I’d love to invite you to two different opportunities to connect and grow in worship leading and songwriting. I’ll be collaborating with some great institutions to do some important teaching and reflection on our craft, and I’d love for you to join me! The first will be an opportunity for a more intimate gathering, and the second will be one of the best mega-worship conferences on earth.

Writing Songs for Today’s Church

Trinity School for Ministry (Ambridge, PA) | January 4-6, 2016

This will be a more focused and intimate gathering on the campus of an established Anglican seminary outside of Pittsburgh. I will be joining veteran worship leader, songwriter, and thinker, Andy Piercy, and author and Yale professor, Dr. Maggi Dawn. We will all be bringing some pretty unique perspectives to songwriting, and I think that the coming together of these angles will yield some fascinating discussions. I’ve been to one of these seminars before as a participant, and my favorite part was the interaction with the great group of folks in the room. I’ve made some lasting friendships and partnerships in this venue.

My angle will be in talking about the nature of songwriting in interaction with the hymn tradition, “Making Old Things New.” The cost is $120 for the three days. Read more about it here.

Calvin Symposium on Christian Worship

Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI) | January 28-30, 2016

I love this conference. It is massive, deep, and rich. There is something for everyone, and you won’t be disappointed. I will be participating in three things:

Thursday Morning: Best Contemporary Worship Music You May Not Know
A panel discussion with David M. Bailey, Bruce Benedict, Emmett Price, Wen Reagen, Sandra van Opstal, moderated by Monique Ingalls

I love these people. This will be a fascinating discussion. 

Thursday Afternoon: The Worship Leader as Pastoral Musician
A panel discussion with David M. Bailey, Rawn Harbor, Ed Willmington, Monique Ingalls, Sandra van Opstal.

Ditto what I said for Thursday morning.

Friday & Saturday Workshop 
The Worship Pastor: Thinking Through the Pastoral Dimensions of Worship Leading
This will be my seminar where I explore many of the themes in my forthcoming book, The Worship Pastor. Here’s the description:

Whether we know it or not, we worship leaders are pastors. The services we plan and lead have a formative effect on the worshipers with whom we gather weekly. The question is not if people are being formed by our leadership, but how. In this workshop, we will explore various vignettes, different lenses through which we might see the pastoral ministry of worship leading. In a mixture of biblical framing and practical application, we will look at the Worship Pastor through metaphors like Prayer Leader, Theological Dietician, Caregiver, Mortician, War General, and Emotional Shepherd. 

As you can imagine, I’m pumped about this one. 

The good news about this conference, too, is that if you don’t like me, it’s so big you can totally avoid seeing me altogether and still get a lot of positive things out of this week! 🙂 Check out the conference website here.