REINVENT WORSHIP REHEARSAL  Problem: People come into practice tired. They’ve been working hard all week. They show up. They didn’t have time to practice. They are a little stressed. You pull it together. You say a quick prayer at the end of the night. You go home and hope they work on it. Then on Sundays, we are expecting them to deliver an environment of encounter when, in reality, they perhaps haven’t even spent time with Jesus throughout the week. How do you provide tha

-An admonition from Pastor Keith Tucci- God wants to give us a different sound than we are hearing in the Church right now. The purpose of worship is to glorify God. The purpose is not for the worshipper to be edified (although that is a wonderful byproduct of worship). But the culture has turned the focus of worship on our needs, our wants, our feelings. We need a generation that will rise up, grasp the purpose of worship, and keep the focus on the King of kings and Lord of

CREATIVITY Whenever you are trying to come up with something new or creative, don’t just think about “what am I going to do?” Think about “how should I think about this?” How should I be approaching this?  Don’t be afraid to think out of the box. Don’t be afraid to think of a crazy idea. BUT, we don’t do all ideas. The best ideas are #6, #7, and #8, but we normally stop at #2 and #3. Wrestle through the bad ideas to get to a good one. #worshipencouragement #worshipwednesday

ENERGY No one wants to walk into a flat room, a room with no energy, no feeling in it. Nor do people want to interact with others who have no energy. Bring energy. Yes, bring prayer and preparation and all of those other things, but bring energy too. People need to feel what you are doing. They need to know that you believe it.  People can tend to have one worship face. They sing a song asking for cleansing of their sin and they sing another song crying out for more of God,

As a worship leader, we need to be pulling in the same direction as our pastor. The only way we can do this is to spend time together. Ask your pastor: What’s in your heart? What do you think God is doing in our church? What direction are we going? What do you think God wants to say this Sunday (not just your message)? And then share your heart with him. Where do you think the God moment will be in the set? What is God speaking to your heart about that week?  The pastor/wor

Are you a song leader? A music director? The worship leader? How do you view your role and how does your pastor view your role? Clarify your role with your pastor. Ask him what his expectation is of your role. Expectations cause the most major stressors in a relationship—I expect this, you expect that, and we are missing each other. Have a conversation with your pastor. There is a good chance that you have a different expectation than he does. Get on the same page. It’s a lot

Getting feedback can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be if we ask the right questions. Ask your pastor for objective feedback. Objective feedback is data that can be evaluated so tweaks can be made. Subjective feedback falls under the “you played my favorite song, so worship was good today” category. Ask these questions of your pastor: What do you look for in a worship set? What do you want for worship? How was the opening? What about the transitions? Where did the God m

A word of encouragement from Tony Crombie In Exodus 25, we find the description of the lampstand that is to go in the tabernacle. It was a solid piece of gold that was hand-hammered into a gigantic lampstand. The only source of light in the holy place was that lampstand—which was only 1 of 3 pieces of furniture in the holy place. The lampstand represented the light of God, the presence, the fire. The flame was continually burning. The lampstand had to be attended to twice a d

Aren’t you thankful that God takes what we give Him, no matter how small or awkward, and He is pleased by it and blesses it? He is so much more concerned about our heart than a perfectly flowing set. Yes, we want to play excellently for our Lord. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and He deserves our best. But sometimes our best on a particular week just isn’t that great on paper, but it works because we gave our best. Worship leading can’t just be something we do.

One way to aid the flow of worship is to be mindful of how you connect your songs. We can sing good songs that make sense together, yet just move from song to song to song. But there is a beauty and a journey that takes place when you are able to connect those songs into a more continuous flow. You can use just a chorus or a bridge of one song to help connect two different songs. For example, try using the chorus of Rooftops to go from an up-tempo song to a mid-tempo song. Or

When thinking and planning the new year, it’s wise to make sure the goals you have are SMART…specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-oriented. But let’s add a letter. Let’s have iSMART goals: INTENTIONAL. Everything we do has to have a purpose. Everything we do should move us towards the outcome we want. We can plan (and we need to plan), but we also need to act. There is a big difference between letting things happen and making things happen. Think outside the

When planning your sets, ask yourself: What position do you want your congregation in at the end of worship? Do you want them left in worship, prayer, warfare, declaration, receiving, giving? Are the songs you are choosing for your set getting you there? Scripture talks about reaping what we sow (Galatians 6). Be intentional on what you are sowing. Be intentional on where you want to take the congregation. As a worship leader, we are like an usher in a theater taking peop

There is a balance to be had between preparation and flowing with the Holy Spirit. The more we prepare, the more we know our music and know the direction to lead our team, the more we can flow with the Holy Spirit during the service. Kent Henry, a song writer and worship leader, uses the phrase "planned spontaneity." The PLANNED part is the excellence, order, not winging it, preparation. The SPONTANEITY part is the moving of the Holy Spirit and God doing what He wants with th

Your whole setlist does not have to be in the same key. In fact, sometimes that makes for a really boring sound. Be mindful of the flow from one song to the next when picking keys. Sometimes, bumping a song to a less comfortable key (not 5 whole steps up) to make sure it flows well out of the previous song and into the next song is worth having to work a little harder at the vocals. Try to pick keys that play nicely together. Sometimes it works well to have a few songs in one