Recently, I’ve heard a lot of talk about platforms and movements. We see it often in the entertainment business, sports and politics. It’s Hollywood stars hanging out with the “right people”. It’s associating with the “right brands”. In politics, a platform can be a public office (Congress), an organization (Rainbow Push Coalition or Tea Party), or a cause. Sometimes a family name can be a platform. Being a Kennedy will open quite a few doors regardless of whether you are a genius or intellectually challenged.

“Leveraging a platform” means using an association with a personality, movement or organization to raise one’s own public persona. Often a platform makes an individual, who is not well known, an industry leader and public figure. We’ve seen this with people like Steve Jobs (Apple) and Yahoo’s Melissa Mayer…

A few months ago we talked about how to choose songs for your setlist. Now we have five more things to consider when planning your worship set:

THEME

Not every church gathering is going to have a theme or even a subject focus. Many pastors I’ve served under are still forming their sermons on Thursday for the coming Sunday. However, if you do have a theme, it’s powerful to plan songs with the same theme to create touch points with the sermon. For example, if the sermon is on grace, at least a couple of songs with a grace theme, like “Your Grace Is Enough”, will help connect worship to the teaching. You can search for songs by theme at www.WorshipTogether.com.

Dear church music gear swiper,

This is a plea. I am calling on your sense of kindness and compassion. Please stop swiping gear from different worship venues without letting someone know or bringing the item back once you are done.

When I was rehearsing for worship last Wednesday night I realized that the monitors weren’t working, so I went to the soundboard to investigate. I noticed you had swiped 2 cables that connected the soundboard to the monitor sends on the snake.

I corralled one of the students who helps out with sound and blamed him for the swipe. He assured me that it was you and he went and swiped the 2 cables back that I needed from where you left them!

Have you ever had your pastor or a church leader approach you after a service asking why you have the same people up there every week? Little do they know, the reason everything has been flowing so well lately is because the band finally starting to gel. We all know that leading becomes a whole lot easier when your band knows what it means when you are stomping your foot for a build or throwing your guitar neck up to signal the end of a song.

I was chatting with a friend who is a worship leader the other day and he was telling me about a guy at his church that approached him about helping out in worship. My friend informed him that there was a pretty big rotation of musicians for Sunday morning, but that the church could really use some help at a small recovery ministry that met on Friday evenings.

After spending a day “praying about it”, the guy told my friend that he would not be able to do the Friday ministry and emphasized that he really wanted to play on Sunday morning.

You’ve probably had similar experiences. There’s the musician in your church that is certain that if he/she could only play with the band, their playing would certainly take worship to a whole new level!