Gungor has an amazing sound and compelling presentation. Check out this video of their song “The Earth Is Yours” performed in the forest.

HT: Rkweblog

After blogging for five years at www.richkirkpatrick.com I have decided to change my URL and “brand” to RKWeblog.com. Why?

Well, things were getting stale with my old theme and it got in the way of the content, connection and conversation. So, a friend with amazing skills designed this theme to solve that. Also, my name is a bit long and hard to get right when typing into a web browser. Besides that, I wanted this to be LESS about my name and more about the conversation, so my twitter hand RKWeblog seems to fit just right.

I have a favor to ask, please check for bugs and PLEASE change your link from www.richkirkpatrick.com to www.rkweblog.com!

I am so happy to announce that I will be teaching a workshop and attending the worshiptogether.com Training Conference, April 12-14 in Lenexa, KS.

In 1999 I remember attending as a younger worship leader one of their training events and over the past several years I have enjoyed getting to know some of the people at this company. Wholeheartedly I can say these people love the local church and this event is designed to equip worship leaders at churches of any size. Even their cost is reasonable.

Some of the worship leaders there include: Leeland, Brenton Brown, Matt Maher, Christy Nockels, Phil Wickham and Audrey Assad.

So, I would love to see you there at the conference and meet you! In fact, I am going to be giving away free passes. With THIS post, I will give away 2 FREE PASSES for YOU AND A GUEST!

Instructions: You get one point to a drawing for doing each of the following.

GO TO RKWeblog to ENTER TO WIN….

This is posted on www.richkirkpatrick.com

CNNMoney.com recently did a series of articles based on research by payscale.com and found that 67% of those that lead worship or direct music in local churches for a vocation say the job is stressful. The research says this job is in the top 15 MOST stressful. Uhmm, this is obvious to those of us who lead worship, but to have research debunk the myth of the glamor of being a music guy/gal in a church might be helpful in fixing some things.

In the article we mentions how weddings and funeral musical work is stressful, but they really do not go to the underlying reasons I believe the majority of people in this vocation incur stress. Notice that senior pastors, youth directors and other ministry personnel are not on this list. While all ministry is stressful, something unique to this activity is in play. I say this with deep respect for those in other roles.

I fundamentally believe there is pandemic implosion of the worship leader role and vocation—even for the volunteer or bi-vocational worship leader. History shows this current pattern to be true (nothing new about worship wars for instance). Each week I talk with very talented people in this line of work and the same story is replayed over and over again. Every conference I attend, phone call or IM I field or observations I listen to by others has led me to consider a wide-scale threat. Glamorous you say?

Here are some unique mythbusting nuggets to consider:

• When there is conflict in a local church, the music becomes a rallying point for battle. Ever heard of the term “worship wars” in your setting? Well, guess who lives in the middle of that.
• Everyone has an opinion about the music and experience in a worship service, with the one who is leading the activity often being the only non-voting member in the discussion.
• Everything this person does is in public and executed through other people: choirs, worship bands, tech teams, etc.
• Leadership of churches often devalue the scale and scope of work to execute the quality and impact they expect.
• The skills needed include: creative and artistic genius, project management, musical talent, stage presence, theological facility, leadership, administration, ability to work independently, ability to be micromanaged and you have to look the part (whatever that means).
• In the push to be relevant to culture, the worship leader is only as relevant as the latest thing on one hand or if you have opposite views he/she must reject the latest thing. You can’t win either way.
• Spiritual warfare is heated in the activity of our public worship settings. So, obviously in that sense these folks are targets.

I have some ideas on specific solutions to help the local church win and the worship leader survive and perhaps even thrive. However, before I do that in another post (or series of posts) I am interested in your view of my summary and what the research shows.

The cre:ate2110 conference in Franklin, Tennessee has been more than a conference for my the past nine years. As a “creative” in ministry I feel like I belong to a tribe of amazingly smart, gifted and godly men and women who gather each year to have an extraordinary salon about worship, film, media, art and culture. There seems to be no other ministry related event in the nation like this.

I owe this very blog to attending cre:ate conference. I am now in the top 50 of Christianity blogs, and the collective blogroll the tribe of attendees is amazingly strong with people like Carlos and Randy. (Go to my blogroll to see some of them). This is just one tangible evidence of how impacting this conference has been on me and others.

Each year I look forward to learning from authors, pastors, filmmakers and the collective group which alone is worth the trip. Indeed, the relationships that have lasted these years and influenced me have made this trip one I cannot miss.

On top of that, the experiences with music, art and food are astounding. I can’t wait!

All About Worship Podcast: “Manly Worship” Round Table LIVE Tuesday

This Tuesday, September 29 at 9pm CST, the All About Worship podcast will be hosting it’s first “Round Table” discussion with three worship leaders/songwriters with hosts Ben Abu Saada and Wisdom Moon.  The topic at hand is “Manly Worship”.  What is “Manly Worship”?  Is there a need for worship songwriters to focus more attention on music that ministers more to men?  Is there a trend in worship music within churches that connects more with the heart of women vs men?  Or is this issue moot and the hearts of men need to be challenged in this area?  You can be a part of the discussion live with our special guests:

Mandy Thompson. Songwriter/Worship Leader, Mandy Thompson, will be joining us. Visit  www.MandyThompson.com to learn more about her ministry.  Mandy will be joining us live from her home in New England.  By the way…Mandy created those KILLER podcast intros for us!

Troy Kennedy. Songwriter/Worship Pastor from Kansas City will be joining us.  Troy hastaught classes on worship leading ministry in conferences around the nation including the recent National Worship Leader Conference 2009.  Log on to www.NewWorship.com or visit his blog to learn more about Troy.

Fred McKinnon. Songwriter/Worship Leader from St. Simmons Island, GA will be joining the roundtable discussion.  With the “Sunday Setlists” and TheWorshipCommunity, Fred has become an influential member of the online worship community.  Visit www.FredMcKinnon.com and www.TheWorshipCommunity.com to learn more about Fred.

The fun begins Tuesday, September 29 at 10pm Eastern/9pm CST.  Join us on Talkshoe by phone or via internet below or here.