KEEPING WORSHIP FRESH

BY TODD AGNEW

Musician, worship leader and recording artist Todd Agnew offers these eight tips for music leaders. See if you can apply some of these ideas in your ministry.

1) Get to know God in a deeper way.

Studying your Bible, prayer, everything you can do in your relationship with God will have a greater impact on your worship leading than the things you work on musically. As a worship leader, you are leading people to love God. So, the better you know Him, the easier it is for you to help them.

2) Remember that you cannot force anyone to worship.

I used to try to coerce, to mock, to drag people into the presence of God. That doesn’t work. In its simplest form, worship is loving God. You can’t force someone to fall in love. The most you can do is introduce them. So, in leading, we must lift up the Person of Jesus and let Him woo His beloved into worship.
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3) Don’t ramble.

In this current worship culture, worship leaders feel the need to talk, oftentime a lot; but remember, the pastor is about to preach a sermon that he/she has spent hours and hours preparing. He or she studied, edited and crafted a message for their people. So don’t just talk for five minutes because a thought jumped into your brain. Your people were just singing a song, focused on the presence, might, mercy and majesty of their Redeemer, and you are now distracting them from that. So you better have a really good reason for doing so.

4) Prepare…and be flexible.

Spend time studying the Scripture passage. Pray about the service. Search your song database for the right songs. Don’t just play songs you like or only those your people like. Plan your whole service to the best of your ability; but when it’s time to go, listen. Listen to your congregation, to your band and most importantly to the Spirit. Following the Spirit requires knowing His voice. You’ll find that most of the time, the Spirit will have been with you in every stage of the planning.

5) Practice.

Being spiritual shouldn’t mean being mediocre. Strive for excellence in what you do. Show grace to yourself and to others, but work hard.

6) Remember you are a servant, not a star.

As worship leaders, we serve. We serve God as worshippers. We serve others as a leader. We are not intended to receive attention or glory. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be gracious when people are complimentary. It just should not be your goal. God’s plan is for Him to be glorified, not you. We can be a part of that as worshipers ourselves and by helping others in their worship journeys.

7) Worship is a part of every moment, not just Sunday morning.

You probably know this already. We’ve taught about it a lot for the last few years, but I find it much easier to follow leaders who I have seen love God off the stage, as well.

8) This is just the beginning.

You never know everything. This list is not comprehensive but is just few ideas I’ve found helpful. Hopefully you will, too. Every one of you could teach me something about worship, because your journey has been different than mine. Every worshiper you encounter has a valid and valuable opinion. You can learn from everyone. Sometimes he or she may share that opinion in an unkind way, but you can receive it graciously.

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LAYING A SOLID FOUNDATION WITH PRAYER

BY REID SMITH (REPOSTED FROM WWW.SMALLGROUPS.COM)

Prayer is a vital component of small-group life. It sets up and maintains the health and vibrancy of your group. Sound prayer practices can affect your group in the following ways:

Positively influence how your small-group participants interact and minister to one another

Empower and mobilize your small group to reach out and incorporate spiritually unconvinced people into the body of Christ

Open the hearts of the hurting to God’s healing power

Open the ears of those who do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ to the gospel message

For these reasons, you should incorporate prayer throughout your small-group meeting. While each meeting should include prayer, you can keep things fresh by changing how you pray.

Prayer Ideas

Ask a small-group participant to open your gathering in prayer.

If you begin your meeting with a meal, pray for your small-group meeting when you pray for the food.

When you welcome the last person, officially open the meeting with a brief prayer.

Begin your study and discussion time with prayers of thanksgiving and praise.

Pray through your church’s weekly bulletin.

Pray immediately after a concern is raised—don’t wait for the official prayer time.

Be as specific as possible when you pray. Say the names of those you’re praying for.

Regularly pray for one another with the laying on of hands, especially when someone is ill (Luke 4:40; Acts 8:17, 28:8b).

Integrate prayer into your worship time. Spend time in thanksgiving, intercession, adoration, and confession.

Designate prayer partners. One way to do this is to have each participant pray for the person on his or her right throughout the week. Ask everyone to touch base with the person he or she is praying for before the next meeting.

11. Share answers to prayer with your small group. This encourages those praying to continue to pray (Acts 4:23-31).

Pray Scripture over a person or the entire small group. You could use Colossians 1:9-14 or Ephesians 3:14-19.

Pray a psalm over a person or the small group. Commit an entire meeting to reading Psalm 119 together.

Designate someone to be the prayer coordinator for your small group. As this person records requests and tracks answers, he or she will be empowered to lead and use his or her gifts to build up the body of Christ. The record of prayer requests will also be an encouragement to small-group participants as they see how God has been working in and through the group.

Set aside a gathering to do a Bible study focused on prayer. Consider using Ephesians 6:10-20 or Colossians 1:9-14.

Confess your shortcomings and pray for one another (1 John 1:9).

Have each person write his or her prayer request on an index card. Then exchange cards. Each participant should pray for the person on the card he or she has.

Fast and pray together. You could set aside a day to do this together, or you could choose to do this separately but at the same time. For instance, small-group members could agree to fast and pray over the lunch hour on Tuesday, wherever they’re at.

Encourage group participants to pray with their bodies. Have them stand with arms raised for praises and kneel for requests.

Close each meeting in prayer.

—Reid Smith is the Community Life Pastor of Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and the founder of the 2orMore small-group leadership training and resource ministry. Copyright by the author. Used with permission.

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CREATING A CULTURE OF DISCIPLESHIP–CLAIMING THE DNA OF JESUS

A decade ago the congregation I was serving caught the vision to be an outward-focused church.  We had honestly examined ourselves and determined that if our church would suddenly disappeared or died, that we would not be missed. We felt we had no significant impact beyond the way we served ourselves.  And that was not enough.

The word missional was not yet in our vocabulary.  We had not examined the Word sufficiently to frame our thoughts in a scripturally significant way.  We had not yet begun using the language of discipleship.  We just wanted to change course and move towards Christ’s vision for his church.

Later we would discover that we would need to create a new culture—a culture we now refer to as a culture of discipleship.

At the beginning of that journey we made a decision to let the Holy Spirit be the leader of the church.  We understood that it was the Holy Spirit’s role to lead, teach, empower the church to carry out its mission from Jesus.  The Holy Spirit would lead us to be like Jesus and live for Jesus.

That meant that we needed to first look at Jesus—who he was and what he revealed about the nature of God and the Kingdom.  To borrow from Howard Snyder and Daniel Runyon,  we needed to take on “the DNA of Jesus.” We need to be obedient to let the Spirit shape us to be like Jesus before us if we were to be competent to do the continuing work of Jesus. To accomplish that, my elders undertook a scriptural examination of what we would later identify as the core values of a church being obedient to the Holy Spirit to take on an outward-focused mission.

As part of that process we identified 10 core values.  We knew to be the church united by the Spirit, those values would need to be shared values.  I remember distinctly, however, one of my elders observing, “These are the values we need to embody, but you do know, pastor, that only about 5 or 6 of them are true about us at this time.”  The result of that discussion was to begin the process of becoming a church of disciples by teaching those core values and working to help the persons in the Body appropriate those values for themselves.

Why is this so important – why is this critical for creating a culture of discipleship?

Largely because many congregations have operated for a very long time without a clear connection to biblical foundations.  They may have clear statements of faith and solid doctrinal teaching, but in practice they operate from a values foundation that has become altered by traditions, values of a churched culture rather than Crist, their personal family values, their personal experience of living in an increasingly secularized culture – and on and on.

Values drive behavior.  Behavior impacts lives.  The combination of values and the resulting behaviors produce the character and identity of a person.  Only the values of Jesus can be expected to produce fruitful and faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.  Creating a discipling culture requires first-attention to values that are embedded in the Body.

© 2012 by Stephen L. Dunn

For those of you who are interested in creating a culture of discipleship, especially those of you who are church planters, you want to check out this very important conference coming May 18-19, 2o12 at Winebrenner Theological Seminary in Findlay, Ohio.

To learn more go to the LINK

A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION FOR CHURCH PLANTERS

The planting conversation today is generally one-sided. We read books and the author speaks to us, we watch webinars and see them teach, we go to conferences and hear them share, but what about our questions? How does what they say work in our context?
LAUNCH’’s goal is to break down those walls that cause the discussion to be one-sided. LAUNCH and the speakers are committed to providing you with time for questions in a smaller context. We want to offer opportunities to continue the dialogue outside the conference sessions and even past the conference itself, so that planters and pastors are strengthened in the mission that God has called them to.

What if you had the opportunity to spend 3 to 5 days with the conference speakers you thought could help you the most? We want to provide those opportunities for you. Our goal is to not be just a conference, but an environment of mentoring, teaching, conversation, push back, and growing from some of the greatest minds in the planting world.

LAUNCH is also partnering with Winebrenner Seminary to launch a new Seminary program that will partner with many of our speakers to provide, what we believe, will be the best church planting program in the U.S. Programs offered will be: Church Planting Diploma Graduate Certificate in Church Planting Master of Arts in Church Development M.Div with a planting emphasis Our Faculty includes: Dr. Reggie McNeal Dr. Linda Bergquist Dr. Phillip Nation Neil Cole Vince Antinoucci Lizzette Beard Glenn Smith Justin Meier

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT LAUNCH GO TO THE LINK

COMMUNITAS

Another thought-provoker from Alan Hirsch

DISCIPLING VS CONSUMERISM

This from Alan Hirsch.  What do you think?

 

LICENTIOUSNESS AND LEGALISM AT THE KITCHEN TABLE

This is a great post by Michael Kelley on the blog Forward Progress:

“I wish there were no rules.”

That’s what my 7-year-old said at dinner the other night when he was confronted (again) with the answer of “no” for something he wanted to do (I think it involved eating peas). He’s living under the mindset right now that the rules are there to cramp his style. They deny him freedom to do what he really wants to do and if all these restraints were lifted, his life would be much happier.

This is a lie ingrained into our hearts.

“I love the rules.”

That’s what the 4-year-old sitting across from him said with a glint of pride in her eye. She lives to please authority right now, and does not think of herself as sinful in any way, shape or form. Obeying fills her with pride, and she can’t imagine that anything in her heart might need to be changed because she is very proficient at following the rules. If, in fact, there were more and more rules she would be much happier because she would know exactly what the minimum was expected of her and she could perform accordingly.

This is a lie ingrained into our hearts.

Licentiousness and legalism sitting there together at the kitchen table, one believing that the rules deny him happiness and one believing that the rules justify her.

And the gospel is for both.

Thank God the gospel frees us from the lie that sin is freedom and happiness and moves us toward the joy of obedience and intimacy. And thank God the gospel frees us from the lie that we are “okay” and makes us into the humble people that are “okay” because of Christ alone.

And thank God that the gospel is still for a dad who from one day to another needs grace to love both of these kids in good – and hard – ways.

PEOPLE ON MISSION WITH JESUS

“Leadership is not merely personal sanctification but the multiplication of disciples.” – Mike Breen

The majority of churches in America are not growing.  It is a well-documented fact.  The number one reason for this is that churches have become institutions instead of missionary movements.  Institutions tend to be inward focused, intent on preservation rather vision.  Movements figure out what God is doing and where He is going and join Him.

In many ways we have succeeded as a church–but succeeded in matters that are contrary to the metrics of the Kingdom. We make the pastor the chief discipler but insist on most of time being spent on the wrong priorities.  We want him present in programs whether there is a discipleship purpose or not.  We want him to attend to our every need instead of focusing on the work that God is clearly calling us to do.  We allow ourselves to be recipients of services instead of providers. In many cases we resist his allowing or equipping others to do what he does for fear that he will stop making our needs his highest personal concern.

And yet at the same time we want to see the church grow.  But again, we focus on the wrong metrics.  How many people are in the pews and how many dollars in the plate?  (Some pastors refer to this as counting nickels and noses.)  Because we are not really concerned with doing the work of Jesus ourselves, or that even the church as a whole does the work of Jesus, we never ask whether these additional people represent persons who will be a part of the ministry or simply more consumers of the ministry’s services.

In that scenario, the church is only growing at the expense of the pastor’s exhaustion or lowering the expectations of people who are part of the church.  And in that scenario, we have a whole lot of people who are sure they are going to heaven but aren’t insuring that they are taking anyone with them.

Have you read the Great Commission lately? “Then Jesus came to them and said, `All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20

Permit me to highlight two phrases: go and make disciples and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  Jesus defined his mission as making disciples who would share the Good News of the Kingdom of God.  He did not say, “Once you’ve got it made as a disciple” you’re finished.  Nor did he say, “Once you have learned my commandments” just hang in there until I return.  And he did not say the pastor takes care of the disciples and the rest of us watch.

People on mission for Jesus know that what Jesus counts is how many disciples we have made and disciples are measured by their obedience to the will and purpose of God.

The church is not growing because it is not making disciples, just highly savvy religious consumers.

It’s time to change that.  Jesus IS returning.

(C) by Stephen L Dunn

TIM KELLER ON CHURCH SIZE AND LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

Church Size: Leadership and Management – Tim Keller

One of the best leadership articles I have read in recent years is Tim Keller’s article on Church Size Process Management.  This is a must read for every pastor serious about taking their church to the next level.

Keller writes on importance of this concept…

“One of the most common reasons for pastoral leadership mistakes and missteps is blindness to the significance of church size. Size has an enormous impact on how a church functions. There is a “size culture” that profoundly affects how decisions are made, how relationships flow, how effectiveness is evaluated, what its ministers, staff, and lay leaders do. We tend to think of the chief differences between churches mainly in denominational or theological terms, but that under-estimates                                                               the impact of size on how a church operates.”

Download Kellerchurchsizearticle

MUTUAL SUBMISSION

Text: Ephesians 5:21

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

It was late in the afternoon.  I had stopped at the grocery store on the way home from the church to pick up some items Dianne needed to prepare dinner for our family.  In line in front of me was a mother, well-dressed, probably a professional of some sort.  With her were two children, each with something electronic in their hands. Each looking the image of bored affluence.

It was still early enough that a retired man was bagging groceries.  It was late enough in his shift, however, that he was obviously tired; but still trying to conscientiously do his work.  Mom observed his condition and so she said to her children, “Help the man with the groceries.”

The girl just rolled her eyes in noncompliance and the boy responded, “That’s his job” and went back to his video game.

Mom paused a moment and then said to the bagger, “Step away, sir.  My kids will finish bagging those groceries.”  I wanted to cheer this mother’s actions out loud.  She knew pampered arrogance when she saw it and she was not going to let it take any deeper root in her kids.

On the essential doctrines of the New Testament in found in Ephesians 5:21.  It is called mutual submission.  It is found at a pivot point between teaching Jews and Gentiles to work together in the kingdom of God and specific instructions about dealing with our relationships in Christ-like ways.  Unity does not come from agreeing to be agreeable or committing to working together for a common goal.  The unity Paul describes goes much, much deeper.

In some translations submission is translated serve.  The lesson is clear, the heart of God is a servant’s heart.  And the motivation and measure for mutual submission is a direct outgrowth not from being agreeable or cooperative, but out of reverence for Christ.  Mutual submission is a direct outgrowth of the work of Christ found in Philippians 2.1-11.  “If we have any encouragement in Christ,”  i.e., if what Christ has done for you makes any difference in your life “each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (verse 4).  Our attitude should mirror that of Christ, “who being in the very nature God … made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant …” (verse 6).

Our sense of entitlement, to deserving service and feeling exempt from serving is a foundation for sin in human relationships.  The corrective?  “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

© 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

This post first appeared May 3, 2011 on one of

my other blogs THRIVING IN CHRIST