Here are pre-done breakouts of Ephesians 1, 2 and 3 for you to type your own life obedience notes on. Slowly read the text and see the main points and what modifies it. Ask God to speak to you and illuminate the Word to the context of your life. (As you get the hang of this, begin to do your own breakouts to make you slow down and wrestle with the text). If you want to print these keep in mind they are on legal sized paper.

ephesians-1-wj-blank
ephesians-2-wj-blank
ephesians-3-wj-blank

I’ll post up my completed ones next week and you can link to yours in the comment section. Just leave the hyperlink and I’ll covert it when I approve comments.

If you have read worshiptrench for any length of time, you know I love time audits. We even have complete systems for how we use them. Now there are some free online tools that you can use to more easily complete your time audits. Check them out at unclutterer.com and grab them for free.

Session One: Gaining the Father’s Heart from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

Session Two: Hearing Their Story from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

Session Three: Telling Your Story from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

Session Four: Sharing His Story from Northwood Church on Vimeo.

Grab the accompanying book here3stories-booklet

We are hearing amazing reports of people using this simple curriculum on evangelism in their small groups. Just wanted to share it for free here for a limited time. Offers a relational paradigm to share your faith.

Several orders serve as skeletal outlines upon which we hang the meat of specific elements. A sermon development team meets on Monday and then Tuesday morning, the worship design team (worship leader-brent, creative director-me, producer-chris johns and sometimes others) meets and decides which skeletal outline best fits the degree of response the message needs. Sometimes we’ll invent a new skeleton  from scratch (a service built upon the order of the Tabernacle elements) but most of the time one of these works.

Skeleton 1

When to use: On weeks there is a response that is not as pointed and doesn’t need an specific altar time. Used for sermons that shape thinking such as How Do We Know the Bible is True. There is the response, “If it is true then I need to start living it,” but that might not need a walk-down altar response. People can still come down at the conclusion of the service and pray with our altar ministers or make a decision to follow Christ.

3 Songs
Welcome
Shake Hands Greeting
2 songs
Sermon Series Video Bump
Sermon
Response Prayer
Offering/Announcements

easy tweaks to the skelton:
• switch 3/2 songs to 2/3
• insert an interview or video after greeting
• insert a scripture or responsive reading before the second grouping of songs or between songs.
• insert a video before the sermon bump
• include communion in response

Skeleton 2

When to use: On weeks there is a response expected that is one of starting to walk in obedience as the prime behavior of response. Example, a message on sharing your faith or blessing someone in tangible ways. People are committing to take action.

4 Songs
Shake Hands (opt)
Offering/Video Announcements
Sermon Series Video Bump
Sermon
1 Response Song for Time of Obedience

easy tweaks:

• insert guided prayer time or interview into first set of songs
• insert scripture reading or response reading into first set of songs
• insert a focus video between songs
• include communion in response

Skeleton 3

When to use: On weeks there is a guided response that we feel large numbers will participate and might carry with it the emotional weight whereby people need a little more time to process.. Example: A recent message on laying down burdens where we had large buckets of rocks symbolic of burdens. People were able to grab a rock and come to the altar and lay it down, even handing their rock to an altar ministry person and agreeing in prayer with them.

3 Songs
Shake Hands (opt)
Offering/Includes Video of Welcome and 2 or 3 Announcements
Sermon Series Video Bump
Sermon
2 Response Songs for Time of Obedience

easy tweaks:
• insert guided prayer time or interview into first set of songs
• insert scripture reading or response reading into first set of songs
• a tactile response
• include communion in response
• make one of the response songs a special which is sung over the congregation

Use this on Firefox to kill all those goofy quizzes people take and then share publically. HALLELUJAH.

Little tweak to my email is allowing me much less stress and keeping the inbox flow to zero.

Create three folders and archived topical folders.

1. __crucial action
2. __semi-crucial action
3. __peruse
4. my other series of topical folders (graphics-comm, personal, worship design, sermonater, staff ,event coordination, tech, web, sans “__”etc. ad naseum. I have tons of these).

You’ll need the “__”  on 1-3 to make them sit at the top.

Each email gets quickly assessed and flown into one of the folders based upon its crucial nature .

1. Things that need action in the next 48 hours. (ex. Sr Pastor stuff and Exec Pastor stuff) almost always go into __crucial. Stuff that is important but not vital within the next 48 goes into semi-crucia
2. __Peruse is for things to ponder in moments of stillness. The “check this out” other people send me at times (ex. articles, try this, etc.)
3. If something is “handled” or “FYI” it gets moved for reference into a topical folder. (example emails re: Vietnamese art exhibit that I might to recall at next years exhibit.

Sometimes I send myself a to-do email and throw it into __crucial, __semi-crucial, __peruse, etc.

As this has become my to-do list, it has the side benefit of keepin my inbox at zero. It also keeps the main things the main thing as I work in __crucial the most. I am in email more than any other program and with one click I can see what is most crucial that I be about. Vitalist is still our tool of choice for delegation, but this is easier for my personal to-do. Feel free to ask me questions.

Two unbelievable tools by Puritans Watson (Free) and Brooks ($4 at Monergism, can’t beat that).

We have misunderstood repentance and relegated its use to street corner preachers with megaphones and cardboard signs. As I have read the Puritans on this, I realize this mistaken jettison and how far we have come from a Biblical view of this spiritual action. We tend to live in the shadow of repentance, merely saying, “Yeah, Yeah, I’m sorry God, forgive me,” or living under the mountain of sin because we have for so long put off repentance that we turn to see an Everest that causes us such fear and trepidation that we fail to even to begin to scale it. In the coming days, I’ll be putting up some reflections on these Puritan works as God drops some knowledge and wisdom on me.

Good News. Repentance is not a human effort but a spiritual grace given by God. Acts 5: 31God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

• When is the last time you repented? Is it a daily action?
  
• Do you have any time specifically for repentance built into your acts of worship?

To all of you who were wondering about how this flowed, check it out. Thanks Chris. You rock for the edit. Grab the service order and notes here.

Ancient Colors: A Good Friday Service from Chris Johns on Vimeo.

We used a simple band setup. Rhodes patch, weird percussion as kit and acoustic/electric player only. Vibey. A simple one camera shoot just to document it since there was no Imag of live stuff needed. One of my favorite services I have ever designed because it tells a story multi-sensory. Got the idea off a snippet of a graphic in an old Bible Bookstore catalogue I got in the mail.

My sis-in-law has an incredible life story. Born in Guatemala with a cleft-lip/cleft palate, she wasn’t supposed to live, more or less ever talk. Through an amazing story she is now in her 20’s singing for the glory of God. She has a book coming out detailing her story and a  CD.  She is including her version of my song You Satisfy. Nice job Camey (www.cameyjoy.com).

Grab the new version, live version and chart here.

Our Good Friday service designs are still the most popular downloads ever on worshiptrench. We spend tons of energy on creating a rich Christ focused liturgy that is both ancient and modern. This service was one of the best received services we ever designed and we even “took it on the road” a bit. It is a service built around reflection and touch, a sense rarely used in worship.

Each movement consists of showing the title graphic of that movement, the scripture text, and then person at the end of the row passing the element from that row’s basket while they reflect on the obedience question. We asked each person to hold the object for no more than 20 seconds. Each movement is concluded in a song.

Cue sheet/service instructions: good-friday-tactile-service
PowerPoint of needed text: good-friday-tactile

*This graphics package can be laid out anyway you desire. We kept it super simple so the focus was on the sense of touch and not the visual. You will need to insert your own song texts. Cut and paste if you use pro-presenter, media shout, or other product for CG (We use pro-presenter currently).

Here is a “Cross meets my life” song that can be used in numerous settings, but is especially good in a Good Friday type service. Two versions. Mainstream live release and the freakier “radiohead” version.

The mp3’s hosted at mediafire:
“Radioheaded” version:Spirit, Come Crucify RHV
We aren’t saying it is ‘Radiohead’ worthy or that Radiohead performed it. HA!

Live version: http://Spirit, Come Crucify Live
The live version has You are My King at the beginning.

And the charts:
Studio/RHV version: spriit-come-crucify-studio-chart
Live version: spirit-come-crucify-live-chart01

At least fifty percent of your job as a worship leader should be fostering the daily personal worship of your congregation. Here is an incredible tool (I have nothing to do with this other than being a sideline cheerleader for Brent).

EXAMEN.me is a simple-to-use web site that fosters your personal interaction with God. The site guides you to examine your life as you meditate on scripture, pray, and journal all of your reflections. It utilizes the ancient prayer of examining and you can even keep your daily examine journals stored there. You can do an examine in 5 minutes or slow down and spend a rich hour on one.

Creating an account is FREE (though Brent would probably love a small donation…ha!). I would encourage you to share this resource with your worship team and congregation for foster their personal worship.

Here are two reviews of the site:
Collide Magazine review EXAMEN.me
William Petruzzo’s Review

I Cannot Ignore mp3

i-cannot-ignore-chart

A cross focused tune whose verse centers on Philippians 3 and how no confidence can be placed in the flesh. The chorus reflects the fact that we cannot ignore the Cross because it is a scandalon or stumbling block. This version is straight ahead American rock though we have done this song even with piano, bass, and brushes on a drum in a very adorational way. Use it and hack it. CCLI listed song number is: 3491742