Since we are the conjoined worship and communications department at NorthWood, we are tasked with designing the metaphor/series titles and anchor graphics for our series in conjunction with input from our lead pastor on thesis, themes, texts, etc. Since yours truly also preaches abou 40% of the time, I am knee deep in metaphor design.

Why metaphor? People think in pictures not text. If I say think of a red elephant you certainly think of a picture of a red elephant, not the letters e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t in red font. Giving people a metaphor connects a teaching concept to an image.

How do you come up with a metaphor that communicates? Key to the process is finding a metaphor which connects with people. I want a cognitive and emotive response to each metaphor and its anchor graphic. You can see some of our metaphorical anchor graphics here. Sometimes we formally brainstorm and other times it comes in the moment as one of us is working on something else. (coming soon…a post on brainstorming the IDEO way).

What do you do with the concept of the anchor image? We use it to set the mental picture, feel and direction for the series. For example, in the revolucion series our image prompted us to make our back curtain out of homemade street protest banners on sheets.

Much of our music for this series had a latin feel to it to correlate to the tone we wanted to set. The anchor image then goes up on our screens to promote the new series and on our webpage. That image or a sister image becomes the background for a song texts. Cristian often puts together a pre-sermon video bump to help set-up the metaphor. Here is the revolucion bump:

How does using metaphor assist in concrete teaching retention? People begin to attach the teaching concept to the metaphorical picture concept we have etched in their brain and thus, tend to remember the overarching concepts longer. Like it or not, no one is remembering your individual sermon teaching points (don’t believe me, quiz them the very next week on your main points). They probably remember the overall series thesis, illustrative material, and some nugget that intersected their life at the needed time.

I learned this method to efficiently arrange a song from a University of North Texas jazz guy years ago. Roll a giant whiteboard easel that the entire band can see onstage at rehearsal. Then write out the rough idea of the song structure such as:

After discussing and tweaking the structure, write down the dynamic flow of each section giving each section a rating from 1-10.

Finally, determine how to hit those dynamic flows creatively. Note who is in where and what creative parts come in and out where. The beauty of a white board is you can experiment. Maybe the first attempt the bridge is tried at a 2, but it doesn’t work, so it is ramped up quite a bit. Maybe someone comes up with an inventive part, note where it should occur.

This method keeps everyone on the same page, allows total arrangement flexibility, and fosters creativity in arranging. Keep working until you have an arrangement that is God honoring and inventive…and remember the eraser is your friend.

If a minister falls, 99% of the time it is because of one of the big three:

1. sexual indiscretion 2. financial indiscretion 3. pride

Almost all sexual crossing of boundaries starts on the internet. At NorthWood we teach “accountability with teeth.” One easy way to provide this is to run the Covenant Eyes program on your computer. Covnenant Eyes records all the sites you visit and reports them via weekly or bi-weekly emails to two accountability partners. It is not a filter so your searching is not limited, but provides great acccountability (some filters false lock on words such as adult ministry because of the adult title). XXXChurch.com also offers a free filter but in our opinion (and we love the www.xxxchurch.com guys for their ministry and everthing they do) Covenant Eyes is much stronger. Our crop of next year’s Church Planting interns and Worship interns is going to be required to have it on all their computers.

Even if you don’t struggle with pornagraphy, CE is great to keep you from wasting hours of time in pointless surfing. It also keeps others who might have access to your computer honest. And if someone were to ever make a false accusation about your internet usage, you have proven credibility. You pay for the password and then can install the program for free on as many computers as you want (ex. work and home will send a comprehensive report to your accountability partners). Well worth the 20 cents a day it costs.

Recently, I have had two Sundays off and visited several churches in the area. I am surprised at two things. Compared with “big name” band concerts I go to (example Coldplay, Mute Math, Delirious, etc.) these churches are running extremely vocal hot mixes. And while I don’t expect concert levels (I sat behind the audio console at recent Mute Math and Pat Metheny Concerts and both were registering 107 decibels), I was surprised at how soft it actually was.  The house volume detracted from corporate participation because you felt isolated as a singer. There was little sonic support, and many folks just bailed out. It was interesting that of all the churches I visited, the smallest church plant ran the best volume for participation. Not too loud, not too soft, and vocals were heard “every word clearly” but inside the bowl of the mix.

We run at 95-96ish and peak at 98-100 db on celebration stuff (slow response C weighted). Of course our adorational songs sit softer. Just curious, what db’s is everyone else running?

We use Antares outboard pitch correctors on all of our vocalists (ATR-1’s).  These simple transparent boxes put everyone right on pitch.  We leave them set on chromatic settings so the FOH tech never has to touch them unless someone is having a really bad day and the tech will speed up the correction time on it (push button, turn dial, push button…done).

Why? (more…)

Bob Sjogren changed the way I read the Bible while I was in college when I heard him present a message that is now contained in his book Unveiled at Last. After hearing him speak on how the whole Bible is a unfolding of the Abrahamic Covenant where God topline “blesses Abraham” so that his descendants (us) could be a bottom line “blessing to the ethnos” (ethnicities or people groups), we led a session of worship. After that session he came up to us and said in his blunt Sjogren manner, “Pretty good boys, but 80% of your songs were topline songs and if we are going to work together in the future you need to get that to at least 50-50. ” I have taken that challenge to heart not only in my worship design but also in my song composition. When you design worship make you are you including some bottomline “here am I, send me” elements as well as the “holy, holy, holy” and “wrap your arms around me and love me” stuff.

Here are some examples of topline songs: Now That You’re Near (hillsong), You are so Good to Me (Waterdeep, Third Day), I am a Friend of God (Israel Houghton and others).

Here are some examples of bottomline songs: Tell the World (hillsong united), You Said (hillsong), Make My Life A Bridge (free mp3, ccli song# 3034563), Fuel (free mp3, ccli song# 3034130), and other songs about obedience.

Go forth and design worship, build up your worshipers and boot ‘em out to change the world!!!

This past Sunday as I drove to church, I stopped by my local Starbucks to get a cup of coffee. I am not one of these fru-fru coffee drinkers who order a specialty drink, I just get black coffee… actually it is the only thing my budget can afford. Anyways, I ordered a venti mild. The barista went to get my coffee, but called back to me that it would be a minute. Apparently they hadn’t brewed the mild brew. Instead of waiting I told him to give me a cup of the bold brew. He went back to the coffee pot, and then embarrassingly tells me they are out of it as well.

What coffee shop runs our of coffee at 7:45 in the morning? There had not been a rush right before me that took the last cup, they had just forgotten to brew the coffee. They could have given me a trans-free muffin, a mini-barista machine or even a speciality latte’, but they had forgotten the fundamentals of a coffee shop. A cup of coffee.

As worship leaders, we can be guilty of the same thing. We sometimes offer incredible arrangements of songs, phenomenal videos, and perfect lighting, but we miss the fundamentals of connecting with and treasuring God above all things. As you plan and design worship. Do not miss the fundamentals.

Thinking of using a movie or TV title as a metaphor or branding idea for a sermon series, maybe not…read why you shouldn’t at the 20 year baton blog. Unless of course, you are wanting to plant a prison fellowship.

A fresh approach.
John Butler Trio, from Australia…so vibey, so burnin’.

(Disclaimer: Some of his other lyrics on his itunes store are labelled “explicit.” We are showing this as an example of a different approach, and not endorsing his lyrical content. Listen at your own discretion to his other stuff.)

Okay, forgive us if you are a big conference/event organizer, but I am 95% done coming to your event. Why? There is a better way to learn that is customized to your context…watch-and-ask-over-dinner learning. If you go to a big conference, you are getting good stuff in a shotgun fashion which you may or may not be able to contextualize on your own. Instead, try this. When you have something to learn, find out who excels at it. Call them up and ask them their favorite NICE restaurant and ask them if there is a time you can buy them dinner and get a face to face with them to talk about how you do X or Y. You have to get out of the “McDonald’s mindset,” be willing to go somewhere  nice.  It is still cheaper than the conference fee. See their stuff in context and then ask them questions afterwards over dinner. Explain your context briefly to them over dinner and then start asking away.  Listen more than you talk and have your questions written down. Here are some examples of how this worked for us:

We were considering doing a video venue. North Coast was a prime mover in this field. Instead of paying the 300+ dollars each to attend the conference I simply dialed up their worship pastor, explained who I was, and asked if I might come out and watch a Saturday night service and take him and his technical director out to his favorite restaurant (which was a nice steak place).  We were able to pepper them with specific questions for the entire dinner.  We didn’t need some of the stuff their conference taught (such as selecting a camera).  The meeting was so productive that we radically changed our mind’s against a permanent venue and instead did more of an overflow type room temporarily.  (That is another post in and off itself).

We didn’t want to lose our ethos and missional DNA as we move into our new auditorium where it would be easy for us to fall into a “show up for the Sunday event” church because of our size.  So on the way home from a Vietnam project, we hopped over to Abba Love in Jakarta.  They run 30,000 in sites all across Jakarta (not an easy place to work) with 40+ services (non-video venue mind you) and have incredible percentage of members serving in a small group and in ministry. This was one of the coolest experiences we have ever had.  We went to 3 different types of services, an encounter retreat, a cell group, and spent interview time with all different levels of leader.  I walked away with 27 pages of notes.  We radically altered our newcomer’s process to push our DNA stronger as a result of the trip. (Okay, this was a little more involved than dinner). 

We are calling up Russ at Irving Bible. We are soon going to watch a service technical meeting and a service, then sitting down with him and his technical director to ask questions about their transition into their new building as we are about to transition into ours. What mistakes did they make?  What did they do well, etc.? We also have a meeting planned with their communication/media team.

We’ll be glad to sit down with you.  By the way, my favorite restaurant is St. Emilion’s.

Here is an article I originally wrote for Let’s Worship journal. It gives an overview of how we design which will give you a skeletal context to hang our other design posts on:The Birth of a Worship Service article

At least twice a year, I and everyone who works for me complete a two week time audit on 15 minute blocks. I require them to do it from 8am until 5 pm and including special meetings, rehearsals, etc. (but encourage them to do it for the entire time they are awake.) Get a simple kitchen timer, or countdown watch and fill it the spreadsheet as the day goes (don’t try to fill it in later). See the sample for helps.

There is no such thing as a normal week. Usually, the first time I ask someone to do an audit they hand it back to me completed and instantly offer the excuse, “Well this wasn’t a normal week” at which point I just smile at them. You will never have the week you have planned out in your head…ever.

Time Audit Sample from Jordan

Time Audit Blank Template

At the end of the two week, group your activities in major categories by color coding blocks. Mine are: 1)worship design & process (rehearsals, etc). 2)preaching prep 3)people/pastoral care 4)admin 5)e-mail/phone call 5)communication/graphic design 6) family-personal (dates, kids, swimming, etc.) 7) Other (chit-chat, surfing, TV)

What meetings or phone calls saw no fruit? Where you could have had a higher Kingdom return on investment of your time? What could you have delegated? Are you spending too much time in one category over another?

Upon analyzing them, we instantly see where we should have worked faster, where we should have delegated, what was a waste of time, and what was fruitful.

Finally it has happened. Good thing …Red Bull drinkers can now drink a Christian energy drink (excuse the pause, I had to go vomit) [found via here]. Read the product description of it at the Three Girls Media site .

Then a brief anecdote from my life to counteract the madness: (more…)