There are stages of every Christian life: Justification (salvation), Sanctification (working out our salvation) and Glorification (heaven).
Continue Reading...There are big differences in starting a band and building a worship team:
A band picks members that all fit together. A worship team picks members to represent the body.
Image is really important in a band. Image is not important on a worship team.
A band is typically the same people all the time. A worship team should be different people a lot of the time.
Often literal, linear, and self-explanatory images or stories or songs can help us better understand the world around us. They clearly paint in large brushstrokes a certain truth about who we are, and provide solutions for the condition of things we may not understand.
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Worship Together recently got to connect with Crowder and ask him a few questions about the new album and what it’s like recording on his own now. This is how the conversation went.
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“That new song has such a killer melody! I love how it builds into the chorus and that bridge section really explodes!”
Songs that sing great and sound great really grab our attention. It’s how we are made. We naturally connect to catchy melodies. And depending on how we are hardwired, we might be more inclined to sing a great melody than a great lyric. Raise your hand if you’ve ever caught yourself singing along with a pop song on the radio without really thinking about what you are saying. I’m guilty!
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“You are loved.”
My pastor always ends letters to our congregation this way.
You are loved.
It’s a great reminder of that in the midst of a community of people – no matter how large or small – you are loved. You, individually, are loved. The leaders of our church love the person not just the people…
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We all struggle at times as worship leaders, musicians and techs on the right balance between presentation and performance, humbleness and showiness, reverent yet engaging. There are a hundred words to describe the point where a worship service crosses our proverbial red line. In many ways our creativity is at war with our conscience. To aggravate things, musicians and techs are often called out as being too slick or showy – much more than teachers and preachers are – even though we implement many of the same techniques to communicate with our audiences…
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Worship leader. Artist. Seldom have the two labels blended as seamlessly as in the music and message of multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter Evan Wickham. His debut album, Mysterious Things, released in 2006, is a tour-de-force collection of intimate worship, heartfelt expressions of joy and wonder at God’s blessing, and a celebration of the redemptive power of salvation in Jesus Christ. “Keeper of the stars, Lord of time and space,” Wickham sings on the album’s gorgeous centerpiece, “Hallelujah Jesus.” “I will live my life lifting up your name.” These lines are clearly the heart of Wickham’s music and ministry.
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Our words do matter. And I have a concern with the way that we use a couple of particular words: I don’t want to be called a ‘worship leader’ anymore.
In between working as Worship Arts Director at a church and The City Harmonic becoming a full-time job for me I ran a small marketing company. And if I learned anything at all in that time it’s that our ideas, our habits and our words really do matter. I learned that a lot effort and resources have been spent studying the mind – how we make decisions, what governs some of our instinctual actions, etc…
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As worship leaders, we know how tough it can be to find enough songs that can be used to open your service. That’s why we are excited to bring you Stand Up and Ready For You, two great anthems from Luke Hellebronth & Worship Central. Both of these worship songs will fit perfectly at the beginning of a worship set and encourage your church to dive in to the worship service…
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