This Friday, at Coral Ridge, choirs from our church and and school (Westminster Academy) will join some of South Florida’s finest soloists, some of the best players from Miami’s musical scene, and organist Chelsea Chen to perform what will no doubt be a stellar interpretation of G. F. Handel’s Messiah. They will be conducted by Renee Costanzo, director of the choral program at Westminster Academy. The longer I dabble in this field of “Worship & Arts,” the clearer sense I get … Read More
Saving Preaching from its Bad Rap
Liberate is one of my favorite sites on the planet. It is regularly pumping out the best reflection on life’s most important subject: the law-gospel paradigm. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, or if you don’t think that something as odd-sounding as “the law-gospel paradigm” should be afforded such high accolades, well, you haven’t been reading Liberate, or you haven’t been reading it enough. A huge shot in the arm would be to come to the Liberate 2014 … Read More
Fighting the Demons of Worship Leader Depression
It’s part of our lot in life as artist-types that many of us tend to be built with a wider emotional range than the rest. We feel highs higher, and we feel lows lower. Great music and great art often come from a deep place of catharsis, and sometimes it’s the good kind and sometimes it’s the bad kind. I’ve been leading worship for over a decade now, and I’ve come to realize that life cycles of various forms of … Read More
Worship Leaders as Kohathites: Called to Serve in Most Holy Things
Chalkboard Devotionals at Coral Ridge Every week, I gather our music/worship staff together for some team time. We devotionally reflect and process different aspects of what worship is and does, and as a new leader in a new context, I find this time invaluable for casting vision and shaping the sanctum sanctorum of Coral Ridge’s worship culture at large. It starts here. We recently threw up some chalkboard paint on a wall and bordered it with some leftover trim, and it’s … Read More
How to Develop Your Own Philosophy of Worship
Whether you’re a worship leader, a pastor, a church leader, or a congregant, having the basic building blocks of a philosophy of worship is vital. When you have your philosophy in place, it helps guard against the type of decision-making that will ultimately hurt or mal-form you and your congregation. When you lead and make decisions from your philosophy, as opposed to from your hip, your leadership becomes much more purposeful, wise, and (when your philosophy is borne out of theological reflection) … Read More
Is it Fair for Us to Evaluate Where People’s Hearts are at in Worship When We Can’t Really Know?
Don’t Judge Me, Man! I sometimes get push-back when I make evaluative claims about my local church’s worship–like I did in a recent post where I said: 15-20% are strongly engaged in worship, 55-60% are slightly engaged, and 15-20% are nearly completely disengaged. People feel accused and judged, and some feel like they’ve been wrongly pegged or pigeonholed. It’s emotional, too, because people feel like their hearts are being judged based on external observation. It’s understandable. Because we live in a culture which … Read More
Deflating the Myth that We Worship Leaders Serve Perfect Churches
Image from americangreetings.comWe’re Not Any Better I’ve had a lot of back-door conversations with fellow worship leaders, slugging it out week after week in the local church. This blog has connected me with many of you, and we’ve met at conferences or just on the road when I’ve been to your towns or when you’ve been to mine. When we get down to the deep conversations where we’re sharing the joys and woes of pastoral ministry in the context of … Read More
Worship Leaders, Keep Watch Over God’s Flock
Worship Leaders, Whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, you ARE overseers of God’s flock, the local church. The role that you perform is inherently one of shepherding. Whether you have been recognized, ordained, installed, or named as an official church leader (with whatever titles your particular church uses: elder, pastor, deacon, etc.), all this is fairly inconsequential to the role and influence you already and actually have as worship leaders. Even if you’re “just the … Read More
A Comprehensive Collection of Short Explanations of Various Elements of Liturgy
For over five years, while Pastor of Worship & Liturgy at Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church in Denver, CO, I wrote weekly “column notes” for our four-page order of worship. These brief notes would appear in a long, narrow strip on the right side of our bulletin, and their main function was to educate our worshipers about what we were doing in worship and to inspire a more whole-hearted understanding of and participation in worship. Over those five years, I watched … Read More
Rightly Parsing “Being a Clean Vessel” for Worship Leaders
Christianese Sometimes we evangelicals forget how much we “ghetto-ize” our vocabulary. Videos like this one humorously remind us of how foreign our conversations can sound. One of the phrases that often gets tossed around in ministry circles, especially in the spheres of worship leading, is “being a clean vessel.” We pray prayers like these before worship services: Lord, we just want to be clean vessels this morning as we come to You. We don’t want our sin to get in … Read More