Pre-Order My Church’s Advent EP

1About a month ago I mentioned that we’re working on two upcoming projects due to be released this November. One is a worship album and the other is an Advent EP. I’m thrilled about them both and I can’t wait to share them with you so they can be a blessing to you and so you can have some new ideas/songs/inspiration for you and your ministry.

The Advent EP is entitled “For Our Salvation”. Here’s the little promo blurb:

This 6-song EP, featuring band, organ, children’s choir, and strings, presents the story of the longed-for Messiah through fresh arrangements of traditional carols, and two new compositions. These songs will help you cherish Jesus and stoke your expectation to see him, one day, face to face.

You can pre-order it here.

Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God” Tour

1I’m super excited that my church will be hosting Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God” tour this December! (Friday, December 20th at 7:00pm, to be exact).

If you’re anywhere near Northern Virginia, you should come. You can order tickets here.

And if you’re not anywhere near Northern Virginia, you should drive up here for it anyway. It will be that good.

 

Being the Right Kind of Bold

1Worship leaders shouldn’t spend their ministry at their church always playing it safe, always going with the flow, and always making everybody happy. They should lead with more conviction than that. And they should expect detractors, criticism, and resistance. They should be willing to push certain limits for the long-term benefit of the people they’re serving at the risk of short-term unsettledness. They should be bold. But they should be the right kind of bold.

There’s a difference between a boldness that leans toward congregational involvement, Jesus-centerdness, musical excellence, and physical expressiveness — all good and right things — and a boldness that pushes one’s own agenda, elevates one’s own stature, isolates one’s own existence, and highlights one’s own appearance. In other words, you can be bold in smart ways or you can be bold in vain ways.

In which ways are you bold?

Sometimes I observe worship leaders who have picked up from the stadium context such boldly defining characteristics – whether it’s the affect of their voice, the pattern of their shirt, the stratospheric keys or eclectic choice of their songs, or the overzealous stage presence – and carried it into their local contexts where it’s totally and utterly lost in translation. These guys are being bold alright, but they’re leaving a trail of confusion in their wake.

Then other times I observe worship leaders who have developed a passion for seeing a congregation sing whole-heartedly and full-bodiedly, cultivating a Jesus-centrality both in doctrine and in practice, growing a team free from territories and rights and divas, and leading services that drive home the good news of the gospel week after week. These guys meet resistance in all sorts of different realms, particularly spiritual, but they leave a legacy of God-glorification in their wake.

I want to be the right kind of bold. I don’t want to grow callous to the dear people in my congregation and, as a result, do things that draw attention to me and my persona and my name and my 1980’s keytar (congrats if you read this far and understand what I’m talking about). I want God to use me for his purposes and for his people’s edification, whether that means smooth sailing or choppy seas.

May God raise up worship leaders who say with John the Baptist “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). May our boldness be the decreasing kind. The kind that exalts Christ.

What Making Worship Albums Has Taught Me

1Last year I had the privilege of producing a worship album for my church called “A Thousand Amens“. This year I’m producing two more. It’s been a ton of fun, a lot of work, and a learning experience. Here are a few things making worship albums has taught me:

Make every measure count
Do you really need that 4-measure interlude between the chorus and verse? Could you cut it out altogether? Could it be more effective if it was just 2 measures? Extra measures can drag a song down. Cutting out 2 measures here and 2 measures there can make a huge improvement.

Play less. Really. Play a lot less
You hear this a lot and you know it’s true, but do you and your team members practice it? Probably not. I need to do a better job insisting that all of our team members, and this includes me, play less and play better stuff when we do play.

There’s no such thing as a live worship album anymore
We’re able to fix so much stuff in post-production that it’s almost ridiculous. The result is a great-sounding worship album, but the danger is that worship leaders and congregations expect Sunday mornings to sound like a worship album. Except for rare circumstances and rare teams, your Sunday morning services will not (and should not) sound like a recording. Relax.

I should only introduce new songs if they’re worth introducing
It wasn’t long after our first album released last July that I knew we’d be doing another one in 2013. So every time I thought about introducing a new song I had to think “is this a good enough song that I’d want it to be immortalized on an album, put in the cars and homes of my congregations, and held up to other worship leaders who buy this album as a song they should do as well?” Most songs didn’t meet that criteria so I didn’t introduce them. It was a high bar. But I don’t regret it. Set a high bar for what songs you introduce.

It doesn’t take much to freshen up a song
As our latest live recording in July was getting close, I had lunch with a good friend of mine who’s a gifted worship leader/arranger/composer. He cautioned me against doing songs the exact same way they were recorded. Change a chord here or there. Do a different melodic thing on the intro/interludes. Whatever. It doesn’t have to be much. Just use your brain and your creativity and freshen up a song. Good advice.

Congregations are hungry for extended worship
The two times we’ve recorded live worship albums, I’ve been amazed at my congregation’s response to the lengthy times of worship that we’ve offered on a Friday/Saturday night or even on a Sunday morning. They sat down when they wanted to. They stood when they wanted to. They wanted more at the end of 90 minutes. They seemed rejuvenated. So did I. I shouldn’t wait for album recordings as an excuse to offer extended worship. I should look for other times as well.

God gives congregations a song to sing
I’m not talking about a “song” as in an individual song, but I’m talking about “song” in a bigger-idea, over-arching-narrative sense. Our first album was recorded when we were losing our building. Our “song” was that Jesus was “all to us” (which happened to be an actual song, too). This time we recorded an album after a year and half of being a portable church without a home. Our “song” was the faithfulness of God and the unchanging power of the Gospel. What “song” is your congregation singing? What song should they be singing? Keep your ear to the ground and you’ll hear it.

My Three Greatest Ministry Influences

Recently I was thinking about who my three greatest musical/ministry influences are. Here’s who I came up with (and the first will surprise you).

1The first musician to influence my work and musicianship was, believe it or not, the Christian singer Carman. His songs were musically kitschy, his performances were over-the-top, and his theology was shaky, but he was bold, accessible, and engaging. As a very young boy, my borderline infatuation with Carman resulted in years of backyard concerts and elementary-school talent show performances of his songs. This was all used by God to do three important things: get me comfortable singing in public, teach me the power of private worship, and help me see the value of congregational engagement in worship. Later, in my teenage years, God exposed me to a broader and more mature pool of Christian musicians and worship leaders who allowed me to grow, but the foundation was laid by a childhood love for an eccentric contemporary Christian music performer (as much as this gets me teased by my friends!)

The second and most influential musician in my life was the man my father hired to be our church’s youth and worship director when I was seven years old. Tim MacGowan became a hero to me, a model of a faithful husband and committed father, a full-time minister who led with strength and humility, and an excellent musician whose goal was to see his congregation exalt and encounter God together each week. He trained me as a young musician to play skillfully and humbly and to lead worship in an accessible, not-distracting way. Beyond music, he was a mentor and a friend to me, eventually serving as my best man and continuing to this day as one of my closest friends and continuing ministry influences.

After continuing to lead worship as much as possible throughout my teenage years, I became familiar with the ministry of Bob Kauflin. Bob had a major influence on my practice and theology of music and worship leading. His unwavering commitment to (1) the celebration and proclamation of the good news of the Gospel in corporate worship, (2) excellent musicianship, (3) the leading and ministry of the Holy Spirit as he points to Jesus, and (4) corporate worship as an act of pastoral care profoundly impacted my work and musicianship. God used Bob’s ministry to cultivate within me a deeper love for God’s glory, a theology of music and worship, and a desire to see worship leaders use music more effectively to help congregations see and savor Jesus Christ.