I love our worship team at Sunridge Church! This rare behind the scenes footage shows how much fun we really have each week! These are servants who put in hours and dedicate much so that hundreds can worship. The funniest thing is the last words on the on the tape…don’t miss that.

Today I closed my Hotmail account. It felt quite liberating, actually.

I do all my e-stuff through Google, it’s just easier for how my brain is wired to navigate and it’s only going to get better when Google Wave comes later this year. But the reason I closed my hotmail account was because I don’t do much with it. Do I use it? Yeah, but do I get value out of it? Erm, no. So the question becomes, why keep it around? And “just because” isn’t a good enough reason anymore. Information without application is just noise.

I want to throw out a challenge to you guys to find something to stop doing something in your area of ministry that is not adding real value. If it’s just taking up time, taking up space, taking up budget or other resources, and you don’t think it’s helping you guys do ministry, get rid of it.

Really, do you see yourself in this video if you run sound, lights, lead worship, etc.?

HT: Mistakemaker.com

Worship Mythbusters is a series on my blog that is designed to dispel myths we Christians have about our worship expression in our churches each weekend.  The conversation sometimes is a bit controversial, but it would not be worthy if it wasn’t.

MYTH: “Our worship expression is not about unbelievers”

It seems very clear that the purpose of a worship service is for the gathering of believers and the scripture warns us about not regularly gathering as believers. Hebrews 10:24-25 exhort us that meeting together is what stirs us to live how we should as Christians. But, what about the unbeliever? Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Fred McKinnon is giving away a free registration to one of the premiere worship conferences held this year:

WHEN:  JULY 20-23, 2009
WHERE:  Leawood, KS

I’m honored to be invited to do some live blogging from the National Worship Leader Conference in Kansas this Summer.  It will be awesome time of worship, training, teaching, and networking.  If you are going, I sure hope to meet you.

Worship Leader Magazine has teamed up with my blog here and TheWorshipCommunity.com to offer a cool contest - a FREE REGISTRATION to the National Worship Leader Conference!

INCLUDED:  Free Registration for One Person ($395/value)
(travel, lodging, and optional meal plan not included)

To find out how to win, go here!

Jesus died to pay a debt! That debt is our sin that separates us from God. Sin is what causes wars, poverty, crime, oppression and even slavery. On Good Friday, Jesus took on my sin. Today, I need to acknowledge that. In fact, every day I need to remember. The penal substitution is central to my faith. The theological yet biblical word “propitiation” is something foundational.

Without it, the death of Jesus simply is seen as a nice plot line in a story that does not have personal, cosmic and eternal consequence. It is re-interpreted as a fuzzy event–not a powerfully life changing one.  Remember that Jesus paid it all, as that old song says.”Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow..”

1 John 2:2 (English Standard Version)

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

During the worship set I noticed a gentleman with his fingers in his ears and I knew from reading his body language. He didn’t like the volume level. I know that volume issues are very big in some churches. So I thought I’d write a post on how to deal with people who come to you or comments come through the grape-vine on how to deal with complaints in regards to mixes and volume issues.

1. Clarify the Goal – You need to know who you are trying to reach as a church. Is it a particular demographic, or just non-christians in general? If you aren’t crystal clear on this point you NEED to sit down with your senior pastor for about 15 minutes and have him articulate who he would like the worship (and sound) try and reach. Trust me, he will appreciate you taking initiative to try and do a better job.

2. The Devil Is In The Details – I have found with experience that it is very difficult to have the average congregant articulate clearly what they didn’t like about the mix. Getting them to tell you what exactly they don’t like is very difficult sometimes, so…

3. Feel Free To Ask Your Own Questions – When you are talking with someone and they are telling you what they don’t like, ask them questions to dig deeper. Find out where they sit. Acoustics of the room are a huge issue, if you’re sitting in front of the subwoofers and don’t like low frequencies, I can’t really help you except to find you a better seat for next week. If they think the overall volume is loud, have them sit towards the back of the room. The Inverse-Square Law states that for every time the distance of a sound source is doubled the volume is halved, so it’s going to be quieter in the back of the room than in the front.

4. Treat Everyone Respectfully – There are about a dozen scriptures that state how we should treat each other with kindness and love. NEVER forget that. You should reiterate the clarified goal of who the church is trying to reach. However, just because the person who is complaining is outside your target audience, does not give you the right to simply blow them off. You can do something better…

5. Turn a Problem Into a Solution – The best thing you can do is empower people towards a solution. If a group of people come to you in regards to a specific issue, try and find a way to have them help you solve that problem. Example: some people don’t like a particular area of the room because it suffers from poor acoustic qualities. So, tell them that you would like them to help donate acoustical treatment to help that particular section of the room. There are so many churches that have large tech needs and have had their tech budgets slashed to zero because of the economy. I should know, I’m in one of those churches. But if you’re clever, you can figure out how to artificially generate budget for your ministry needs. The stage bleed is annoying? Ok, maybe you can help us by donating some in-ear monitoring systems for the musicians. Our youth hasn’t had any of their equipment replaced since 2000. Most of the room is held together with gaffers tape and they need A, B, C, and D. Can you and your friends help…

Are you following me, are you seeing the pattern?

You can turn your biggest complainers into your biggest helpers by refocusing their vision to helping others find Jesus, instead of their own comfort zone at church.

[Go read Jeremy’s blog Church Audio and Sound for more articles like this one]

Wisdom has let me in on something I want to share with you worship leaders and songwriters out there:

Join us for our very first Songwriting Teleseminar. Worship leader, songwriter, and recording artist, Darrell Evans will be sharing insights on songwriting and also answering your questions.

All proceeds go to support the ministry of NightLight (www.nightlightbangkok.com).

When: Monday, May 4th at 8pm CentralWhere: on the phone

Cost: only $22 (early bird discount until April 15)

Go to soundsofredemption.com to register and for more info