2 of a 3 part series on The Worship Round Table Responses
In this section of the whiteboard participants at The Worship Round Table were asked to share a story about a time when they experienced powerful worship. As people shared around the table they were asked to finished the statement, “My worship was powerful because…” Table leaders recorded everyone’s response and then shared with the larger group while I chronicled responses on the whiteboard.
I used the the table leader’s notes as well as the written statements on the whiteboard to compile the list below. I’ve tried to loosely categorize these to make the list easier to interact with. Do you see entries that belong in another section or could fit into multiple sections?
(Note that these responses show God’s influence or impact on our worship.)
(Note that these responses show intentional effort or awareness on the part on the individual worshiper.)
(Note that these responses show that leading, planning and execution made a difference in the worship service.)
This is part 1 of a 3 part series on The Worship Round Table Responses
At The Worship Round Table last week 30 people met at Chase Valley Church to discuss how we could experience more powerful worship. We shared stories of our personal worship and brainstormed together ideas to implement into our worship arts ministry. As the facilitator I wrote everyone’s response on a whiteboard up front. Follow the links below to see a typed list of all the responses:
Whiteboard 1 - Stories Powerful Worship
Whiteboard 2 - Unifying Themes
Whiteboard 3 - Creative Worship Ideas
This past week at Chase Valley we tried something new and it was a smashing success.
At least the event part of it was.
One of my goals for The Worship Round Table was to create an environment that was worth people’s time. The last thing I wanted to do was to merely cram one more church thing on to people’s already-crammed calendars. I wanted a night that held high value for those who participated. Based on the feedback so far, people had a great time, truly enjoyed themselves and felt an immediate impact from the experience.
Which is great, but…
A deeper goal was to create something that has lasting impact. I’d like to see people continue talking about what happened long after they left the church building. I know for myself I couldn’t even sleep Thursday night thinking about all the possibilities. I would never overtly wish insomnia on anyone, but a small part of me hoped that others were similarly sleepless over what God could potentially do within and through our small community.
The real measure of an event’s success comes long after the event is over.
In his post today, Seth Godin supports the concept of round table discussion.
Seth writes,
A month after the conference, do you think people will remember the table where they spent an hour? When you force people through mild social anxiety, they thank you for it later.
The value of facilitating this type of interaction is that people tend to remember it longer than stage-presented content. And that was my hope for The Worship Round Table.
We’ll see how things play out as I collate and distribute the whiteboard ideas.
Great night. Thanks everyone!
For more photos from the event see my flickr page.
Coming soon: A typed list of everything on the whiteboard.
Tonight’s the first night that we’re trying out this experiment of uniting the worshipers and the worship team in a conversation and brainstorming process. We’re looking to share stories, discover unifying themes, and brainstorm ways to encourage powerful worship within the walls of Chase Valley and throughout the lives of our people.
Below you can see my agenda for the evening:
5:30pm - Set Up Crew Arrives: 4 Tables close to the stage. (Expecting 20 -30 people attending with 5 - 8 people per table.) A display on each table shows the “Goals” for the evening. A large white board on stage. Only First few rows of chairs removed. (Leave other sections of chairs in tact.)
6:30pm - Dinner/Fellowship begins - Informal, “Coffee House” atmosphere. We are sharing a meal and sharing conversation together.
6:45pm Intro - Explain format, Set goals, Pass out feedback cards
Format: Tonight we’ll go on a 3-part conversational journey together as a group. Each table small group will choose a recorder and a reporter. (It can be the same person.) I’ll ask some questions and as each question is asked your table group will share, discuss, and come up with as many rapid-fire answers to the question as possible. Your recorder will write down all of the table groups answers. Then we’ll take it to the large group to report. The reporter for each table reads the list of answers. Billy will write them on the large white board for everyone to see.
7pm - Dismiss Kids for children’s programming
7 - 7:20pm Part 1 - Share Stories
1. Table Group: Think about a time when you had a very powerful worship experience. Share When and Where this happened? (3 min.)
2. Table Group: Why was it a powerful experience? What made that experience so powerful? (10 min.) Answer with, “My worship experience was powerful because…”
3. Large Group: Report and list on white board what made experiences powerful. (7 min.)
7:25 - 7:35pm Part 2 - Unified Themes
Large Group: What are the unifying themes that are developing? What are some of the common threads in these stories? (Shout out answers and Billy will write them on the white board.) (10 min.)
7:35 - 7:55 Part 3 - Brainstorm Ideas
4. What could we do as individuals and as a community to encourage powerful worship experiences?
Answer the question “Wouldn’t it be cool if we…” Write down as many ideas as your group can come up with. No idea is a bad idea. If you think it, share it. Even if it sounds dumb or silly. (If you hear an idea that’s dumb or silly, let it fly, encourage it, let it spark your creativity.) Share with the group. Imagine that money and resources are no object. (15 Min.)
Share ideas with large group (5 min)
7:55 - Wrap Up/Bonus Question
Next Step - I will email everyone who participated a copy of everything written on the white board. Begin praying “God, out of all these ideas, which is the best of best of the best? What are you calling us as a community and me as an individual to do differently?” During this prayer time over this list choose the 3 most compelling ideas for you. Email me and tell me how God is answering that prayer in your life. Talk to each other about how God answers this prayer. Let’s keep the conversation going.
We’ve spent all evening talking as a group, now let’s spend some solitude time in prayer one on one with God. Answer the question, “What do we need to talk about next month?” Write the answer on your 3×5 card to turn in.
My pastors asked me to sponsor a round table discussion on worship, and tomorrow night my team will be putting on an event creativity entitled The Worship Round Table.
We’ll be setting up several tables in our worship center as well as a large white board. We’ll have some food and fellowship then I’ll be asking two rounds of questions for discussion:
Round 1: When was a time when you experienced powerful worship? What made it so powerful?
Round 2: What can we do as individuals and as a community to encourage powerful worship?
Each round will feature some sharing/conversation within each table group. We’ll have a reporter write down what everyone says and then share it with the large group. I’ll write down the ideas on the white board.
I hoping to spark some discussion and fuel creativity. We invited the whole church body, so I’m also hoping to get some people to share thoughts on worship who aren’t part of the normal crew.
There’s tons of potetial for people to come up with stuff together that they would have never thought of on their own.
See you there.
Edit:
Chase Valley Church Worship Set List for next Sunday June 22, 2008:
Click the name of each song to see the lyrics. (Links open in a new window.)
David Crowder* Band rocked 1st Baptist in Huntsville last night. It was an awesome time of worship and hanging with my team. Oddly enough this was actually my first time seeing DC*B live. Going into the show, I didn’t fully know what to expect. What I saw both amused and inspired me.
These Hi-Fi Guys
David Crowder Band is known for being avant garde. Not only do they push the boundaries of how to compose a worship song but they also make use of a random smattering of instruments not normally known in the realms of rock. The list includes a keytar, turn tables, a Mac running Ableton Live, a theremin, violins, a modded guitar hero controller, and the mysterious blinking noise box. In fact, their drummer runs an online forum dedicated to the strange sounds produced by the technological wizardry of David Crowder Band. All of this musical geeky know-how leads one to ask,
What about the lights and media?
Surprisingly enough, this super teched out group went ultra sparse when it came to lights and media. A mere 16 PAR cans adorned the lighting racks; 8 up top to front light, and 8 on stage as blinders and back lighting. A single old-school pull down screen showed a super lo-fi version of lyrics, with no visuals at all, simply white words on utilitarian black. Noticeably absent were any type of smart lights or real-time manipulatable graphic displays.
After witnessing this barren state of tech a few thoughts come to mind:
Although there are many options, I believe their choice of minimalistic visual tech was more intentional.
1. Less visual tech accentuates the musical prowess.
I’m sure if DC*B put out an ad for a visual effects designer they’d get responses from all the top guys in the field. But then you’d leave the show all excited about the cool lights and not so impressed by the keytar. The plain white words on a poorly run power point underscores the instrumental mastery on stage.
2. Less visual tech equals more power.
Simple doesn’t mean powerless. In fact in Crowder’s case simple made a deeper impression. I found myself thinking more about the words and being more impacted by the words because they were so simply displayed. Even a classy background graphic would have distracted from that, never mind a wild-ADD-inducing video.
Because the lights were used sparingly for effect, when they were used they created a dramatic impact. There was slight coordination between the lights and the music throughout the set, but during “You Are My Joy” the lighting really made the song. The first three repetition of the line “You are my joy” were sung with building music to low light and then on the fourth “joy!” the blinders kicked up to full as people screamed at the top of their lungs. My view of the band was hidden by the silhouette of raised hands. This less-is-more moment became one of my favorite all night.
3. Less visual tech means a more creative Crowder.
Going slim on the visual tech allows the guys in the the band to focus on what they are truly good at: musical creativity. If they spent time inventing ways to create a cool visuals they’d probably come up with amazing stuff, but they wouldn’t have as much time to tinker with audio loops and video game controllers.
I checked out vewzi today. It’s a wacky, user-experience, multiple-views way to search the web. It looks like a great way to search for things like photos, videos and mp3s. Of course I viewzi’d myself. And this video from Eric came up. (Somehow I missed it among my Google alerts.)
Thanks for the shout out bro. This had me totally cracking up. I hope your ear’s feeling better.
Hey I’m a ball of mush when it come to the power of Jesus. What can I say?
(RSS readers click through see the video below)
HT: Bobby
Chase Valley Church Worship Set List for next Sunday June 15, 2008:
Click the name of each song to see the lyrics. (Links open in a new window.)
In order to prep his upcoming session at National Worship Leader Conference, Fred McKinnon asked, “how does web 2.0 impact worship ministry?
As a web 2.0 user I’ve seen ministry benefits come from Facebook, Myspace, flickr, forums, youtube and most especially blogging. (”Blogging” includes writing posts, reading rss feeds, and especially commenting.) I also started twittering yesterday. In response to Fred’s post here are…
1. Networking with Other Ministry Professionals
In the old days of ministry (circa 2002) I can remember feeling extremely isolated as a church worker. I served as the youth director of a local church in San Antonio. To help combat the isolation I met monthly with other area youth directors. These once-a-month meetings fueled my ministry in every way imaginable. The prayer support, camaraderie, creative ideas, and ministry stories of both victory and defeat were what kept me going. In the absence of these relationships my effectiveness as a church worker would have greatly suffered. I simply could not have done it with out my friends. The only issue I had with the network was that it didn’t meet frequently enough.
Enter blogging and web 2.0.
As a blogger I get to meet daily with other worship pastors from around the world. I hear the wisdom that comes from being in the trenches. I empathize with struggles that are shared with maturity and honestly. I don’t have to reinvent the wheel when other’s share their victories. Undergirding all of this is the notion that even though we’ve never met, I share a very real friendship with many blogging brothers and sisters in Christ. Saying, “I’m better a Worship Pastor because I’m a blogger,” is a wild understatement.
2. Help with Prepping Worship
One of the elemental tasks to being a worship pastor involves selecting music for weekend services. Music selection was once an arduous process due to lack of quality tunes. Now the opposite is true. There are so many quality songs and resources available that it can be overwhelming to try to narrow down what works for your specific setting.
One segment of Web 2.0 has tremendously helped me in the song selection process has been subscribing to the RSS feeds of bloggers who post set lists and worship confessionals. Every week, with relatively very little effort or time investment on my part, I get exposed to the set lists from numerous different churches around the world. These churches represent diverse styles, denominations and sizes.
The benefits are many. Among them are the fact that without any other resource I am kept abreast of new worship music. I don’t have to try out every new song to see if it will work, but rather I have an army of local church worship leaders as my resource. I get to hear their feedback on how well that tune worked within their context and I am better armed to decided whether it will work in mine. The ability to do this simply did not exist prior to web 2.0.
Note to bloggers: Post the set list! Videos are cool, but they are also time consuming. Post the list so I can quickly scan it. If i trust your opinion as a blogger and see that you are doing songs I’m interested in then I’ll click through to watch your video.
3. Connecting Better with My Own Congregation
There are several people within my home church who read my blog and leave comments. I certainly make use of “old-fashioned networking” like phone calls and face to face conversation - but there is a limit to how much can be down. It’s impossible to call every person on my team on the phone every night - but there’s no limit to how many of them can read my blog. To have a face to face conversation you have to be in the same place at the same time, but blog commenting suffers no such constrains. People can comment at any time and in any place. It’s the asynchronous nature of the communication that makes blogging so powerful.
I’m still new at my job and haven’t heavily promoted my blog, but I’m excited about the deeper connections I can make with people right here in Huntsville, AL through blogging.
Note: The web can’t replace phone and face-to-face contact, it can only supplement it. In fact I have talked with many of my blogging buddies on the phone and even met some in real life to further the connection.
Summed Up
Web 2.0 apps, especially those related to blogging, have positively impacted my worship ministry by tying me into a network of church professionals, easing the process of planning worship services and broadening the relationships I already have with people at my local church.
Jeff Miller posted about how Web 2.0 social apps and networking have revolutionized his life.
I’ve been contemplating Twittering for a while now. Joining in has been long overdue. This post from John Voelz just put me over the edge and I had to sign up.
You can all follow me now on twitter @billychia
A few people deserve big props in helping my conversion to tweet:
Chris, Los, Alex, Anne, and Russ
Honerable mentions:
Pete, Jon, Jeff, Fred, Rich, Bobby, Mark, Eric, Victor, Steve, Conner, Russell, Joel, Lewis, Tam, Brent, Ben, Heidi, James, and Jay
Remeber, you don’t always get to close the deal. Every seed you plant matters.
Thanks, I know I’m gonna like this.
I am having trouble adding twitter to my gmail im, any tips?
I’ve really been digging Shaun Groves’ recent series on simplicity.
Check out the series so far:
I can appreciate many of the issues Shaun brings up. At the Chia house we are continually having conversations on how to live more simply.
Here’s how some of the talk goes:
Why live simply?
A large motivator for us is the ethic of being a one-income family. We have the best kids not only because Sarah is such a tremendous mother but also becuase she has the time to invest in them. We’re not opposed to women working, many women do it well, but it’s not what God has called our family to. To make this work we have to sacrifice a lot, but for us the end result is very worth it.
How we’re doing it now?
Some of the simple things we do around here are similar to Shaun’s:
What’s next?
The conversation never stops at our house. Right now much of it has centered around the fact that quality food is expensive. We are trying to strike a balance between eating healthy and keeping the food budget down.
I have been a long-time Sprint cellphone customer. The voice quality on their network has always been noticeably better than the rest.
Recently I’ve had terrible customer relations problems with them. I decided to simply cancel my account. This led to more frustration as I dealt with a difficult cancellation department. I was at a point of such deep disappointment that I planned on canceling my phone and never choosing Sprint again.
Until today.
I talked to amazing customer service rep who came up with a creative solution to my problem. Even though I’ve talked to 15 reps that were all frustrating, this one rep got me on track. She has redeemed Sprint’s name in my mind.
Sometimes It only take one nice person to make a difference.
A lot of churches are like Sprint. They are full of broken people that do a terrible job at “customer relations.” After all, we’re all human and we all have bad days. Sometimes someone can interact with the church and get spiritually beat up by 15 negative people. For that person they may simply need one nice person to offer some spiritual encouragement and that would make all the difference in the world.
Today you have the oppertunity to be that one person in your world.
Will you take it?
I hate grape Dynatap. The mere thought of it evokes my gag reflex. I knew some kids who are addicted to the flavor, but ran and hid when I had a cough.
Truth is like medicine - it can taste bad, but in end you’re much better off when you take it.
I love the age we are living in. Using web-based apps rather than desktops apps makes it possible to get things done on any computer. In fact this little exercise in having my main PC go down has only taught me that I need to move even more of how I function off of one centralized PC and onto the a decentralized internet server.
Here are my Top 7 Free Online Applications
Despite my main computer being out of commission I’ve been able to access all of the above.
My office computer is still down but worship arts at Chase Valley is not out. In a previous post I mentioned a few of the cool things that happened simply because I didn’t have a computer. Yet another victory to add to the list was the fact that Sarah offered to photoshop the sermon graphics on our home computer while I did battle with our router.
She came up with some great images.
This image is from part 2 in the “Wind & Fire” series, “Catch the Wind.”
You can read her post to see some more of her stuff.
Worship Confessional number 12.
Here you’re getting 4 guitar players on screen plus clips from the worship set!
What more could you ask for?
A set list?
ok.
While Surfing Technorati’s Top 100 I came across Copyblogger.com
The posts are quippy and fun while offering concrete, practicals tips on being a better writing.
Bloggers are writers. Check it out and blog better today.
Wednesday I pushed the power button on my computer and nothing happened.
I pushed it again.
Nada.
Zip.
The network was down and to add insult to injury my computer dies. Blah.
Well after many days of toil I found out that many of the problems were caused when ATT upgraded our account and switched us from a single static IP configuration to a multiple static IPs configuration. The network is now up and running and everyone else can get on it except for me. Because my computer is dead.
So I show up to band practice wildly unprepared. The server room dust still clung to the lenses of my glasses as I attempted to apologize to my band as to why their music wasn’t in the right key.
On a “normal” work week one of the things I do is transpose the songs into the right keys. I’m getting better at transposing on the fly in my head, but for some songs I only have them in G or D so that I can capo. I make an extra copy for the band transposed into the real key the song is in. We wasted a lot of time at practice writing in the chords.
Then the cool thing.
My bass player says, “Can you email me the chord charts and I’ll transpose them?”
So I sent them from my home computer and he transposed them and sent them out to the rest of the band. A very rockin’ thing to do.
Some times we have no idea what we are capable of doing until technology breaks and we’re forced to learn something new. (Like configuring a network.)
Sometimes we have no idea what others are capable of doing until technology breaks and we’re forced to rely on them. (Like transposing chord sheets.)
Hmm… I wonder what else I can break?!
