The Worship Artist

So far this “discussion,” has become mostly one sided (but not entirely). We’re going to try something new here at The Worship Artist. I want to give my readers a forum to voice their options and thoughts on culture, art, and the church. Sign up for an account, login, start writing, and submit your article for review.

It is my opinion that Christians at large have lost their ability to discern. I heard the story of a girl (we’ll call her Sarah) who listened only to Christian music as a teenager. During one period of her life Sarah decided to broaden her musical interests and begin listening to secular music. The music was obviously influencing her, she was changing. Sarah began to feel the urge for always having a boyfriend, her spiritual life began to suffer, and she was overall less happy. Her friends saw her changing, and she even saw the change in herself. Sarah then decided to go back to only listening to Christian music and avoid listening to secular music.

Some would use this story as an argument for exclusively listening to Christian music, but I believe that Sarah’s problem is much deeper. Christians at large, sense the 90s, have come to blindly accept that which is sold in the Christian bookstores. I would argue that the main reason there is a market for the Christian Industry (selling books, CDs, movies, even little TestaMints) is because Christians want to be lazy. They want to turn their discernment guards off and simply suck in the information. No questioning is involved and no guarding of what goes into their minds. This is obvious in that the major argument for only listening to Christian music is because Christians, “should guard what goes into their minds.”

Sarah’s problem wasn’t that she decided to listen to secular music but that she never learned discernment. She learned to listen to music by only listening. Never meditating or questioning… just listening. Thus, naturally when she listened to something else, she listened to it the same way she did before… just listening.

The Boomers created the CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) industry and the Millennials grew up with it. Boomers and Millennials will either abandon strictly listening to CCM or continue using it for their musical diet. For various reason I believe the Christian Music Industry will be dead (or nearly dead) within 10 years if it doesn’t make some serious changes. Currently the death of CCM is more likely than not, thus Boomers and Millennials will be forced to either crawl in a musically deprived hole or listen to “secular” music. Thus, the music will change, but the listening behavior will not and I believe that Christians will follow the same pattern that Sarah did, but unfortunately the solution will not be as simple as switching their musical diet. If you think we live in a spiritually deprived culture wait 10 years to see a spiritually deprived Christian culture.

I know some are asking the question, “so where do you draw the line in what you listen to?” Past Christian generations have been so strong on creating a lists of rules in order to make moral decisions easier — “don’t go into places that serve alcohol,” “don’t listen to secular music,” “don’t go to rated R movies,” etc. So where do you draw the line in all these situations? I will not define that. It must be different for each person because we all have different interests and struggles. The Christian life is difficult. It’s not as easy as we’d like to make it. It’s not a list of rules. We must learn how to discern.

Check yourself. Did you blindly read this post because I am a “Christian?”

Both services went well. Felt like the people were engaged and praying these songs. Eric closed out the service at StoneBridge for me. I was able to hear the sound check, he played “You Are Worthy” by Jon Shirley. This is a new song to me… but sounds great. It’s worth a listen. Last week Grace talked about the Biblical evidence of Creation, and this week we brought in a guy to talk to about the scientific evidence of Creation. Even though Grace did two songs (one before and one after the message), we ended the service with “Indescribable.” It was a very fitting way to worship after talking about the physical evidence out there that proclaims there is a God.

Grace Community Chapel

Sing To The King :: Foote, Billy | Horne, Charles Silvester Indescribable :: Story, Laura

StoneBridge Community Church

Everlasting God :: Brown, Brenton | Riley, Ken Mighty To Save :: Fielding, Ben | Morgan, Reuben All Creatures of Our God and King :: Barker, Ken All The Earth Will Sing Your Praises :: Baloche, Paul The Beauty of Simplicity :: White, Josh You Are Worthy :: Shirley, John

Stumbled across this video from Desiring God 2006 National Conference Podcast. Some great thoughts by Mark Driscoll.

Overall both services went really well. StoneBridge’s service was really neat because the service was structured around using “hymns,” it was really neat to watch the congregation’s reaction to these songs…. the words have a great depth that is often hard to find in many songs of today.

Grace learned “I Will Boast” which ended up being a bigger trouble because the projector went out before the service. Luckily our secretary was thinking and grabbed a copy of our music and ran photocopies for the congregation. It was kind of a quirky thing and it was a challenge for me as a worship leader. Typically I can rely on the video guy to cue the congregation in as to where we’re going in the song… but this week I had to give more verbal cues than normal.

Grace Community Chapel

All Because of Jesus :: Fee, Steve
I Will Boast :: Baloche, Paul
Giving It All To You :: Gungor, Lisa | Gungor, Michael
All Creatures of Our God and King :: Barker, Ken

StoneBridge Community Church

All Creatures of Our God and King :: Barker, Ken
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing :: John Wyeth & Robert Robinson
Before the Throne of God Above :: Bancroft, Charitie Lees | Cook, Vikki
Holy Holy Holy :: Dykes, John Bacchus | Heber, Reginald
Holy Is The Lord :: Tomlin, Chris | Giglio, Louie

If I may, let me brag on my church for a little bit. Many churches forget the importance of simply being an active body in the community. The philosophy is generally that the church should only do things that either uplift the body or vocally presents the gospel to the community.

Mid last year we found out that a World Champion Sand Sculptor lives in our community. We commissioned him to create a sculpture over the course of 3 days on our church parking lot. On the 3rd day we had a large festival with local bands (which were not “Christian” by the way) food vendors, and games/events for children through the day; ultimately climaxing with the finalization of the sand sculpture.

We bounced around the idea of doing some biblical scene with the sand sculpture but we ultimately decided to have a patriotic sculpture because it’s some common ground that the community as a whole could appreciate and share in. Some have asked, “What’s the purpose of doing this?” or “Why isn’t the Gospel being presented?” The purpose was to provide an event for the community (being a functioning body in the community) making connections with people and the Gospel was not being presented in the general sense. Hopefully believers in the church would be a “presentation” enough and if conversations went that route then great… but we were not interested in pulling people onto our parking lot, trapping them in one place, and pulling out the megaphone.

The event was very sucessful. Around 1,000 people were there, connections were made, and hopefully lasting relationships. I would encourage Christians (individually) and church leaders (corporately) to find ways to be activly involved in their community. Maybe it’s as simple as going to the town hall meetings, finding needs that should be met, or hosting a community event. Whatever it is… be involved.

One of my secret productivity tools is Planning Center Online. It has seriously revolutionized my service planning. It use to take me 6-8 hours to arrange the service elements, generate chord charts, create the cue sheets, and e-mail them out to everyone who’s involved. While doing this I would often forget to e-mail it out to everyone or make some other mistake. This 6-8 hour process now can take under 2 hours with Planning Center Online. Our worship services have increased in quality just for the fact that I can spend extra time devoted to creating a quality service. I plan worship services for two churches, and between the two churches we pay Planning Center $30 a month… quite reasonable.

Here’s a few of the amazing features on Planning Center that I’ve come to love:

• Planning Center generated chord charts with key changing functions.
• Mp3 support for band rehearsing.
• E-mail your band/vocalists/tech guys/pastor/whoever you want to “invite” them to the service plan.
• Accept/Decline function built in with the e-mailing function. When people respond by clicking accept/decline for the plan, an e-mail is sent to you with their response. If they decline, the e-mail lists other people who are qualified to fill that needed position.
• Uploading capabilities. You can upload any important files needed for any given week. This is great for: pastor’s sermon slides, videos for service elements, announcement slides, worship lyrics graphics or motion backgrounds. Our tech guys will create the lyrics for that week’s songs at home, upload them to planning center, and when they get to the church download the lyric file and plug it into ProPresenter. Anyways, great functionality for volunteers

Just to note, in no way did Planning Center Online commission me to do this post (however, if they wanted to I wouldn’t decline)… it’s simply a product that has saved me so much time and I know others would benefit from using it.

A couple signifiant elements this week. It was 4th of July weekend and Grace wanted a few elements that reflected that (i.e. video & the children’s choir). Both churches were having communion this week. Dan (a fellow worship leader who often helps me out with the dual services) told me that he loves the hymn “When I Survey,” but never cared too much for the chorus of Chris Tomlin’s “The Wonderful Cross.” But he found that Tim Hughes’ “Beautiful One” fit really well with the song. Anyway, both services turned out to be really great services this week. I put the actual format of the service rather than just listing the songs this week.

Grace Community Chapel

Forever :: Tomlin, Chris
[Church Life]
[Children sing: My Country Tis of Thee]
[video: Declaration of Independence] :: found here
Before The Throne of God Above :: Bancroft, Charitie Lees | Cook, Vikki
Holy Holy Holy :: Dykes, John Bacchus | Heber, Reginald
[Communion begins]
When I Survey with chorus of Beautiful One :: Watts, Isaac | Mason, Lowell | Hughes, Tim
[Communion ends]
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) :: Tomlin, Chris | Excell, Edwin Othello | Newton, John | Rees, John P. | Giglio, Louie
[Message]

StoneBridge Community Church

[Welcome / Announcements]
Your Love Is Extravagant :: Evans, Darrell
You Are My King :: Foote, Billy
[Communion begins]
When I Survey with chorus of Beautiful One :: Watts, Isaac | Mason, Lowell | Hughes, Tim
[Communion ends]
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) :: Tomlin, Chris | Excell, Edwin Othello | Newton, John | Rees, John P. | Giglio, Louie
[Music Video :: "Don't Worry Be Happy"]
[Message : Dealing with stress]
Blessed Be Your Name :: Redman, Beth \ Redman, Matt

I know the idea of “church marketing” is a controversial subject. But if your church is looking to “market” their church, or simply “market” an event to the community it’s important to know the difference between good marketing and bad marketing. Churches are notorious for creating the ugly logos, signs, web sites, graphics, T.V. commercial, etc. I’ve found some companies that did a good job at thinking of creative marketing campaigns.

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Grace Community Chapel

Everlasting God :: Brown, Brenton | Riley, Ken

My Redeemer Lives :: Morgan, Reuben

The Beauty of Simplicity :: White, Josh

True Love :: Wickham, Philip

All Over the World :: Smith, Martin | Redman, Matt

StoneBridge Community Church

You Amaze Me :: Duvall, James | Neale, Michael

Giving It All To You :: Gungor, Lisa | Gungor, Michael

Famous One :: Tomlin, Chris \ Reeves, Jesse

Rescue :: Anderson, Jared

Everyday :: Houston, Joel