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What Pastors Wish Their Worship Leaders Knew

By on September 28, 2015 in —Mentoring Leaders, —Other Events, —Worship and the Pastor

This past week I had the privilege of participating in the Cutting it Straight conference in Jacksonville, led by H.B. Charles, Jr. and hosted by Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church. H.B. started this conference, now in its second year, specifically to influence African American pastors to preach expositionally. I was invited to be part of the worship track. H.B., along with his music pastor, Joe Pace, hopes to see more black churches singing songs that are theologically rich and gospel-centered. Not gospel like “black gospel,” but gospel like “Jesus bore our sins on the cross to purchase our forgiveness” gospel. While our cultural …

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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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Reflections on the New Attitude Conference

By on June 1, 2006 in —Next/New Attitude

This past weekend I had the privilege of helping to lead the music at the New Attitude conference in Louisville, Kentucky. About 2300 single men and women gathered for four days to exalt God’s name in song, hear biblical teaching on God’s Word and the Gospel, and enjoy rich fellowship in community and family groups. New Attitude was started a number of years ago by Joshua Harris, but is now led by Eric Simmons. Eric and Josh are both in their early 30’s and are seeking to impact younger generations through biblical, humble, Gospel-centered, and wise leadership. The three of us met a couple months ago to talk through what songs we’d …

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Monday Devotions – The Happiest People on Earth

By on January 9, 2006 in Devotions

“Serve the Lord with gladness.” (Ps. 100a) God cares whether or not there is joy in our hearts when we obey Him. He feels so strongly about this that in Deuteronomy He tells Israel they will be enslaved because “you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart.” (Deut. 28:47) In Ps. 32:11 he commands us “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” Philippians 4:4 sounds the same note: “Rejoice in the Lord, always; again I will say, rejoice.” Obviously, these verses aren’t referring to a superficial happiness that depends …

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From the Archives: When Feet Want to be Hands

By on December 11, 2012 in —Leading a Team, —Spiritual Gifts

What do you do as a leader when someone wants to play a specific role on your music team but is better fit for something else? What do you do as a member if that’s you? A number of years ago I preached a message from 1 Cor. 12:12-31. Paul has been answering the Corinthians’ questions about who is “really” spiritual. They were under the mistaken assumption that certain gifts, like tongues, were a sign of true spirituality. Their attitude was dividing the church – the exact opposite of the unity the Spirit wants to bring. Paul presses his point home by using the analogy of the human body. In preparing for the message, I did a little …

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When Feet Want to Be Hands

By on September 25, 2007 in —Leading a Team

Two Sundays ago I had the privilege of preaching at my home church, Covenant Life. We’re in the middle of a series on 1 Corinthians and I spoke from 1 Cor. 12:12-31. Paul has been answering the Corinthians’ questions about who is “really” spiritual. They were under the mistaken assumption that certain gifts, like tongues, were a sign of true spirituality. Their attitude was dividing the church – the exact opposite of the unity the Spirit wants to bring. Paul presses his point home by using the analogy of the human body. In preparing for the message, I did a little research on the body and learned some amazing facts. Our liver performs …

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WorshipGod11: The Gathering

By on January 18, 2011 in —WorshipGod Conferences

Even though it’s still eight months away, I’m in the middle of planning for WorshipGod11, to be held Aug. 10-13, 2011 at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD. This year’s theme will be “The Gathering.” The idea crystalized while I was reading Bryan Chapell’s excellent book, Christ-Centered Worship. When most of us plan our meetings we tend to think in separate categories – the songs, the announcements, creative elements, the message, communion, ministry time, etc. Chapell makes a strong case for having a gospel mindedness that affects not only what we do but how we put it all together. In other words, every time we meet a clear gospel …

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Choosing a Hymnal for a Worship Service

By on July 14, 2006 in —Hymns

One person recently wrote in to ask: 1. What criteria would you use in selecting a new hymnal? 2. What particular hymnals would you recommend checking into? Although we don’t use a hymnal in our Sunday meetings, if I were to choose one, I’d look for one that contains the best of Christian hymnody prior to the early 20th century. These are the songs for congregational worship that have been established, tried, tested, and proven to be beneficial to the Church. Since a hymnal should serve primarily as a tool to teach and reinforce the doctrines of the Christian faith, I’d look for many songs by Watts, Wesley, Newton, Toplady, Cowper, Hart, …

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A New Soundtrack for the Psalms

By on March 18, 2016 in —Album Giveaways, —Contests, —Music Reviews, —Scripture Songs

A few weeks ago I came across an album called Psalm Songs, Vol. 1, put out by The Corner Room, aka Adam Wright. I hear hundreds of albums each year and when one stands out, it’s obvious. Psalm Songs stands out. These aren’t congregational songs, but Scripture songs, word for word from the English Standard Version. It’s really difficult to set longer Biblical passages to music without making it sound forced and un-musical. Adam and friends overcame those obstacles. Combining elements of bluegrass, new country, pop music, and folk, these songs are musically fresh, skillfully played, and a joy to listen to. After listening to the …

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Does Worship Need the Church?

By on April 24, 2018 in —Leading a Congregation, —Together for the Gospel

Recently at the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, KY, I had the joy and privilege of accompanying 12k+ attendees as they worshiped God in song. The sight and sound of praising God together with over 10,000 other believers is pretty overwhelming. But we can experience something similar with a smaller crowd. We’re often deeply affected by the singing at a conference, retreat, or worship event. So much so that gathering with your church on Sunday feels like a major letdown. Why doesn’t the worship in song we experience at an event translate to Sunday morning? Should we expect it to? Can local churches learn from worship …

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Jesus and the Songs We Sing, Pt. 2

By on November 15, 2012 in —Leading a Congregation, —Other Events, —Worship and Christ

Yesterday, I shared bullet points from the first part of a message I recently gave at the Doxology and Theology Conference and the Christian Musicians Summit. I was seeking to highlight the centrality of Jesus in congregational singing. My first point was that Jesus is the leader of our songs. Here’s points 2 and 3. 2. Jesus is the content of our songs. Col. 3:16 says we are to, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col. 3:16) That word of Christ is the word about Christ – who he is and …

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Celebrating Thirty Years of Marriage

By on August 25, 2006 in —Family

For the next 16 days, I’m taking a break from Worship Matters. I have a number of quotes on worship scheduled to post automatically, but I won’t be doing anything real time. The reason is the woman who’s pictured here. This is a picture of Julie, taken at the recent WorshipGod06 conference. Thirty years ago, on August 28, she agreed to be my lawfully wedded wife for the rest of her days. If you knew me back then, you’d understand what a miracle that was. I’m taking Julie to France, Wales, and England from Aug. 26-Sept. 11 to celebrate 30 years of God’s kindness to us. We’ll be staying for a week in a house in Provence that some kind friends …

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Feel Free to Live Stream our Songs

By on March 24, 2020 in —Leading a Congregation, —Sovereign Grace Music

UPDATE Jan. 20, 2021: Please read this updated permissions statement from the Sovereign Grace Music blog. When the COVID-19 crisis caused governments to mandate that churches not gather, Sovereign Grace Music wanted to make it easy for people to live stream our music online to encourage their members. While the current situation doesn’t allow for the saints gathering as we’re told to do in Scripture (Heb. 10:25), we’re grateful that Christ-exalting communication over the Internet can be a means of grace that makes us long to be able to meet together again (Ps. 122:1)! Recently, Sovereign Grace Music posted on social media that …

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Thoughts on WorshipGod East: Called to be Faithful

By on August 7, 2013 in —WorshipGod Conferences

I’m so grateful for all God did at WorshipGod East this past weekend. Over 1000 church leaders and musicians gathered for 2 1/2 days around the theme Called to be Faithful. We started Wednesday night with a pre-release event featuring songs from our new album, Grace Has Come: Songs from the Book of Romans. We hope to release some of the songs from that night as audio and/or video tracks. My son, Devon, led a band of very fine musicians from 5 churches, 4 of them local. I was freshly grateful for the gospel partnerships the Lord is enabling us to form in Louisville. The conference took place at Highview Baptist Church, East Campus. I can’t …

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What Does a Worship Leader Do? Pt. 1

By on January 25, 2006 in —Defining Terms, —Free Messages, —Leading a Congregation, —Worship and Music, —Worship and the Pastor

Before I start this series, I wanted to give you some background. Eight years ago, after I had served as a pastor for twelve years, C.J. Mahaney invited me to assume the new role of “Director of Worship Development” for Sovereign Grace Ministries. One of my assignments was to study and train others in the practicals of biblical worship, particularly as it relates to music. As I studied Scripture and read books like Engaging with God by David Peterson and Adoration and Action, ed. by D.A. Carson, I quickly realized that the Bible, especially the New Testament, didn’t give much space to my role as a worship leader. None, to be exact. The …

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