Now, I have long loved Hillsong’s music. They are one of my “go to” places to look for new worship music for my church. The worship leaders there are simply anointed. God has blessed them with gifts for writing songs with strong melodies and lyrics that connect with today’s generation of worshippers. I was really excited to see them in a live setting.

I wasn’t disappointed.

It was the most authentic and passionate expression of worship I have experienced in a long time. I want you to get a picture of this in your head: Young and old, racially and culturally diverse, standing together with an expectation that God was going to show up. They were EXPECTING Him! For 3 uninterrupted hours, every hand lifted into the air and every voice sang out their offering of worship to the Father. It was an intense, spiritual workout!

The Hillsong United guys made it clear that none of the evening was about the lights or smoke or the heavy guitar riffs; it was about an authentic expression of worship to God. And it was. The band and leaders had such an amazing ability to get out of the way and let the Spirit move.

.

And at the end of three hours – no one was ready to go. They wanted more. They wanted to CONTINUE worshipping!

I woke up the next morning still exhausted from a night of worship. Yes, you read that right, exhausted.  I had 3 hours of pouring myself to God! I have never felt like that before.

A series of questions to ponder from the night:

How can we encourage our churches to EXPECT God to show up in our worship assemblies? I am convinced that if people look for Him, they will find Him. Is it a teaching problem? Is it that our churches have become spiritually lethargic or apathetic? Is it because we really don’t expect to encounter Him? Are we too comfortable learning about Him on a Sunday morning and not interested in meeting with Him?

What do you think?

My final take home was this song. If you haven’t heard it, go to iTunes and download it! I posted these lyrics to it below.

Like An Avalanche

Verse 1

Beautiful God, Laying Your majesty aside You reached out in love to show me life Lifted from darkness into light- oh

Verse 2

King for a slave

Trading Your righteousness for shame

Despite all my pride and foolish ways

Caught in Your infinite embrace

Oh

Chorus

And I find myself here on my knees again

Caught up in grace like an avalanche

Nothing compares to this love love love

Burning in my heart

Verse 3

Saviour and Friend

Breathing Your life into my heart

Your word is the lamp unto my path

Forever I’m humbled by Your love

Oh

Bridge

Take my life, take all that I am

With all that I am I will love You

Take my heart, take all that I have

Jesus how I adore You

Chorus

And I find myself here on my knees again

Caught up in grace like an avalanche

Nothing compare to this love love love

In light of this, I want to share 4 additional tips to help craft a good worship flow.

5) Pay attention to the transition between different elements. A worship leader should not just want to eliminate silence, but to move seamlessly from music to video to sermon to communion to (fill in element here).  For example, you are playing a video with music behind it.  Choose a song in the same key as the background music so you can move seamlessly between the two elements.

LRCC does a meet and greet time every Sunday, which is one of my favorite parts of our services.  It gives our church time to fellowship for a few minutes and/or meet any visitors (I prefer the term “guests”) who are seated near them. However, it is hard to transition back from this brief “social time” into a spirit of celebration or reflection. This Sunday, we are trying something different. We are going to quietly “ooh” the song “I Worship You, Almighty God” followed by a prayer. I believe this will ease us back into a time of reflection without feeling like we just did a 180.

This is where we get to think creatively.  There are several ways to create a flow between these elements.  Are there ones that work better for your church?  What has been successful? What has crashed and burned?

6) Beware of the biggest Worship Flow Killer: ANNOUNCEMENTS.  This element is a struggle at most churches. It is a vital way to communicate special projects, trips, prayer requests, and events to your people. So, where do you put them in your service where everyone hears them? Some opt for the beginning of services; just get them out of the way! Others know that many of their people arrive “fashionably late”, so the beginning isn’t an option.

Some churches place announcements at the end of services. The upside- everyone is in attendance and hears them.  Downside- many have trained themselves to tune them out by the end of services. Church members are turning their phones back on, pulling their things together, and ready to eat lunch.

A third option is to place announcements right smack in the middle services, maybe just before the sermon, to eliminate the problems of both. However, placing them in the middle disrupts the flow of worship.  It gets people thinking about plans and schedules and “How are we gonna pay for this trip?” questions.  It is extremely difficult to find a way to call the congregation into refocusing on the message.

So, with the pros and cons of all the options, which is best? That is something each congregation must decide on its own. We have just recently reevaluated where our announcements go in our church service at LRCC. We have been doing them during the offering while the baskets are being passed (I think this is a good idea), but it was right in the middle of services. We felt the resistance as we pulled them back into a song or two before the lesson.

We have now opted to put them near the end immediately following our prayer time. We have a “Altar Call/ Prayer” song as people respond to the message.  Both our Preaching minister and Involvement minister read through the prayer requests and we pray.  We immediately move into the announcements with our involvement minister. Some of our announcements are about the sick and prayer request related news, so we begin with those. This transition works seamlessly! Then we end with a closing song – one that is a charge to go and live out the message we just heard.

7) Don’t overuse music as transitions. With a cappella churches, we don’t have the luxury of having the key player or pianist play transition music behind everything or during prayers. We have to think creatively about these kind of things. I like the idea of using ooh’s (as we are this Sunday), but I do so with caution.

Two reasons:

a. You have to have a well-trained praise team to do this. I have seen some teams try this and end up overpowering the pray-er or fall apart on tempo. Some teams just aren’t comfortable singing anything but words – and that’s ok.

b. Like bread, it can get stale quickly. So, use it sparingly. Besides, part of the creative process is finding creative ways to make a worship time flow. Let’s not cheapen things by always using the same old ideas.

No matter how much you plan, the Spirit of God is the only One who makes it work. I’ve created and crafted what I thought was the ideal worship flow, only for it to be lackluster and rigid.  There have also been times when I thought: “This Sunday isn’t going to be very good”, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Worship was vibrant and passionate – and it had nothing to do with my planning!

You must remember that the Spirit of God can work through your planning and creative energy.  If I’m reading 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 correctly, He gave that creative energy to you! But realize that He also can take what you feel is your weakest work and breathe life into it.  It is in those times that He is reminding us that we don’t control the Spirit. It isn’t about us – it is all about God! If you take nothing else from this blog, remember this last point as we plan, create, and build better worship flows!

As Larry The Cucumber of VeggieTales fame exclaims, “I laughed, I cried. It moved me, Bob.”

Too often Sunday morning reads like a stale novel. It’s predictable. The characters are flat. There’s nothing compelling about it to make you want to turn to the next chapter to keep reading.

Have you ever been to a church service like that?

As a worship leader, it’s our job to put the pieces together to help tell a compelling story. Another way to say this is: it’s our job to create a good worship flow. We have a palate of words, songs, music, videos, readings, prayers, testimonies, the sermon, communion, etc. to work with. All these elements fit together to help clearly communicate the overall message and how we should respond.

You can tell when flow works, right? The hearers lean in and turn their heads a bit to catch every word. Like a sponge, they soak in every phrase sung or spoken. Worship becomes more intense; more personal. I want that kind of worship every Sunday, don’t you?  I’ll be honest, that kind of worship can only come from the work of the Spirit of God. However, I want to share some tips I’ve learned to help eliminate the distractions and allow God to move!

8 tips to create a better worship flow

1) Keep groups of songs in the same key. If you are doing a block of up tempo worship songs, keep them in the same key and sing them straight through. No stopping! You may need to rehearse this with the worship team to nail those transitions, but it is worth the extra effort!

2) Pay attention to tempo. It kills me to see some worship leaders lead fast song/ slow song/ fast song/ slow song. I feel like I am in the car with a new driver who is hitting the brakes every few feet! Are there times when an abrupt and dramatic change in tempo is necessary? Yes. But use those sparingly. If you need to move to a slow set of songs, I would suggest a good medium tempo song as a transition between the two. It just feels right. This can also be achieved with a prayer or a video. The same is true when moving from slow to fast.

3) Let the songs help tell the same story as the teaching time. It is powerful to respond in worship with the same type of language you just received in the message, so choose songs that reflect a similar theme. I realize that you can’t force every song in a service to work in this way. In fact, I would never suggest getting every song to match perfectly. But there does need to be consistency in the message. And if you are struggling to make it all fit together, I believe that straightforward worship songs are always an appropriate choice.

4) Eliminate awkward silences. Unless the silence is intended for personal reflection time, do your best to avoid them. It is easy for people to disengage when these moments occur. Our postmodern brains usually jump to one conclusion: what has gone wrong? One of the worst offenses is this scenario: The last note is sung just before the scripture reading. Then, a few moments of silence. A figure from the back pew arises and begins to move to the closest aisle. Hundreds of eyes are now glued to the person as he or she is casually walks to the stage- ALL IN SILENCE. Do what you can do steer clear of this one.

This is a two parter. Stay tuned for tips 5-8!

Catalyst West 2011: Eugene Peterson from Catalyst on Vimeo.

As an artist, musician, designer, writer, you must NURTURE whatever sparks your creativity.  This is vital to keeping your thoughts and ideas fresh. I “attended” (via webcast) the songwriting conference called Song Discovery in the Round last week.  Joel Lindsey’s presentation really got me thinking about some big questions. What puts me in a creative mood?  What really inspires me?

Of all the thoughts and advice he gave, this list of things jumped out at me.  I want to share what I wrote down and received from his talk.

In order to nurture your creativity you need to do 7 things:

1)    You need time to do nothing. You need to pencil in or put on the schedule time to do absolutely NOTHING!  Joel suggests planning a weekend retreat for yourself. No family, no adventures, no cell phones, no internet – just time to think and write. You must find a space to completely unplug.  Get all the world and stress out of your life. He challenged all those who are rolling their eyes at this idea that if getting better at your craft is that important to you, then you CAN’T NOT do this.  Even if you can only block out an entire day – you must get to a space to do nothing.

2)    Pick a place that inspires you. Is it being near water?  Go there.  Is it in the mountains?  Load up your jeep and go.  Maybe you have a quiet place at your church or a park. Maybe you have a room at home that is filled with art and photos of things that spark your creativity. Spend some time looking at those things that stir up passion and ideas in your soul.

3)    Eliminate stress. It seems to be implied from the first two points, but you must get rid of everything that causes you stress.  Does driving stress you out?  Then don’t do it. Hole up somewhere and don’t leave.  If you have to go, then bike!

4)    Read. This point can’t be emphasized enough! “If you are a writer, then you have to be a reader!” (my loose paraphrase of Stephen King). There are words on a page that spark creativity in all kinds of directions in your mind. Keep a notebook, pen, or highlighter with you whenever you read. This can work for movies and music too! You ever tried keeping a notebook and jotting idea in a movie theater?  Try it!

5)    Write. Doesn’t matter what you write at first. It could be in your journal, a letter, or even forced writing.  It may be that all you write down on a page is… “I can’t think of anything to write, so I’m writing these words down until something happens, etc…” It is a discipline like this that helps you break through writer’s block. It stretches those creative muscles that may be a bit weak. You may find that it takes some time before the water begins to trickle, run, and then pour out of you!

6)    Conversation. Every person’s story is a song idea or picture or painting just waiting to happen. Spend lots of time listening to people’s stories and sharing your own. You might be surprised that God works through these moments to give you a special gift!

7)    Surround yourself with what inspires you. Buy and hang art in your office and home, hang photographs whether you bought them or took them yourself.  Surround yourself with things that help you get in a creative place.  Spend time looking at them, drinking them in. Your surroundings will either encourage your creativity or take it away.

Remember, your creativity is not a light switch! It’s not something you can just turn on and off whenever you need it. You must warm up like you are getting ready to run. You must stretch those muscles in order to leap into a creative space. You must give yourself the time to get there. And these disciplines are a great way to engage your creativity and “prime the pump”.

The second is a songwriter’s conference in Nashville, TN. It’s called SongDiscovery in the Round. I didn’t have the time to travel down this week, so I paid for an Online Pass and have been watching the main sessions  from my computer. I’ve been filled from presentations from songwriters and musicians such as Charlie Peacock, Joel Lindsey, and Keith Getty. They have stirred my creative juices and inspired me to become a better songwriter.

As church leaders and worship leaders, we do our share of “pouring out”  every week.  I can’t stress enough that we need to take time out of our schedules to refill our own cups. I know too many ministers who feel that they can’t leave their congregations to their own devices on a Sunday. Things may fall apart!  We can be control freaks at times, and it is in these times we remember that God is in control of his church.  It is a great discipline to regularly “unplug”, get out of town, and spend some time being refilled.

How do you get refilled spiritually?  What works best for you?

The Passover,

The Feast of the Unleavened Bread,

The Feast of First Fruits,

The Feast at Pentecost,

The feast of Trumpets,

The Day of Atonement,

The Feast of Booths

All these feasts celebrated God and what he had done, but they also reminded the Israelites of their identity. They were a part of something; something larger than themselves. A group that God had done something with in the past. A group that God is still doing something with today. The feasts and worship were a way to remember who they are.

Do our communion services feel like that to you?

My experience of the Lord’s Supper has been of mostly quiet and personal reflection. There is no speaking; no community- mostly silence. It is about focusing as intently as you can on the cross- on Jesus’ death. Some read scripture to focus; some close their eyes. Others just try their best to avoid eye contact with those seated around them. The only permissible time to interact with another human being is when the server comes by to hand out or pick up the trays of crackers or juice.

We used trays filled with several, small cups filled (ok, only halfway) with grape juice.  It always left you wanting a bit more. And I felt a little guilty taking a second sip from my cup if I didn’t get it all the first time. Why the baby cups!?!

Let me stop here for a moment. Don’t get me wrong, there are many churches who still practice Communion this way. And I still feel that they are honoring God.  But, if I’m being honest, the practice has always felt a bit cold to me. I miss the joy and community I see in scripture!

Now, I don’t have the time or the ink to get into all the theological points of communion.  I for sure won’t get into it here! But I will recommend John Mark Hicks’ book Come To The Table for those wanting to get into deeper study in this subject. His blog has some great resources too! His book has really encouraged me and shaped my thoughts on communion. It has helped me dream a bit about how to celebrate it a bit differently.

So, I want to share a practical idea on how to reclaim the “community” of communion.

We call it “Family Communion.” I have been a part of this at several churches and conferences now and it has become my favorite part of worship! I’m sharing it here because I believe more churches should try it if they haven’t already.

1) Several “Communion Stations” are set up all over the auditorium. These are all prepped before the Worship assembly. The idea is to get people out of the pews and around a table. It’s hard to have community with the back of someone’s head!

2) We announce for elders, shepherds, or church staff to go to one of the stations. They are there to welcome people and/or to pray with them.  I have seen some leaders help lead a small group at the table who are new to this way of doing things. I have seen others who have been pulled aside to pray with people for the entire time. We have had to sing several extra songs because so many people were praying together. If we have to lengthen our services, let’s do it because of prayer!

3) After a prayer of blessing over both elements, people are welcome to get up from their seats and go to one of the stations.  We ask that people go with their family or with their friends.  If they see someone who is sitting alone, invite them to take communion with them!

It is amazing to see what happens during this moment.  I have seen families or friends wait on each other and take it at the same time. Others will use this as a teaching moment for their family. Parents will bring their kids up to the station with them and teach them about the body and blood of Jesus.

4) As people are getting up from their seats and sharing in the Lord’ Supper together, the worship team usually sings several songs in the background.

5) As people finish, they go back to their seats to reflect, to pray, or to continue fellowship until the music is done.

It DOES get a little loud at times. It WILL get a little rambunctious. And that’s OK. Some fear that “Family Communion” pushes to the verge of irreverence. I disagree. Reverence and fellowship can share a room! The people of God always get a bit noisy when they get together, don’t they?

There are several ideas on how to do bring “worship renewal” to the Lord’s Supper. This is just one way I have found that works really well in our context. LRCC did this for the first time at Easter and it was an incredible moment for our church.  I am hoping we can grow into doing it on a regular basis.

Maybe you have done something just like this or similar. What other thoughts or ideas do you have to help communicate the “table” part of Communion? What have you tried that was a meaningful experience for your church?

Growing up, my church didn’t celebrate it all that much.   I can remember being told, “we don’t celebrate Easter because we celebrate it EVERY Sunday.” Have you heard that before? I’ve heard it about Christmas too.  It’s simply not true.  Not only did we not celebrate Jesus resurrection, we really didn’t celebrate Jesus at all.

As I’ve have gotten older, I have begun to appreciate the rhythms of the “Christian Calendar” more and more.  I LOVE the season of expectation of a Savior in Advent and the celebration of Jesus’ arrival at Christmas.  I enjoy the sacrificial weeks of Lent that reminds me of the Son of Man’s sacrifice. I love singing “Hosanna” songs on Palm Sunday, thinking and meditating on Jesus’ final days with Holy week, and finally celebrating Jesus’ resurrection at Easter.

There is a cadence to it; a rhythm.  And as I let myself be guided through these seasons of worship, I feel a connectedness to this grassroots movement called the church.  I think of the thousands and thousands of worshippers who lived before us and used the Christian calendar to bring “the beat” into their lives.  When we do this, it’s as if we all nod our head to that beat.  We are changed through these spiritual rhythms of our year.

Robert Webber, in his book Ancient Future Time says that, “… we are shaped and formed spiritually by Christ in the church through worship that continually orders the pattern of our spirituality into a remembrance of God’s saving deeds and the anticipation of the rule of God over all creation.”

Why bring this up now? Because it is vitally important for Christians to celebrate Easter! There are so many churches that do little more than simply reference the resurrection of Jesus.  Is that how churches feel about the event that changed the course of history? We must reclaim and recognize the wonder of that spectacular event! The cross would mean nothing if Jesus had stayed dead.  The symbol of our life in Jesus is an empty tomb! Can we hang that around our necks? Can we tattoo that on our arms?

Now, let me be clear, I am NOT discounting the power of the cross. But I believe that the picture is incomplete without the empty tomb.  And it is something we must rejoice in!

So, whether you are a worship leader, on the praise team, or serving in church leadership; don’t forget to celebrate Easter! Don’t gloss over it. Don’t minimize it. Use that Sunday to do something special in your church services.  Use it as an opportunity to utilize the creative people in your church. Make it special! Remind people of the power of that event!

If you did do something special- AWESOME!  I’d love to hear what creative and special things you did to commemorate Easter.  I hope everyone who was a part of Easter services, whether you sang, played, ran lights, audio, or video, has had a chance to rest and re-cooperate. You have put in extra hours after your REAL job to help make that weekend extraordinary. You’ve listened to Easter music for weeks- enough to drive your families crazy. You all have given so much of your time and talent to make Easter services special and I want to thank you for all that you do!

It’s worth all the effort.

A brief rant on church history

I have one more major point in the discussion of a worship team on stage. But first, I want to re-visit the concept of “showy” for just a moment. I’ve reflected more on what it means to be too “showy”. I don’t think the concept starts with a group of people on a stage. I think it starts with the stage itself.

I’ve read a lot about the first century church. I have read how these early churches met in homes, hid in caves, etc.  No stages. No chairs. No suit and ties. Just small groups of people gathered together as a church (a family), eating together, serving the poor, worshiping God, and loving each other.

So, where did the idea of church members sitting in pews all facing toward a “stage” come from? An appointed leader stands on this “stage” facing the “audience” and leads them in a “church service”. Where did this whole concept emerge? Polycarp? Constantine? Peter? Our whole Sunday morning church experience is set up for an audience to “receive” from whomever is standing on the stage. Sounds a bit like “Christian theater”, doesn’t it? If we are going to argue that everything feels too showy, then we have to get at the root of the issue:  The concept of a group of people facing a stage is already set up for people to “expect” a performance. And that doesn’t just go for the praise team, it goes for the preacher as well! If we feel that a performance is a threat, maybe we should eliminate the very surroundings that encourage such an idea. Take out the pews and stage and all sit in a circle!

OK, ok- I digress. Though I agree with the above paragraph (I should, I wrote it!), I also realize that we can too easily become argumentative and reactionary. Those of us pushing for such changes in our churches can’t let Satan get a foothold on us. We can’t let it drive a wedge between those “for” or “against” it. This issue truly does not matter – like so many other issues and concepts. We have inherited this church, with its strengths and weaknesses, from our forefathers.

Now, back to the last group of people I want to address. We’ve discussed the suppressed voice of women in our churches, but there is another group- equally silenced in my church heritage. This group hits home for me because I’m one of them.

Standing praise teams encourage those with musical gifts to get involved.

I was an extremely musical kid growing up at an extremely conservative church of Christ.  I can remember singing songs on Sunday and hearing music in my head that wasn’t written in the hymnal. I heard Christian songs on the radio and knew that I could come up with an arrangement that we could use in church. I could use the music that God gave me to encourage my church family.  I wanted to be used for Him!

But those ideas were unwelcome. I had more than one meeting with elders telling me that those kinds of gifts weren’t useful in the Lord’s church.  I was literally told I had a “bum gift” and I should become a band director if I wanted to use my gifts. At the same time, I saw some of my friends who were gifted musicians and vocalists (both male and female) leave the church to sing and play in bars.  Some still loved God and ended up at churches that were more “user friendly” to those with musical skills.

Seeing my friends leave killed me. I’ll be honest- I wanted to leave too.  I had a “bum gift” anyway, so what was the point?

But then I went to a church that welcomed such “bum gifts”.  They didn’t alienate the right-brained, creative types… they embraced them! They found ways to use those with musical giftings to bless the church body. My first experience with this was seeing standing praise teams at Woodmont Hills Family of God and Otter Creek Church of Christ in Nashville, TN. I saw people (like me!) who were able to stand on that stage and pour out their praise to God.

I wept.

Then I came across this passage in 1 Corinthians 12 (NIV):

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

Paul wasn’t writing the definitive list on gifts. These were examples of giftings and how they all were designed to work together.  I didn’t have a bum gift after all!  God didn’t curse me with a musical ear; The Spirit BLESSED me with it! It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders!

Too often our churches alienate the right-brained, creative types. There is no wiggle room in our liturgical formulas. Can we find ways to incorporate those with gifts in music, painting, pottery, and poetry into our church services? Are there other areas of giftings that we tend to alienate? Good questions to ask ourselves.

Final thoughts

It is because of all these things that I believe that standing worship teams are a good idea. They can be a healthy and encouraging part of the worship experience. They can bring a counter-cultural message of hope through diversity. They can bring an energy and air of excitement to our services. They can bring a variety of previously suppressed but valuable voices to the table.

Are there mistakes made along the way?  Sure. Can we figure out the perfect system?  Never. But we CAN know that God wants us to be one body. His Spirit gave us these gifts and there is nothing better than to give them back to him.

The Lindberg Road Church of Christ has just transitioned over the last few months to a standing praise team. I have shared all these thoughts at some point or another with several of our church members. Our leadership has discussed and prayed over them. Finally, our last piece of the transition was Easter Sunday. It was fantastic!! For those who are working toward this change- don’t give up. It can be done.  Be encouraged and have hope! Why?

Because there is something powerful about the body of Christ when it does what God made it to do!

If you have or gave purchased a copy of Taylor Publications new hymnal Songs for Worship and Praise, please get it right now and turn to page 48. Sitting  and nestled across from “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go” is… my song!?! “We Believe” made it into a hymnal! I’m really excited about it.

Join me in a little celebrative dance…. er um… little spontaneous choreography.