Extra Extra! Both Heart And Skill Needed To Join Worship Team!

The purpose of a worship team is to create an atmosphere where people can easily worship God together.

What is the criteria to use when selecting members to be on your worship team? 

With the vast variety of church situations that exist - small, large, conservative, expressive, newly formed, long-standing - the question of, "Who should serve regularly in leading worship" can be a tough one. 

This answer won't be perfect for every situation, but hopefully it can get people thinking in the right direction. 

1) Saved - In most situations the pastor is the only person who has more stage time than the worship team. In fact, I've been to services where the worship team is on stage for most, if not all, of the service.  The worship team is the example for the rest of the church. All should be in perfect unity about the reason why they are here: honest worship to an almighty God. 

I don't believe you can be in unity when members of your team are unsaved, unbelievers. It's not about great music. It's about setting an example in honest praise.

How good it is when brothers dwell together in unity!

2) Heart - The second thing to consider is the heart of the musician/singer you're considering bringing on. They have to realize they they are performing the part of a mirror, reflecting people's attention to God 100%. The point is not them, the point is focusing our attentions on Jesus Christ. Any distraction from that goal directly contradicts the mission of the worship team. 

A teammate with immense skill but an incorrect heart and motivation will always cause problems for worship leaders. Worship leading is different than every other form of music performance. It's not about how the music sounds. It's not about how the team looks. It's about connecting with God. 

The amount that the church connects with heaven equals the amount of success the worship team achieves. If the music is terrible but the church is able to be fully engaged in worship then it's a win.

3) Skill - Psalms 33 says to play skillfully for the Lord. David had a specific group of 4000 musicians that were well trained to worship 'round the clock. It's important that every team member has the skill to keep from being a distraction. 

Sour notes, poor dynamics, or incorrect chords almost always draw the attention of people in the congregation.

Even a person with a good heart can be a distraction if their level of competency isn't adequate. In fact, in most cases lacking in skill makes the musician even more focused on the music, as to not mess up. 

Ideally, every member on every worship team would have the ability to be 100% focused on God and still play their instrument well enough as to not distract. 

What are your thoughts on this?

Old Faithful

I was teaching some of my students about the fruit of the spirit this week. You know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? And we spent a little bit more time on faithfulness than I had originally planned.

What is faithfulness? One side of faithfulness is being full of faith, believing for something against all odds. But looking at some of the other fruits in the list, I'm more inclined to believe that faithfulness is sticking with one's commitments to God and their community.

Being faithful means being consistently trustworthy. Like Old Faithful here.

And what's cool about the fruit of the spirit is you get it for free if you're abiding in Him!

Some examples of faithfulness in the Bible:

"Thy word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against Thee" (Scripture memorization)

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some" (Church attendance)

"Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints" (Constant Prayer)

So many times we have excuses for not being faithful:

"Man, I've just been so tired this week with school starting and this new job. It's really taken a lot out of me." Doesn't the Bible say somewhere about believers being able to run and not grow weary, walk and not faint? Yes it does.

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to help out like I said I could, I've just had so many other things come up this week." I think one side of being faithful is the ability to not make promises you might not keep. Let your "yes be yes" and your "no be no." It's alright to say no to something if you can't be committed to it. Don't be guilted into making promises you can't keep.

"Sorry I'm late, getting the kids in the van was rough, couldn't find the diaper bag and there was so much construction on the way and..." Usually this is how excuses for being late go. It's never just one thing. It would be a powerful witness to an unsaved world if Christians developed a reputation for being on time every time. This means you'll have to risk being early *gasp* to meetings. You'll have to make fewer commitments.

One of my friends says that if you are five minutes late to a rehearsal, you're putting your five minutes ahead of everyone else's five minutes collectively. If there are 11 other people on your team, that's potentially an hour of wasted time.

I realize that this sounds harsh. I get it.

But being faithful when it's uphill is just as powerful as being loving when it's uphill.

Being faithful when it's difficult is just as important as being self-controlled when it's difficult.

Being faithful during extreme circumstances is just as rewarding as being peaceful in extreme circumstances.

So resist the urge to give up when you're bored. Resist the urge to move on before your commitment is fulfilled.

But the bottom line is: abide with Christ and faithfulness will follow.

The Word of God

Christianity can sometimes be distorted and compressed into a list of habits and beliefs that make someone a "better person."

Tori and I were just watching a television show where the arch nemesis comes back a season later with his act cleaned up, and the only noticeable change is he quotes a catchy scripture and has a cross on his wall.

The word Christian means "Little-Christ" or "Christ-Like." Christianity is the life-long pursuit of the character of the Son of God. It's the unending search for a deeper relationship with the Father. And it's the living out of the kingdom of heaven with the Holy Spirit's power.

And just as God is real, there is a real devil. No matter what popular opinion is, there's a hungry lion that is seeking people to devour. But, he has been defeated by the power of Christ's death and resurrection and we're called to live that out by waging spiritual warfare against his schemes. We've been given a myriad of defensive equipment to ward off his attacks:

• Belt of Truth 
• Breastplate of Righteousness 
• Shoes of Readiness given by the Gospel of Peace 
• Shield of Faith 
• Helmet of Salvation

But we've only been given one weapon to go on the offensive with. 

• The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God

We can't even do battle with out own words. It's only the Word of God that makes any difference or takes any ground.

And if description in Ephesians isn't enough for you, Hebrews 4:12 says "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."


The Word of God was what created the world. God spoke, and it happened. And in the beginning of John, Jesus is described as the Word. Him who was with God and was God.

God's word is the cornerstone on which everything we know rests. If we fail to build our lives on this rock, everything will crumble.

So it's vital (that means necessary for life) (meaning you're going to be spiritually dead without it) that you not only read your Bible, but live off of it. Ingest it. Eat it. Metabolize it. Chew it.

Jesus said that man does not live on bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.  God's Word is be-all and end-all in Christianity. If you're trying to seek God without looking in the pages of the Bible every single day, you're looking in the wrong places, and you'll find the wrong gods.

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How do you get to know someone better? You find out about a different part of their life! If you only know them as a work friend, and you don't ask them about their life at home, your relationship will never take the next step.

Start reading about who God is as He relates to different people. Take a look as this list. It shows how Jesus is revealed in every book of the Bible.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but that doesn't mean that we can know all there is to know about him in one sitting, or one year, or one lifetime.

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And so how do you seek God in His Word? Where do you start?

TIP #1: Begin to cultivate a love of God's Word. Read Psalms 119 and hear what he had to say about the word of God. Spend every day reading God's word. Put it up on your doorframe and facebook page. But more importantly put it deep inside you heart. That means memorize it.

TIP #2: Simultaneous reading. I used to start the "Read-the-Bible-in-one-year" plans and I would get to about half the old testament and quit because it wore me down. I was laboriously reading all of the long stories without finding how it applied to my life or seeing how Christ fulfilled that covenant.

Then I picked up a book that suggested this strategy: read a little bit out of each major section each day. So now I split my Bible into 4 sections. Psalms/Proverbs, the rest of the Old Testament, Matthew/Mark/Luke/John, the rest of the New Testament. What this allows me to do is still read the same amount each day, but not get stressed out in the laws of Leviticus for three weeks.

TIP #3: Talk about what you read. Make it less of a hobby and more of a source of life. Every time I find out something cool in a new video game or I get told a funny story by a friend, I pass it on to others. We should be doing that all the time with the Word of God! Otherwise, we aren't putting enough weight on the things the Bible says.

TIP #4: Resolve. Decide in your heart that you're going to spend time in God's Word. The true test of whether or not you're been set on fire for God is this: Can you do it when it gets boring? Can you do it when it's "hard to find anything that means anything to you?" Can you seek God when it means He'll ask for all of your luxury, all your leisure, and all your recreation?

TIP #5: Obey. This is more of a tip for after you've spent time reading, but it really shouldn't be left out. Don't just be a hearer of the Word, but be a doer. If you read in Proverbs that a trustworthy man keeps a secret, then you had better not go around gossipping to all of your friends. If you find out that Jesus wasn't ok with living a pious, prideful life then you had better not serve on your worship team with one ounce of self-righteousness or pride.

Comment below on any other tips you have. Also, what do you do in your personal scripture reading? And how are you doing with memorization and with talking about God's Word with your friends?

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

Worship Team Communication and Signaling

At WorshipArts we teach all types of communication between team members. The first, and easiest to learn is signaling. We use a sign-language "B" if the leader wants to go to the bridge.

There are less obvious signals as well. We went to a worship-leading conference last spring and the speaker said he pops one of his feet back so his toe is on the ground. That can signal the next section etc.

At our church the worship leaders usually raise the neck of their guitar to indicate the end of the song.

Another method is simply to use body language. When I'm leading I'll usually look at the drummer and communicate with my eyes what's next. Or I'll start bouncing a little bit to indicate a desired build.

In my opinion though, the best way to communicate is through vocal cues. When you sing the next line before you get there. This not only gets the team on the same page, but it also leads the congregation as well. This is probably the most difficult to learn, as getting the timing correct can be pesky.

If you've been on a worship team, what kind of communication did you experience during the worship set?

Comment below!!

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

3 Tips To Worship More Skillfully With Music

God deserves a sacrifice of praise. When we worship with music, is what we're playing a sacrifice? Is it easy or cheap? David said that he wouldn't sacrifice to the Lord that which cost Him nothing.

Here are a few tips to worship more skillfully when it comes to music.


Psalms 33:3: Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

Sing to Him a new song.
That means be creative and make it your own. Don't just play the song like they do on the CD. Don't just sing it like Kim Walker or Chris Tomlin does. Use your God-given gift of creativity and offer a new song to God. A song from your heart, and not just from the top of the CCLI charts. Make sure that every time you worship, It's real. It's fresh. It means something to you.

Play skillfully on the strings. 
Musicians and vocalists, don't be satisfied where you are! Be in a constant state of growth in your music. Don't let yourself become stagnant, falling into comfortable patterns or progressions. Stretch yourself, God deserves it. Also, try doing your songs without music. Memorize it beforehand, so that you can concentrate on improving your arrangement instead of just following along. You'll also experience the added bonus of beging able to close your eyes, look out at the crowd or at your team without being glued to your music stand. (And it makes the stage look better too.)

With loud shouts. 
Maybe the psalmist is talking about loud, inward, mental shouts that only you and God can hear, but I don't think so. These aren't little shouts, but LOUD SHOUTS. I think the message here is worship with desperation, excitement, and overall joy. This isn't a worship that's focused on the worshipper, but one that is a thankful, praising shout to the one being worshipped.

God is sending a message to His worshippers:

"Worship me with creativity, skill, and public celebration"

9 Things To Consider When Planning Your Next Setlist.

What do you think about when you're planning a setlist? These are nine of the things I teach our students at WorshipArts when they are picking out songs for a worship service.

Theme
There are all ends of the spectrum being practiced today. Some leaders don't think about this at all, and others require on certain Sundays that all titles have the word "Blood" or "Fire" in them. I'm not saying you have to have only one theme each service, but it does deserve some thought. If you start off with a song about faith, consider continuing that theme.

In our preparations we usually try to connect all of our themes together. We'll start with a song about God's love, then move into a song that helps the people we're leading respond back with love or sacrifice. Or we'll start with a celebration of what God has done and move into worship God for who He is.

Tempo
Moving from a slow song to a fast song back to a slow song can give a congregation whiplash! Be smooth with your tempo transitions. The classic method is a few fast, a few medium, a few slow, and depending on your church, you'll end with a fast or a slow song. Don't feel tied down to this though. Many awesome worship sets do this in reverse, moving from slow to fast! The key is be intentional and smooth.

Depth
Is this a song that people are prepared to go into? You might not want to start with a really deep, intense encounter right off the bat. With people coming in late, or just getting back from dropping their kids off, there are a lot of different backgrounds to consider. One of my worship leader friends describes this as a funnel that we create. He says it's good to start with simpler songs that everyone can relate to and gradually direct people towards deeper, more specific songs. As Kim Walker says, it would be great if we could all enter in on the first song, but the truth is, the church isn't there yet. Sometimes it takes a minute or two for people to re-engage their connection to God.

Known
How well known are the songs that you're planning? Psalms says repeatedly to sing a new song to the Lord, but how many new songs do you do? I say it's a balance. You do want new music so that you aren't tempted to stay in the same place, but God still uses "It is well" and "Amazing Grace" to touch people's lives! It's useful to play songs that everyone knows so that you can easily get everyone under the same banner, but a new song can be just the right thing to wake someone up who has been tuning out week to week.

Make sure you repeat songs week to week! People in the congregation memorize songs at a tenth of the speed of the people on stage. They also tire of them at about the same rate. In practice you usually have to play a song 3-10 times before you lead the congregation with it, and by the second or third week, you're usually tired of it, when that's the time it means the most to the people in the seats! They've finally got the song well enough to sing the whole thing with the leader and that's when the musicians start suggesting you put it on the back burner. Be careful that you serve your church by teaching them new songs and playing them often enough to let it sink into their spirit. You also want people to come into church reminded of the work that God did in them last week!

Space
Have you left room for space in your set? If someone comes up to the platform with a testimony or a prayer, can you accomodate that and pray in line with that? Make sure that your list isn't so set in stone that you can't insert a song that the pastor wants to sing or you feel that the Holy Spirit is telling you to sing. Also, make sure that you aren't jumping from song to song, but have space in between for people to sit and dwell on what's been sung. Make sure your musicians know what to play during this space too!

Key
What key you're going to play a song in is super important. For one thing, changing keys can sometimes be difficult. Acclimating your group to the new key can be jarring if not done correctly. Moving down a half or whole step (from the key of C to B or from A to G) can make your next song sound less important or less intense than the previous song.

The best thing to do is to try to not change keys between songs very often. This makes the worship service seem more cohesive, and allows for seamless transitions. Also, your 20-40 minutes of worship doesn't have to feel chopped up by stark changes between songs.

Difficulty
Is this a song that your team can play? Do you have enough time to practice it? It's easy to get excited about a new song and try to rush through it on Sunday morning before service. Depending on your musicians, (and if they've ever heard it before) this can be a piece of cake, or a train wreck. Also, choosing a fast-changing pentecostal 2-step song in the key of Ab may not go over so well if you have new musicians on your team.

Also, consider the difficulty of the melody line. Is this a song that your worship leader and the congregation can sing? We've started work on songs before and then realized that there's really no good key for the song, it's just too big. Sometimes we have guys sing a verse and girls sing the chorus, or just not do the octave jump at the end of the second verse.

On the flip side, are you challenging your musicians? Psalms 33:3 says to play skillfully for the Lord. If we're playing music that is well below our talent, is it a fitting gift for God? David said that he would not sacrifice that which cost him nothing. That means that in your musical sacrifice, we should be stretching ourselves. Playing music that costs us time and energy to practice it.

Appropriateness
Is the song appropriate for the group? Are you playing songs that can connect with people? If you're leading a Bible study of new believers, using songs with elaborate word pictures and unexplained metaphors may only confuse them. But those same songs may mean the world to someone who connects with those lyrics. Also, leading worship for a traditional service for the first time may go over better if you left the drum loops and synth at home, and tried some hymns or well known choruses.

Some might get mad at me here but, "You spin me right 'round, Jesus, 'right round" is not an appropriate song for worship. In fact, I would say that any song originally written as a secular song should not be used in corporate worship. There could be an argument for them being used as a picture of a redeemed person, but in truth, when we got saved, God worked a change in our lives so big that if each one of us were a song, we would have an unrecognizable tune and a brand new chord progression! Jesus blood not only washed away our cuss words and depressing lyrics, he totally rewrote us into a new creation!

Obedience
Make sure that you are not only obeying the leadership in your church, but also in constant prayer so that you know what God wants to do in His worship set. Maintaining a constant connection to God will allow you to choose songs that align with the work that He wants to do in people's hearts.

These are a few of the things I teach my students. I tell them, they're not allowed to break the rules until they understand what the rules are. After they know, they can break whatever they want, provided they give me a good reason for doing so! Usually what happens is that you won't be able to create a setlist that follows all of the guidelines. It's just a matter of which ones you think are more important at the time. Is it more important that you progress upwards in key or that your lead vocalist can sing the song? Is it more important that your setlist moves smoothly between themes or that you play certain songs your pastor requested. (The answer is the pastor's songs)

Am I missing anything? What do you think about when you pick songs to play?