Monthly Archives: September 2011

The Core

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I’m not good at everything…

Actually I’m not good at most things…

This is a fact and I’m totally ok with it as a reality that I live in.

This week that fact is painfully obvious to me as I have been operating in the “side” part of my job wearing my hat of “Director of Local Missions”.  It sounds kinda snazzy, but basically it just comes around twice a year during the planning and execution of our “Serve the City” events.  Planning Serve the City is almost entirely an administrative process.  It means a ton of emails, phone calls, photocopying, and organizing.  Basically, all the things I’m terrible at.  They put the creative guy in charge, go figure.  Truth is I love doing it, even if I’m bad at it.  This coming Sunday (October 2nd) we’ve got around 400 people who will be serving in 10+ locations all across our city.  It’s an awesome sight to see and it’s one of my favourite events on our church’s calendar.

Anyways…

The point I’m trying to make is that we all realize we are not good at everything.

So then, how do we continue to lead our ministries with excellence?

I think we do that by finding skilled people who will share the vision, help in the areas we are not strong in, and have a willingness to serve.

I mentioned in another post this week that I have a team of people that I sent some songs to asking for their feedback.  This team is actually what I am now calling our “core team”.

The Core Team is a group of volunteers who will help me carry the vision of the Worship Ministry of Saanich Baptist Church.  They are gifted musicians who will help me coach and encourage the rest of the teams.  They are growing worship leaders who I desire to pour into on a more intentional level.  And they are behind me, and I am for them.  With their help my weaknesses don’t matter as much and my strengths are multiplied.

I’m sure lots of you out there are leading a group of people and realizing you can’t do it all yourself.

How do you surround yourself with people who will help you move forward?

Ignite:

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For you creatives out there I thought I would share with you a video piece that we used this past Sunday.  The video supports our “Ignite” series on Acts and illustrates the passage in Acts 2:42-44.

The idea for the video came out of one of our creative team meetings.  This team meets monthly to discuss upcoming sermon series and brainstorms ideas that will help creatively tell the story or support the theme of the message.  We narrow our focus down to what we call “Know, Feel, Do”.  This is basically our desired response for people that attend the service that day.  Here’s what our notes said.

We will look at the five key activities of keeping the fire of God burning in our lives and churches – community, teaching, communion, prayer and generosity.

  • Know:  There are activities that we can participate in that will open ourselves up to God using us in mighty ways.
  • Feel:    A desire to be involved in these activities.
  • Do:       Make these activities part of our regular routine.

The video served as a bridge from the sermon to a time of reflection during which the congregation was encouraged to contemplate a step they could take to grow in these areas.

This is a pretty good example of something we would use from time to time to support the message.  Nick Johnson of Hey You Media is the extremely talented man behind the making of this video.  We’re fortunate at Saanich Baptist Church to have him on staff as our part time media and graphics designer.  You can check out his work HERE.

 

Choosing New Songs

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Fall is an exciting time for me.

Hockey season is almost here.

iPhone 5, a new Sigur Ros album, and a new Coldplay album are all coming out in October.

AAAAAND…It’s the beginning of a new “ministry” year which means I’m looking for new songs for our congregation to sing.

New songs can help keep things feeling fresh, they can help support new sermon series, and they can become anthems for your congregation that propel the vision of the church forward.

Because what we sing can have such a big impact on us I feel it’s really important to be intentional about picking the best songs for your congregation that you possibly can.  Don’t just choose from the worshiptogether.com “top 10 of the month” list.

This fall I enlisted the help of my “leadership core” team.  This team is made up of eight of our volunteers who are part of our worship teams.  Here’s how we approached it, and it’s still a work in progress.

I sent the team a list of songs and asked them to answer these questions.

  1. Is it singable/catchy?  Can you picture our church singing it?
  2. Are you comfortable with the wording?  (theology)
  3. Any other thoughts?

Here are the front runners from the list I sent them with some of their comments.

God Is Able – Hillsong Live

  • easy to sing
  • good words and message
  • “I like it!”

Lord, I Need You – Chris Tomlin 

  • “our church would love it”
  • cross generational appeal
  • familiar and beautiful

Some interesting takeaways from this exercise

As the Worship Pastor it’s still ultimately up to me to choose the right songs for our church.  Not all of the suggestions I got back from the team will be songs I consider.  Some of them could be special music numbers.  In the end I was really glad to have their help and it gave me some good perspective.  I think I’m much closer now to having a few new songs to introduce over the next few months.

What process do you use to choose new songs for your church?  I’d love to hear from others out there.  

 

Lesson 1: Humility

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I am NOT an expert worship leader

I am NOT an elite musician

I am NOT a master theologian

(actually I’m not sure why you’re reading this blog but I’m thankful that you are)

But, as a worship leader in full time ministry for 5 years now I have learned something along the way that you, as a fellow worship leader, absolutely, positively, 100% must grasp and apply to your life (after the gospel of course)…..

 

BE HUMBLE

Like, all the time.

  • Be especially humble when your pastor or another ministry leader over you is asking you to go in one direction even when you want to go in the other.
  • Be especially humble when that volunteer questions your musical ability in front of others.
  • Be especially humble speaking to that congregation member that disagrees with your song choices all the time.

I have not mastered these things.  But I have learned that I become a much better worship leader when I humble myself.  Humility has allowed me to build a strong relationship with my Sr. Pastor that is built on trust and respect.  Humility has given me the ability to lead bands of musicians who are more skilled than I am but will follow me because they know I have no self-serving agenda.

I know I risk sounding NOT humble by even writing on this subject.  But listen to me young worship leader (and I say this to myself all the time)…

You must learn to be humble if you are going to be an effective worship leader.

“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”  – Phil. 2:3

Honestly, it’s going to be hard.  I struggled with this for years before I realized what my issue was, and now it’s still a struggle to remain humble and to continually submit to the leadership God has placed above me.

Remember Jesus.  Remember the example He set.  And remember that in the end it’s all about Him.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” – John 3:30

 

For another great read on the subject of humility I recommend you check out this blog post from Bob Kauflin (author of “Worship Matters”)