Great And Precious Promises

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. 

What are you in faith about? What are you hoping for? What evidence do you have in your heart that your eyes haven't quite seen yet?

God has promised us so many things if we just put our faith behind them.

"And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires." 2 Peter 1:4

From the verse above, it looks like we can't share His divine nature without His promises. You want to know how complex His nature is? Well, there are over 3000 promises in the Bible. I'd say that's a lot to share in!

What promises are you leaning on today? 

Are you believing to overcome obstacles?
"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?"

Are you believing to encounter God?
"And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart."

Are you believing for righteousness?

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." 

Are you believing for rest?

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

Are you believing for wisdom?

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

This is just 5 promises. There are thousands more.

This is why it's so important to memorize scripture. We can't just lean on what we glean from a 35 minute message each sunday. We've got to be deep into the Word each month, each week, each day. Can we honestly say, Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path? Or are we trying to walk by another light?

Worship Wednesday: Setlists

This year I worked hard to pick out new, fresh music for our WorshipArts worship teams. Sometimes it's a struggle to get great songs for each and every student, but, I think we've picked out music that is not only music that they can pour their hearts into, but also challenges them musically and spiritually to take that next step.

Here's our setlists for Spring 2012!

Relentless Happy Day There’s No One Like Our God Fire Fall Down Forever Reign Burning Ones I Surrender	The Banner Christ In Me Heaven On Earth The Anthem You Are Good Take Me In You Could Never Be Praised Enough
ReVolution Nothing is Impossible You Won’t Relent Rooftops With Everything No One Like You Create In Me A Clean Heart	Genesis Great I Am Freedom You Are Holy One Thing Remains Awaken Me Here In Your Presence

If you want to take a listen, here's GrooveShark playlists for each set. Two of the songs are missing, but I can't find them on GrooveShark at all. 

The Banner Worship Playlist

Relentless Worship Playlist

ReVolution Worship Playlist

Genesis Ministry Team Playlist

Make Disciples of All Nations

This coming season we're changing up our message team a lot. Last year we were blessed with seven brilliantly talented students who all had awesome calls of God on their lives and were eager to get out and do great things for God. Because of our team's work and God's grace, we were able to minister to youth by preaching almost two dozen messages collectively!

Last season was the first season, and we tried to make our message team very broad and well-rounded by providing not only sermon training, but songwriting and poetry, as well as a few other genres.

This year we're honing in on just preaching the Word, and I think that it will increase our effectiveness in our students. Last year there was tremendous growth in every team member and this year we're expecting exponentially more growth.

Tori and I will be teaching this team together. Tori brings an astounding level writing skill to the table, and I give tips on public speaking.

Also, God has blessed us with a new location to hold our practices! We're now able to use an actual platform in our meetings! We also increased our meeting time as well, which will allow us to get even more instruction in, including bringing in more pastors from the community to speak to our team!

As a side note, there are still a few days left to sign up! We meet on Saturday mornings in kalamazoo from 10:00 until 11:30. Send me a quick email if you're interested! peter@worshipartscentral.com

If you read this post please leave a comment below or on my facebook page!

Winter Ramp: Day 3

The first service started at 10am. We didn’t reserve a very large floor section and so our group was really cramped. But hey, the manifest presence of God is worth it.

The second set started with another worship set lead by Catherine Mullins (Who is now my second or third favorite female worship leader). She lasted a whole song before taking her boots off and dancing in her sock feet. She’s really expressive and leads her team very well. The setlist for this morning was:

When You Speak No One Else Everything (Lifehouse)

Also during the worship set Catherine Mullins and Karen Wheaton lead people through a prayer for deliverance from the fear of man. Karen’s daughter came up and had a testimony about how God has set her free from fear.

After worship, Dutch Sheets talked about dreams. His focus was that God is a dreamer, and He has breathed His nature into us, and called us to dream with Him. Our calling is simply to live our his dreams, plans and visions for our lives. The service ended with Jeremy, the electric guitarist from yesterday, leading a song that perfectly echoed the word that went out. Calling the body of Christ into the dreams that God has given them. Rick Peno joined in after a few minutes and they ended up dismissing half the crowd and continued worship for whoever wanted to stay.

The second worship service was lead by Rick Peno, who demonstrated the huge span of musical and spiritual backgrounds that were represented. They started with a song that sounded like an old Petra track, talking about how Johnny and Suzie Q got their lives transformed by being filled with Holy Ghost fire.

Their second song was a song that I remember from my elementary school days. They played “When I think of His goodness” with such freedom and jubilee that I knew that they had to be in touch with the party that’s going on in heaven. And the musical proficiency in the group was absolutely top-notch. Rick brought out his bluesy harmonica to crank things up a little bit towards the end.

After that he went into his popular “We’ve got the best dad in the whole world” song, as well as bringing back “Abba” from the first night. The last song was titled (I believe) “Pioneer.” It called church leaders and revivalists to not give up even though its hard getting the trail blazed and the ball rolling. One of the members of chosen was asked by Karen Wheaton to lead a prayer for those feeling discouraged by being the ones having to do all of the hard work to bring fire and passion to their church or school.

A large chunk of the afternoon service was dedicated to the ministry team “Chosen.” They performed four drama/dances, and gave short words of encouragement and prayers in between. I was really inspired by their format. They made sure that everything they did had a specific purpose. I cannot over-emphasize the impact the dramas had on the crowd and myself individually. The team is so unified and on fire that their ministry radiates God’s own word and heart.

Casey Doss finished out the service with a call to not slide back once you get home. He laid out multiple strategies for what to do when you come up against opposition when trying to bring back the revival. These included starting a weekly, purposeful, prayer group, and submitting to spiritual leadership.

Damon Thompson ended with a charge to pray as a youth group that the focused intensity would not go out. He had the youth groups circle up and pray with each other, about what they were going to do when they returned to their city.

The final worship service was like all the others in that everyone was giving their best, but it seemed like God was increasing what their best could be. For four hours they stayed in joy, passion and fervor. The setlist was:

You are Holy Heaven on Earth Light of Your Face (I think this is the title) Shekinah Glory

Damon Thompson brought the word of God to us tonight. He prophesied that we are stuck between two gates. We’re stuck between the encounter with God and the fulfilling of our destiny. He preaches from Acts 12, where Peter is miraculously released from prison, and the iron gate to the jail opens automatically. But when he reaches the gate to the house with the intercessors, he has to knock repeatedly in order to get in.

He said 2012 was a year that gates will be opened. That destinies would be fulfilled and encounters would become lifestyles. He called the church to step into it's proper role, as the ecclesia, the governing body of the spiritual realm.

The worship team came up and we interceded for the new year. We prayed that God would open up gates granting authority and dominion. Once the worship team came up they played a lot of short stanzas from a bunch of different songs, most of which I didn’t recognize, but I could tell others in the room did. (I appreciate that about the ramp. Their music and teaching styles vary, but they’re very true to the Word of God and to living out the truth inside.)

They put a countdown on the screen, worshipped until zero, and blew the shofar. They played songs of rejoicing, someone sprayed silly string on our bags, and 2012 began! They continued the service for about 15 minutes afterwards and then Karen Wheaton blessed everyone, and sent them out. I’ve never seen the majority of people this excited to leave a conference before. Usually its Bwah!! It’s ovvvvver!!! But these people are genuinely excited about going back to their cities and starting their prayer groups, secret devotional lives and subsequent revivals!!

WINTER RAMP DAY 1
WINTER RAMP DAY 2

Winter Ramp: Day 2

It’s day two of Winter Ramp and it’s gotten better and better!!

In the 10 am service Catherine Mullins lead an explosive worship set. We got a front row position! They played:

Made for Love

24 elders (WOW)

People get ready

How I Love You

How He Loves

Hero

Freedom

The push for this morning was deliverance. During worship there were four or five testimonies and prophesies about freedom from sin, addictions, and other bondage.

Tori and I got prayer and are feeling the affects of God’s delivering power!

The entire worship service was taken up by worship, testimonies and the alter call. The musicians played the whole time, which was neat to see their communication and leadership structure.

The song leader communicates to the bass player who has a microphone that is only piped through the band’s headphones. There’s no line of sight problems and it cuts down on miscommunication. Once WorshipArts gets an in-ear system I think we’ll set this system up.

The service ended with a joyful song that everyone jumped wildly to. One of the “Chosen” team members added a stanza to get everybody to get excited about what God had done. “I’m going to dance my crazy dance!”

We ate some sandwiches and checked out the bookstore. They have some really creative ideas for selling things. Big canvas-covered boxes used as signs, as well as creative cracker-barrel-like antiques scattered around the pristine event center. 

At 2pm the second service started. Rick Peno lead the worship. There was a bluesy electric guitarist that Rick asked to prophesy with his guitar. Very neat. 

You Are Holy

To Him That Sits On The Throne

"Singing, Making Melody In Our Hearts"

During that last song there was a moment where the lyrics stopped and the screen said "Make Your Own Song!"

To end the set, Karen Wheaton lead a 6-8 minute long shout of praise.

Chosen performed 2 of their dances, War Cry and My Beloved. Absolutely amazing group of Christians. My Beloved was done with all males, in a rotating/spotlight type of style. Very sweet. We ended up picking up their third dvd that's got 9 of their skits on it. Pretty excited to pull that out once we're back in Kalamazoo. 

There were two 15-minute short sermons given by two of the chosen team members. Very similar to what I want the WorshipArts message team to do at youth events. The first was a guy's story about using the spotlights God gave him in his high school to preach to his entire school about Christ. It ended with an encouragement to change schools for Christ. 

The second was a call to prayer, as well as practical instructions for how to pray. Prayer and getting into the Word of God were portrayed as vehicles to connect us with the Spirit of God. It was very encouraging, and ended with a time of prayer. The crowd gathered in youth groups to pray for their churches and cities. Our RooTs group prayed in a circle for an hour before breaking for dinner. 

After dinner Bryn Waddell was back. (yes!) They played: 

You Are Good (Bethel Church)

Happy Day

Freedom

Great I Am

The whole set was powerful, and didn't relent once. Damon Thompson came up and lead a prayer for healings during the last song.

Afterwards Chosen came up and performed "Behold the Lamb" which Karen Wheaton said they had been performing for over ten years! I first saw it when the Break the Grey interns did it at the Gathering Place Church at a RooTs gathering.

Perry Stone was the final speaker tonight and he blew everyone's socks off! He talked about offenses and how they are the devil's strategy for making christians give up. He said there are three strategies the devil uses to make the body of Christ quit:

1) Isolation - Elijah performed a dozen miracles and the very next thing that happens is he gets scared of Jezabel and goes off into the wilderness alone. This causes depression and eventually thoughts of his own death being desirable. Had God granted his fatal requests he would have never riden the chariot of fire up into heaven and fulfilled his destiny to be one of the two witnesses to the remnant of Israel in the final days. 

2) Shame - Perry Stone listed off dozens of instances in the Bible where great men were put to shame. But in every circumstance, God raised them up above their shame and saw to the finishing of the good work he began in each of their lives. 

3) Disappointment - When our idea of God's will doesn't turn out the way we thought it would go. We end up taking things back into our own hands and remove ourselves from God's perfect plan. We can get offended when we aren't given the big picture all at once, though if we got it all it would probably scare the pants off us. 

The service ended with a call to baptism in the Holy Ghost. The entire room was putting out more energy than any rock show I've ever seen. The people of God are so much better equipped to give exuberant praise than the world is. Even though the world tries its hardest to praise it's idols. 

Anyways, stay tuned for the final chapter tomorrow night! The service goes past midnight, so the update will probably be posted on the first of January. Have a great New Year! Be intentional about where your life is going! Don't let another year slip into mediocrity!

Please leave a comment!!

WINTER RAMP DAY 1
WINTER RAMP DAY 3

Expectancy: A Worship Essential

Jesus said if He would be lifted up, he would draw all men unto Himself. God said that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. He said that if we will seek him, we will find Him.

Why is it that we don't expect radical things to happen every single time we worship?

We believe what Romans 10:9 says: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." If we can believe that God will fulfill his promise to save those who call upon His name, why is it so hard to stand firm on the hundreds of promises God gives in the Bible about those who seek Him?

2 Chronicles 7:14 says: If my people, (that's you) who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways (that's worship), then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (that's the promise)

God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6) In face the rest of that verse says that without this faith, it is impossible to please God. Without an expectation for things you can't see, you can't make God happy.

This doesn't mean that we just worship to receive. What it means is that when we worship, He'll come. And in His presence is fullness of joy. (Psalms 16:11) In His presence there are times of refreshing (Acts 3:19) In His presence mountains move. (Psalms 68:8) When God steps into a room, things change.

Every time Jesus went to a town he started revivals and riots. He did things that attracted huge crowds. He said things that confused people and turned people off. He had a certain effect on people.

One of my favorite bands, "Lifehouse" says in their song Everything:

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?


Darkness cannot stand in His light. We can believe that when God arises, His enemies will scatter. So when we begin to worship, let's come into it with excited hearts. Let's start worshipping with faith that God will tell us great and mighty things! (Jeremiah 33:3) Let's prepare ourselves for God's life-changing presence that inhabits the praises of His people!

Serving the Local Church

Tori and I started WorshipArts with two goals, the first was to train youth in the gifts that God had given them, and to set their minds on using those talents for the Kingdom of God. The second goal is not as advertised as of yet:

We want to be a support to the body of Christ as a whole, in the arena of the local church. We want to be a blessing to Senior Pastors, Youth Pastors, Worship Pastors and other leadership in the church. Here are the programs we have now and how they meet this goal.

Worship
Our worship teams meet together every week not to figure out how to become the next big Christian band, but to facilitate worship for other people. They learn to lead by example, and to engage with the people they're serving. They also learn how to follow leadership, how to follow the music without asking 100 questions of the worship pastor. They learn how to accompany other instrumentalists and fill out the sound, without having to be in the spotlight. They become useful, dependable worshippers and musicians that don't require hand-holding.

Photography and Video Production
These tracks are geared towards preparing students to serve their church with high quality media creation. They learn how to communicate the vision of an organization through pictures and video. They also gain experience with editing tools that they might find in a church scenario. They not only learn the how-to, but actually produce media that is evangelistic in nature, with the goal of pointing people towards Christ. They learn how to go back to their local church and start using their talents in worship immediately.

Drama and Message Teams
The goal of the drama and message teams is to directly communicate the Word of God and the word of their testimony to the world. While they're with us, these students become better communicators and persuaders so that they will be even more effective in their youth group and beyond. The message team prepares students for speaking confidently to an audience as well as communicating in smaller groups. Our goal is that these students continue to use these skills in the church long after they are done with WorshipArts.

Genesis Ministry Team
These past few seasons, the Genesis Ministry Team has become an awesome tool for youth groups. This worship team has learned to purposefully engage with their audience, and serve others by facilitating awesome worship services where youth can have an awesome encounter with God without having to worry about distractions. The drama and message team travels with the Genesis Team to drive home truths about God and how He interacts with us. The goal of the Genesis Team isn't just to affect youth, but also to bless the leadership of the churches they visit. Their goal is to set the students on fire so that the leadership can build on that excitement in the weeks and months to come. We want to come alongside youth pastors to help them accomplish the goals they have for their specific student ministry.

Future: Sound, lights, graphics
The church has a real need for students that understand and can run technology in their local church. With very few exceptions, all churches need more people to fill these positions to avoid burning out their current volunteers. Also, injecting youth into these positions means your tech team will be more on the cutting edge. Youth are less likely to find their talents or knowledge obsolete when new software or hardware gets introduced. In the near future we plan on training students in these important fields of study, not so they can be a sound engineer for a huge rock concert, but so they can get plugged into their church with the knowledge of how to use their skills in a way that glorifies God.

WorshipArts is guided by the current needs of the church. The point of our program is to uplift the Body of Christ in the local church. We don't want to get distracted from this goal. This is why there won't be a WorshipArts Basketball league, although we may do a 3-on-3 tournament to teach students how to run an effective outreach. Everything we do must benefit the local church and steer people towards the healthy, Christian fellowship that God wants us to have with one another.

So if you think there's a way that we could come alongside your church, give me a call at 269-569-4174 or shoot me an Email at peter@worshipartscentral.com

Setting Up A Worship Team

My assignment for my "Lifestyle of a Worshiper" class was to write a guide for a church plant or new worship pastor to set up a worship team. Let me know what you think and what grade you think I should get. ;-)

Step 1 – Pre-team planning

The first thing to consider when setting up a worship team is vision. Find out where do you want your worship team to be in 6 weeks, 6 months and 2 years. Why do you need a worship team in your church? The church is probably doing worship recordings or videos, what would a team add that you aren’t already doing. Dwell on questions like “What your goals?” and “Why move from where we are now?” In Habakkuk 2:2, God says, “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” Writing down your vision and purpose statement is important. It makes it easier to communicate and tweak with your pastor and later, when you’re caught up in all of the technical problems and week-to-week chaos, you’ll be anchored in your purpose. During this process, talk to other worship leaders and get their advice. Do a study on worship in the Bible. Read books on worship leading and it’s purpose and method. Make sure that you are taking into consideration the needs of your church and your pastor as your hear from other sources. Your worship team will without a doubt look different from any other church’s team.

Step 2 – Lead by example

After your vision is written out and prayed over by you and your pastor, begin to lead worship by yourself. For at least a few weeks, lead the group with just one instrument. As your congregation gets used to the freedom that comes from breaking out past a set recording and order of song, you will begin to execute the vision that you and your pastor laid out. Put into practice the things you’ve written down. If you wanted the song list to go along with the pastor’s sermon, do that. If you wanted times of “Selah” or prophetic song begin ministering in that area. This way, when people join you, it’s not from a relationship of “Ok guys, what do you want to do this week.” Instead, you come to people and say, “This is what we’re doing, can you help me out?” People become part of something that is already moving in one direction instead of being pulled in five directions from the start.

Step 3 – Adding to your team

The members of the worship team have just as much potential for influence on members and visitors of your church as the pastor or worship leader has. They are usually in front of people just as much, and they are placed in front of people as examples for proper behavior in church. If these people are exuding warmth, excitement and passion, then chances are your audience will pick up on that same attitude. If they are bored or distracted, the people in the church will assume that response is acceptable. Make sure that the first people you add to your team are spiritually strong and mature even if their musical talent isn’t as strong. This will develop a spiritual culture that new members to your team will pick up on. Take this slow, as it is one of the most important considerations. When approaching people, first assess their spiritual maturity and musical talent before cementing them into the foundation of your team. Invite them to come over to your house and worship with you, or have them lead worship with you for a service other then the main service. This can continue for as long as necessary to be sure that you know him as a Christian and a musician and to make sure he catches the vision for the team. Make sure that this person has the heart of a worshiper and not just the head knowledge. Isaiah 29:13 “The Lord says ‘These people come near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.”

Step 4 – Developing your team.

Don’t be satisfied with just getting by. Whatever isn’t growing is probably shrinking. You want to give your best and that involves getting your team to the best they can be. Make sure to develop them spiritually as the weeks progress. Don’t get into a habit of practicing and playing, practicing and playing. That’s a “maintenance mind-style.” God calls us to go from glory to glory. Regularly sit down with your written vision and purpose statement and come up with a few things to work on that gets you closer to your goal. Address problems quickly before they spread. Maintain a team that is pulling it’s lowest points up rather than a team that is continually deteriorating. Challenge the members of your team to higher musical feats. Practice things that are hard. Make musicianship an act of worship instead of a necessity to get the congregation singing in the same key at the same tempo. Make commitment to the team important. Respond to issues like showing up late to practice quickly. A team that coasts through services is not worshiping at it’s best.

Step 5 – Handling a large team and a large church

There will come a time when you have enough musicians to go to multiple teams. Make sure that the teams are in constant communication and fellowship. If you have multiple worship leaders, meet with them together regularly to go over the vision and current goals for the team and the service. I suggest shuffling your team members and leaders around regularly. Discourage any talk of preference between teams or leaders. You want to make sure that you are one cohesive team that is building each other up. If your church service has two services, play similar songs and styles for each service. Separating your leaders and styles between first and second services is a good way to divide the church into demographics that dislike each other’s music style or personality preference. Constantly blending the teams will avoid gossip and favoritism. Also, this will expose your team members to each other’s talent and skills. Shuffling team members usually learn from each other more than set teams do. Make sure that your large group of musicians are following the same plan. Meet with the entire worship team regularly to discuss the vision for the musical and spiritual growth of the team. Be proactive with your finger constantly on the pulse of your teams. If the size of your team is causing you to miss problems that come up consider scaling back.

Setting up a worship team is all about vision and communication. Making sure that you know what you want and communicate that effectively to your leadership, your worship team and your pastor.

Peter Webb