In various spheres of the online worship conversation, a few posts (like this one and this one) have been circulating and dominating many of our social media feeds. They offer a strong (and not completely unwarranted) critique of “contemporary worship” and “megachurch worship.” Their sharply critical posture, along with their provocative titles, is certainly what has attracted so many people to click, read, interact, and share. Several people have asked what I think about it all. The short answer is … Read More
Reflections on the Calvin Symposium 2016
The Calvin Symposium simply has to be named among the best worship conferences out there. The challenge of getting so many different voices and perspectives in one place engaging in convicted yet loving dialogue is difficult, but the folks at Calvin have done a remarkable job of creating that space and setting the tone. My own experience as a conference attender, worshiper, panelist, and breakout session leader was shaped therefore not only by the content of the conference but the … Read More
The Case for the Emotional Worship Leader
My Facebook feed blew up this morning with this intense and quite moving footage from a New Zealand wedding. They’re engaging in a sincere and powerful Haka ritual, and though I don’t understand a word of it, I think I get it…and I think you do, too. Our Love-Hate Relationship with Emotions Let’s face it. We evangelicals have a checkered past when it comes to emotions and worship. The Second Great Awakening–that early nineteenth century movement of westward-sweeping revivals–polarized the … Read More
Worship as Jesus Renewing His Wedding Vows
Metaphors are powerful, but this one’s more than a metaphor… Pastors from time to time are asked by older couples to join with them in what is most often a quaint yet meaningful ceremony. After decades of marriage together, committed husbands and wives sometimes desire to renew their wedding vows with one another. It’s a time for each to remember and recount what they’ve committed to, and to declare their intentions to remain faithful for the next set of years … Read More
New Album Coming in a Few Short Months!
God is always giving us a new song to sing. We’ve been writing and dreaming about this next handful of songs for the church for quite a while. In fact, a lot of the hardship that Coral Ridge has gone through over the last year has threatened to forestall if not shut down this project. But we, being both stubborn and confident in our Warrior-King Jesus’s power midst the fiery darts of the enemy, have pressed forward. And we want … Read More
Jesus Loves Me releases TODAY!
Jesus Loves Me (Single) by Zac Hicks & Coral Ridge Worship A while back, Coral Ridge Music purposed to write kids’ songs for our local church that gave shape to the liturgical rhythms we hope to instill in our little ones. We wrote several songs that our kids currently sing, and we’re writing more. We’ve written songs of praise, songs of confession, and songs of grace and absolution. The first-fruits of this labor was a project tackled by our interns … Read More
Come Take a Week-Long Worship Class With Me – March 2016
Knox Seminary | AT704 | Worship Join me March 7-11 at Knox Seminary in Fort Lauderdale! This is an open invitation to worship leaders and pastors wanting to deepen their understanding of worship, liturgy, and pastoring. It’s tailor-made for people on the go who can’t commit to a semester’s worth of class but might be able to do some good reading ahead of time and then break away for a week. My hope is that pastors would see the value … Read More
Coral Ridge Music Releases – Chelsea Chen Live at Coral Ridge
Friends, I’m so excited to let you know about the release of a live concert recording that our young organist, Chelsea Chen, performed last year on our 7,000-pipe Ruffatti organ. There’s a lot of off thinking out there when it comes to musical style in the church these days. One of those skewed ideas is that the pipe organ has no place in the modern church music paradigm. A year ago I engaged an experimental thought project about what the … Read More
The Difference Between Worshiping God and Worshiping Worship
(a reworked post from 2011) “Idolatry happens when we take good things and make them ultimate things.” ~Tim Keller The following comparisons are meant to be provocative and evocative. Even if stark statements like these generalize and absolutize a bit too much, one thing I have learned from reading the reformers is that the discipline of “dialectic,” as they called it (roughly, the practice of pitting ideas and statements against each other for the sake of disputation and dialogue), yields a … Read More
The Worship Pastor – Book Update #1
(Read the initial post)(Read Update #2) Book Update #1 Thank you all for your continued interest in the content of my book, The Worship Pastor. It’s scheduled to release in October 2016 (that’s NEXT year, folks). Some of you have been asking about its progress, so here’s a brief update. My manuscript was due on October 1, and I met that deadline…thankfully. The editor has been reading through it and passing it on to a few other readers for feedback. … Read More