New Song Suggestions
I just made a quick post to Facebook and Twitter this morning that said the following:
"Hey Worshiping Friends . . . what's a new worship song that you have secretly been keeping from me that you would like us to sing at Living Stones Church. Add your suggestions to the comments section."
Right away I started to get responses from individuals with their favorite song selections. I'll be taking a listen to everyone's suggestions and then blogging my thoughts and philosophy for worship leaders on how to select good songs. Bring on the suggestions by adding your your favorites to the comments section below.
The Sam May Documentary
Amazing story from a former Lake Station Edison student. It's well worth watching!
The Sam May Documentary from The Net Church on Vimeo.
To Defend or Not to Defend
Matthew 27:12-14 (NLTSE)
[12] But when the leading priests and the elders made their accusations against him, Jesus remained silent. [13] “Don’t you hear all these charges they are bringing against you?” Pilate demanded. [14] But Jesus made no response to any of the charges, much to the governor’s surprise.
Jesus made no response to any of the charges. How often is our first response when we are accused is to respond in our own defense. I don't know about you, but I find it quite easy to come to my own defense. Right or wrong, our human response seems to be a defense mechanism. Whether that is part of the normal human response or just our lack of Godly character, I'm not sure.
New Music and Worship Teams
My most recent blogs have been pretty general in nature, but this one is going to be a little more focused on my worship leading friends. Today's blog post is the result of the ongoing question about introducing new music to your congregation. Most of this I've learned over the years from doing it wrong. Sometimes the most valuable lessons we learn in life are the lessons we learn from our mistakes.
So, how many new songs is too many?
I've heard it said in several places that most people can only handle 2, at the most 3, news songs per month. There are obviously a lot of variables that go into this, but this is a general rule to follow.
In our context at Living Stones, I often introduce new songs during our communion or offering times instead of in the middle of the list. If you don't have this luxury because of the components or order of your service, just make sure that you don't have too much new material in one list. Have a good balance of familiar in there to keep people connected.
Don't move on too quickly.
Don't stop singing a new song too quickly. Worship leaders and worship teams are never the best judge of when a song has been used too much. I have often heard worship leaders or musicians make comments about "riding a song to death." Most worship leaders will probably never do that. You have to remember that you, as worship team members, have heard the song several times during the week for your own rehearsal, have rehearsed it at least once with the worship team, and may be leading it in multiple services on any given weekend. For every time the average congregation member has heard the song, you've heard it five times. By the time you're ready to move on to another song, your congregation is just getting comfortable with it.
Make sure you know your people.
In all of this, the key is to truly know the people you are leading for. Some congregations will respond differently to different songs, new songs, etc. One of the major responsibilities of any worship leader is to know the congregation you are leading worship for.
Worship leaders: any thoughts or personal lessons you've learned?
Forward is Sometimes Back
We just learned a small lesson at the office today. My friend, worship leader, and office assistant, Joey, was working on our computer to get it prepped for our Sunday service. We've been having an issue with the PowerPoint files not looping for our announcements. Now we all know that if it were a Mac, we wouldn't be having such issues, but unfortunately, we're still stuck with a PC in the booth. Joey did research, uninstalled stuff, researched some more, read posts, tried this, and tried that. Nothing. It still wouldn't work.
I came up with a crazy idea. How about we just uninstall PowerPoint 2007 and just go back to the solid standby version of PowerPoint 2003 which was working just fine before this. Ok, let's try it. Joey uninstalled 2007 and reinstalled 2003, and it works like a charm.
Why do I tell you this story? To get every one of you to throw your PC out the window of at least a two-story window and go to your nearest Apple store and buy a new legit computer they call a Mac? NOPE. That's not why I tell you this. I came up witha quick, short, yet profound take away from Joey's journey with the PC.
"Sometimes the best thing you can do to move forward is to go back."
We don't often talk about this because "going back" is perceived as a negative. If you go back, then you're admitting defeat; or you're not willing to do what it takes to move forward; or you're just flat out a whimp. Not true. Sometimes we think that moving ahead is always the right thing to do. What we sometimes find out and what we discovered today is that sometimes after you've moved forward in a direction you realize that going back makes the most sense. Maybe it's because you went in the wrong direction in the first place and now need to go back to your starting point. Maybe it's at that place you refocus and move again.
In no way do I think going backward is the normative behavior. However, at times, it's exactly the right thing to do.
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