Thanksgiving can sometimes be neglected in the midst of planning our Christmas services. So before we get going with all the great Christmas music we have for you this year, we wanted to share a few songs that would be great for your worship services around Thanksgiving this year.

Thank You | Hillsong LIVE
Listen | Lyrics | Free Lead Sheet

Forever | Chris Tomlin
Listen | Lyrics | Free Lead Sheet

Once Again | Matt Redman
Listen | Lyrics | Free Lead Sheet

Because Of Your Love | Brenton Brown
Listen | Lyrics | Free Lead Sheet

My Heart Is Filled With Thankfulness | Townend & Getty
Listen | Lyrics | Free Lead Sheet

Breathe | Charlie Hall
Listen | Lyrics | Free Lead Sheet

Where Would We Be | Matt Redman
Listen | Lyrics | Free Lead Sheet

The brand new CCLI Church Rehearsal License allows worship leaders and church music directors to legally copy commercial audio recordings and/or share audio files via email, flash drives or on worship planning websites.

The copies are intended for rehearsal purposes only, and are not intended to remain as permanent copies for personal collections. Pricing is based on the number of copies made and/or the number of songs shared.

This revolutionary resource is a must-have in your worship planning toolbox. It gives you the freedom to distribute music to your team for rehearsal in the way that best fits your ministry.

Click here to learn more and estimate the cost for your ministry.

“Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy”. Psalm 47:1.

With as much clapping as we do in church now days you would think that clapping in worship was mandated by the Lord. Not so. In fact, there are only 2 references in the NASB for clapping during worship celebration and one of them involves rivers and not people! Psalm 47:1 (shown above) and Psalm 98:8 that says “Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy.”

Compare this to over 70 references for singing just in the Psalms and we begin to see how little clapping has to do with our biblical worship.

I had a conversation after our service at church last Sunday about picking worship songs. It was a good talk and it made me think a bit about how we as worship leaders choose songs to sing.

I came up with the following 4 things that I think will help:

1. Lyrics must be Scripturally accurate.We can’t assume that just because we trust the writer or the publisher that the song is true. We are all prone to error or miscommunication. Also, words sometimes mean different things to different people. You as the worship leader must make sure that what you are asking your church to sing is clear and in-line with the Gospel.

Recently, our church staff has starting reading a book called “The Trellis and the Vine” by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne. In the book, the authors compare our church structures and programs to a trellis and people to the vine. In essence, we build a trellis so that it can support the life of the vine. But the authors duly note that many times in church ministry we spend more time tending to the trellis than the vine, or more time building up our programs rather than building up our people.

This is evident in churches that are “top heavy” in spiritual leadership. There’s a pretty big crowd on Sunday, but only a handful of people are engaged in personal ministry. And since leadership is not shared, others can’t develop and share their spiritual gifts.

There are several reasons why we fall into this trap:

As worship leaders, we often ask the question “How do we measure success?”. This question is more easily answered by a retail store or a mechanic than by a ministry leader. It can be hard to get your arms around the metrics that should be used to measure success. Is it how many people show up on Sunday morning? Is it how many people have their arms raised in worship or say “good job” when you are done?

Worship teams take on endless configurations depending on church size, stage size, vision and other considerations. If you use a full band, then you probably have a basic rhythm section of guitar, bass, keys and drums.

However, it gets more interesting when you start talking about singers. Your “singer structure” can vary, but probably falls into one of these categories:

1. “The Crowder” – In this structure the leader does all the singing except for the occasional shout out from one of the other band members. You can also chat back and forth with your band mate between songs “Letterman/Shaffer” style. If it’s a guy leader, then all the dudes sing with him and the girls have to either screech out an octave above him or make something up on the fly. This is generally considered the coolest structure.