Christmas Time is Here Again

What is God stirring in your heart this Holiday Season for your congregation? Maybe you will highlight a few of those Christmas Hymns that are so near to your church’s heart. Maybe you will have a celebration service incorporating the worship of your church through the arts. Maybe you will have a Christmas choir, a powerful retelling of the meaning of Christmas, a group of carolers singing through your neighborhoods, or maybe you will share a meal with your church - all in honor of the birth of our King. This King came as a lowly newborn baby in a humble manger in a little town long ago. What an incredible paradox! The King of Kings and Lord of Lords entered this earth humbly. I can’t help but think of Matthew 23:12.

This Christmas Season let us ‘make much’ of our King and welcome Him with great celebration and joyful hearts! Let us exalt Him through our singing and join with the Angels as the ‘official messengers of His good news’ or the "herald" worshipers:

           

Hark! The herald angels sing "Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled."
Joyful, all ye nations rise. Join the triumph of the skies.
With the angelic host proclaim: "Christ is born in Bethlehem."
Hark! The herald angels sing, "Glory to the newborn King!"

Worship Technology 2.0

It is pretty cool what we can do with technology these days. We can put literally $1000s of dollars of outboard gear, computer hardware and network capabilities into these devises we call "smartphones."

Sound techs, now if you go digital you can mix from anywhere in the room with your ipad. Oh, and if you have enough Aux sends to support individual monitors for musicians and singers they can mix their own monitors from stage without even bothering you!!!! Then once you get some basic levels you can switch over to an app that allows you to analyze the sound in the room to get your EQ dialed in. Ever heard of Smarrt??? You can have that in on your iPad for under $100. INSANE!

Visual Techs, there is a world of stuff for you as well. Lighting magazines are filled with new apps and programs to function as a lighting control. And for your screens... here is a fun new projection system that is designed solely to be mobile.



Worship Leaders, there are endless tools for us as well. My favorite are:

• Planning Center Online's mobile app for scheduling and live events. Great for those conversations on stage of "am I playing next week" for someone as scatterbrained as me.
• Evernote!!!! Love this one as a songwriter. I can type out some lyric ideas, record audio clips and photo/videos to hold on to that melody line or lyric that junps out. 
• Shazam. This is a first generation app that still holds it's ground because it is so useful. Listening to the radio or something when you are out? Shazam it and share it to your email inbox. Perfect. 
• Bible App... nuff said.
• Metronome - This will help any worship team if you can utilize it well.
• Dropbox - free cloud sharing is great for storing large files that you may need to access from anywhere.
• There are so many more...

One recommendation if you are using your iphone in a live worship setting... "airplane mode." The other day I heard a call/text (don't know which one) come in when someone was using their phone for click track... not fun.

"Sunday Morning Checklist" by Paul Baloche

Paul Baloche gives a great rundown of things to think about when you are planning/leading worship. I've seen lists similar to this before, but what I love about Paul's list is that it is geared toward being spirit led through planning and intentionally minimizing distraction. There is a ton of practical in this post, but you can't help but see the pastoral aspect of Paul's heart and leading. Great blog.  Take notes & enjoy.

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Sunday Morning Checklist

by Paul Baloche

I recently missed three Sundays in a row at my local church because of back-to-back conferences and a ten-day tour through Canada. This is pretty rare but since we were going to have three different people leading worship over that time period, I wrote out some reminders to try and keep things consistent while I was gone. Maybe you have wondered how other leaders think about conducting their services. Obviously there is no formula when it comes to leading worship, but feel free to look over my shoulder and see the guidelines that I asked my substitutes to keep in mind.

Preparation:

• Prayerfully plan your set list, considering the spiritual and musical flow.
• Try to do mostly familiar songs with a maximum of one new song.
• Email set list and lyrics to any new songs ahead of time to Roland, the Tech Guy.

Service:

• Begin with a greeting of some kind. Think “conversational”.
• “Good morning. I’m………..” (Let them know who you are)
• Maybe read a scripture or have the band begin the intro of the first song as you say something like, “Let’s all stand together and turn our hearts to the Lord….”
• Go through the set, being led by the Spirit. Keep talking in between songs to a minimum. Talk as much as you need to in order to keep things flowing but not so much that it distracts or hinders momentum.
• Let people know if you’re going to teach a new song. “I’d like to teach a new song this morning.” (Maybe give a brief “context”, ie.) “This is a song that focuses on the mercy of God” or “This is a song inspired by Psalm 96….”. “Let me sing/teach you the chorus.” Go through the chorus once or twice, and then start the song from the top.
• As you are winding down your last song, be sensitive to what the Spirit is saying or doing. Try to discern the mood or atmosphere and allow the music to support that.
• When it seems appropriate, and while the music is playing lightly, say something like “as a part of our worship this morning lets prepare our tithes and offerings”. At that point, continue the song that you just sang, repeating the chorus a little more softly or instrumentally. Or sing a familiar chorus that is in the same key to keep things flowing.
• When they are finished praying over the offering, cue the band to end on the final chord.
• Please don’t walk immediately into the back room, which is visible to the congregation. That always feels a little “elite” somehow. I would prefer that you sit down in the congregation or walk along the edge of the sanctuary towards the back. Feel free to use the restroom or get a drink of water or whatever.
• Please be alert and prepared to come up at the end of the message. Remember that the pastor teaches maybe 25-30 minutes maximum. Try to be discreet and sensitive to “the moment” as you pick up your guitar, tune, etc. (TIP: I usually re-tune real quick at the end of the offering or at the beginning of the announcements when it’s less distracting. I typically duck down to one knee to take the focus off of me as I tune.) As people are being prayed for, be careful that the dynamics and volume of the back do not get too loud in order to allow for prayers and conversation to happen without distraction. We are there to support the moment, NOT to get people focused on us.
• Thank you for serving the Lord by loving His people and helping them to worship Him.

Well there you have it. My list of essentials may be longer or shorter then yours but it’s important for us to define what kind of experience we hope will occur on any given Sunday. My goal is always to try and eliminate as many distractions as possible, and through the vehicle of music, create an environment that makes it easy for the congregation to connect with God.

Two roles are at play here. One is our priestly role, where we are simply lifting our own hearts to God in worship. The other is our pastoral role, where we invite others to join us in this experience by expressing our praise and thanks to the Lord. We lead primarily by example. To borrow the familiar phrase, “Lead worship at all times and if necessary, use words.”

*To see original post visit: http://www.praisecharts.com/sunday-morning-checklist/