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Christ-Centered Worship by Bryan Chappell – Book Review

By on September 26, 2009 in —Books, —Leading a Congregation, —Worship and Christ, —Worship and the Church

Just finished Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice, by Bryan Chappell. Bottom line — if you’re responsible for leading, overseeing, or planning corporate worship in your church, you should read this book. Chappell divides the book into two sections, Gospel Worship and Gospel Worship Resources. A casual look at the Table of Contents could lead you to think the book is all about formal liturgies, and irrelevant for churches that come from a more “free” tradition. Not the case. In the first section he defines liturgy as “the public way a church honors God in its times of gathered praise, prayer, instruction, and commitment” …

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Lessons Learned From Three Decades of Leading

By on September 10, 2009 in —Expressiveness, —Free Messages, —Interviews, —Leading a Congregation, —Worship and Christ, —Worship and the Pastor, —WorshipGod Conferences

On Friday night at WorshipGod09, Jeff Purswell interviewed CJ Mahaney and me about some things we had learned over thirty years of leading, much of that together. From the early 90’s I was involved in leading the music at various Sovereign Grace conferences, and then in 1997 I became the worship pastor at Covenant Life Church, where CJ was senior pastor. CJ has been the most significant influence in my life when it comes to the focus and practicals of leading congregational worship. During the interview, Jeff asked us about different topics including the role of the senior pastor in planning/leading corporate worship, encouraging your …

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Finding the Right Key to Sing In

By on May 11, 2009 in —Choosing Songs, —Leading a Congregation, —Vocalists

Chris recently wrote me to ask a question about the tension between congregational-friendly keys and leader-friendly keys. I have a upper-mid range tenor voice and though I can sing lower fairly easily, I find that if I transpose a song to a “congregational friendly” key the song loses energy, sometimes significantly. I want to serve the people in my church well and I am willing to put up with less energy if they are more comfortable singing along, but if the time of singing is musically flat, I wonder if it may be more detrimental to the overall “experience” (for lack of a better word) than to have people stretch vocally or sing in parts. …

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Praising God in a Multi-Language Congregation

By on March 12, 2009 in —Leading a Congregation

I received this suggestion for a WorshipGod09 seminar from Mike: I am on the leadership team of a new church here in Harare, Zimbabwe. We have combined two congregations – one of which used to worship in Shona and the other which is more comfortable in English.  In the new combined congregation, we have some who are mono-lingual. How do I agree with a spontaneous prayer if I do not know if they are praising His glory, interceding for the nation, or praying for Maria’s sore toe? Many of us, even if mono-lingual in speech, can sing in three or four languages!  But how meaningfully? We are considering having bi-lingual projections on screen …

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How Loud the Worship Team?

By on February 3, 2009 in —Leading a Congregation, —Sound and Tech

Over at Christianity Today, John Stackhouse, Jr. expresses his thoughts on the volume of worship teams in an article called, “Memo to Worship Bands.” He gives five reasons why church music teams should tone down the volume. 1. Cranking up the volume is just a cheap trick to add energy to a room. 2. When your intonation is not very good, turning it up only makes it hurt worse. 3. The speakers in most church PA systems cannot take that much energy. 4. Consider that you might be marginalizing older people. 5. Musicians—every one of them, including the singers—are accompanists to the congregation’s praise. After saying that musicians “should …

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How Do You Teach an Inconsistent Melody?

By on November 4, 2008 in —Arranging, —Choosing Songs, —Leading a Congregation, —Music Theory, —Training a Team

A friend recently emailed me and expressed a dilemma he was facing when teaching new songs performed by an artist who varies the way he or she sings the melody. My friend asked: When do we go with the lead sheet, and when do we go with the CD melody?  And when do we go with what is simple and consistent and when do we go with what is sung on the CD? I’ve faced the same dilemma. While I’m grateful for many of the new congregational songs that have emerged in recent years, they’re not always sung in a way that makes it easy for a congregation to pick them up. Phrases are elongated in one verse and not the other, melodies are changed, and sometimes …

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Worship Matters Video Vignettes

By on October 3, 2008 in —Defining Terms, —Leading a Congregation, —Leading a Team, —Worship and the Church, —Worship and the Pastor, —Worship Matters book, Videos

A while back I recorded four brief videos (3-4 minutes each) that serve as an introduction to the four sections of my book, Worship Matters, but can also be used as stand-alones. They deal with four areas: The Leader (what do I love the most?) The Task (what exactly is a worship leader trying to do?) Healthy Tensions (what false dichotomies do we create in corporate worship?) Right Relationships (how can I worship God in my relationships with my team, church, and pastor?) I recently was surprised to find out that the October issue of Worship Leader magazine mentioned them as a resource for worship leaders, pastors, and ministry teams. …

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WorshipGod08 Seminars Now Available

By on September 11, 2008 in —Arranging, —Choirs, —Choosing Songs, —Expressiveness, —Friends, —Leading a Congregation, —Leading a Team, —Music Theory, —Musicians & Vocalists, —Songwriting, —Sound and Tech, —Training a Team, —Vocalists, —Worship and Life, —Worship and Music, —Worship and Scripture, —Worship and the Church, —Worship and the Pastor, —WorshipGod Conferences

Over at the Sovereign Grace website, we’ve finally posted 29 WorshipGod08 seminars for you to listen to or download for free. . . . Here’s the list: Band on the Run (Bob Kauflin) Building Bridges: Pastors and Worship Leaders (Bob Kauflin) Caring for Your Sound System (Darryl Wenger) Copyright Law and Church Music: The Eight Keys (Paul Herman) Drumming for Worshipers (Jordan Kauflin) Electric Guitar Workshop (Dave Campbell) Foundations for Bass Players (Don Nalle) Foundations for Keyboardists (Jon Payne) Growing Your Team for the Glory of God (Jon Payne) In-Ear Monitors (Doug Gould) Leading and Caring for …

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Sunday Morning Video #3

By on March 6, 2008 in —Leading a Congregation, —Spiritual Gifts, Videos

The past two days I’ve posted videos from a recent Sunday morning at Covenant Life. The first one is here, the second one is here. These aren’t examples of someone doing everything right. Hardly. They just contain examples of a lot of the things I’ve written about at Worship Matters. Today I’m posting an example of spontaneity. Being “reformed charismatics,” we value the sufficiency, authority, and inerrancy of Scripture as well as the active presence of the Holy Spirit through the spiritual gifts mentioned in 1 Cor. 14 and elsewhere. During the fourth song that Sunday, Lost in Wonder, two pastors came up and shared prophetic impressions from …

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Sunday Morning Video #2

By on March 5, 2008 in —Arranging, —Leading a Congregation, Videos

Yesterday I posted a video of something I shared on a recent Sunday morning as I was leading. It was the introduction to the song “Come Christians Join to Sing.” It’s a traditional hymn that we’ve updated musically and lyrically. Kevin Hartnett, a member of my church, wrote a third verse that highlights the main reason we can sing — Jesus has died for our sins in our place and risen from the dead. Here’s the verse he added: Come praise the risen Lamb, Alleluia! Amen! He died to ransom man Alleluia! Amen! On that triumphant day He took our sins away! Death could not bid him stay Alleluia! Amen! You can download a copy of the guitar chart …

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Sunday Morning Video #1

By on March 4, 2008 in —Leading a Congregation, Videos

For today and the next two days I’m going to be posting some videos from a recent Sunday morning at my home church. I know that sharing principles is different from actually seeing what takes place, and a number of people told me how helpful it was the last time I posted the audio from one of our Sunday meetings. The order of songs that morning was: How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin) Haven’t You Been Good (Steve Earl) Come Christians Join to Sing (Trad. hymn, vs. 3 by Kevin Hartnett) Lost in Wonder (Martyn Layzell) Speak O Lord (Keith Getty & Stuart Townend) We sang the first two songs as a medley. We had to do the first …

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Addressing One Another in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

By on December 5, 2007 in —Leading a Congregation, —Worship and Music, —Worship and the Church

This past Sunday I had the privilege of speaking at Solid Rock Church, the Sovereign Grace church in Riverdale, Maryland, not far from where I live. I spoke on Eph. 5:15-21 and called the message, “Spirit-filled Singing.” I shared six characteristics of singing that are a result of being filled with the Spirit. My first point was “Spirit-filled singing is to each other,” and based on Eph. 5:19 where Paul says we’re “addressing one another.” You’d think in a passage about singing praise to God that Paul would begin with God. He doesn’t. The first focus of our singing Paul mentions is not God, but one another. Col. 3:16 fills this idea out …

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Bruce Springsteen on Meaning and Purpose

By on October 23, 2007 in —Leading a Congregation, —Worship and Music

Bruce Springsteen is on tour again. I’ve never been a Springsteen fan, but his music has affected millions. Recently, Scott Pelley interviewed Springsteen for the TV show 60 Minutes. His concert was described as “part circus, dance party, political rally, and big tent revival.” Here’s a portion of the interview, street language unedited. “You have got to be, wild guess, worth somewhere north of 100 million dollars. Why are you still touring? You don’t have to do this,” Pelley remarks. “What else would I do? You got any clues?” Springsteen asks. “Got any suggestions? I mean, am I going to garden? Why would you stop? I mean, you play the music …

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Motivating the Church to Worship God

By on May 8, 2007 in —Choosing Songs, —Leading a Congregation, —Worship Matters book

If you read this blog regularly you know I’m coming down to the wire on my “kind of” first draft for a book I’m writing for Crossway. THANK YOU to everyone who responded to my previous post asking about the challenges you face as a worship leader. Your thoughts are helping and guiding me as I write. I had a fruitful day of writing yesterday and actually finished three chapters. I’ve been able to borrow from some of the posts I’ve written on this blog as well as some material from my first draft of the book. I very much feel the effect of people’s prayers. I’m really enjoying the process of writing, which is completely God’s grace. The book …

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Worship Team or Songleader?

By on February 2, 2007 in —Leading a Congregation, —Vocalists

I received this question from Dennis: What would you say are the benefits of a “worship team” (several singers leading at the front) as opposed to one “songleader”? From what I can see, at least one major benefit is, to have many voices projecting the volume of a song *AT* the congregation, to help them catch on to it. This has been especially helpful when learning new songs. Are there other benefits of a worship team, in your opinion? No church ever needs to feel as though their corporate worship is less biblical, authentic, effective, or genuine because they don’t have a “worship team.” God doesn’t give us specific direction in Scripture …

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