Alastair McGrath writes two fascinating articles.

1. preaching in worship

2. baptism in worship

Get this mp3 for your teams to listen to. It is outstanding and free from Bob Kauflin.

Heart Attitudes for the Worship Team

I am requiring it as a listen by all of our team members (vocal, band, and tech) before we get into our new building to keep us focused.

Done a comprehensive year end review process (0, 1, 2, 3, 4).

Posted your big four or five for 2008 in your life frame.

If not, get to work……time is ticking. This process will have you very focused for 2008.

Here is a great article on how to handle it when Sally Sue walks up to the foyer and says,
“Great job on the _______________.” I used to give the awkward dodge or borderline cheesy “I’m glad God used it to bless you.” As a result of much thinking and this article, now I simply say, “Thanks.” And that is from someone very uneasy about small talk or taking a compliment. I think my internal wiring and super analytic personality has already assessed “good work on _________” or “wow, that could have been done better and this is how” long before someone has the chance to give a compliment. I have learned/am learning the importance of letting them give a compliment and me receiving it.

Wondering what in the article you agree with and disagree with? I have some disagreements, but I shan’t color the conversation until a few of you weigh in. Comment away.

Hey, when you have one those “huge” worship services (grand openings, Easter, etc.) you young, single worship leaders might not want to bring your new celeb girlfriend and her former minister dad to the event. You should probably focus on God (or in a rephrase, God’s Team). Especially if she is going to wear a choir robe with a pink #9 on it. You probably need all of your mind’s attention and heart’s affection on the task at hand but that is just me.

We recently revealed our vocal team recruitment strategy. Here is episode 2:

Yesterday the Cowboys had a last second comeback when the odds were stacked against them. Losing the entire game and having much less time of possession, Romo provided the miracle comeback against the Lions. Even before the final drive, you saw two different leadership styles emerge from the team’s quarterbacks. Both of them were passionate. One of them is the quintessential optimist. The other was throwing his helmet on the sidelines as his kicker missed a field goal (even while they were leading) and griping at the referee long after a pass interference happened (which admittedly did happen). There is an element that sets a great leader apart from a good leader……..OPTIMISM.

Because of our strategy of mobilizing laity, my being at NorthWood has allowed me the privelege to around world-class business and government leaders, diplomats, a leading presidential candidate of Malawi, and world class CEO’s. I have observed that a great leader brings the attitude to his/her followers that we can “take the hill” even when things are at their bleakest. And they are not just spewing “we can do it” propoganda. You honestly see a way to the top when you are around them. This is contra-human nature as we all tend to vent to those who are on the team with us because we feel safe with them. Be careful doing this as it can become quick poison. Everyone has a least one confidant whom they tend to share “don’t tell anyone this” information. And that person has one confidant, and so on and so on.

You also have to be careful how you couch data. Raw data can always be read as “oh no” or “look at the opportunity to summit.” If one were to put the raw stats in front of the Cowboys’ players at the start of the fourth quarter it could have been demoralizing without interpretation. Coaches were interpreting the data in a positive light as they showed photos to the players. Yesterday, Pam Oliver interviewed Tony Romo after the game and he said, “What athelete wouldn’t live for such a moment?” His team was feeling that vibe from him in the fourth quarter. Kitna’s team members were not.

When things get tough, be optimistic. Go back to vision and sell it. And if you must vent, vent to someone way outside your church (we’ll listen for a small fee, ha!). It’s time to “take the hill.”

As leaders we are called to help people objectively assess their talents to make sure that they are serving in their prime area of gifting. Otherwise this might happen:

Someone needs to sit down with people and help them assess their gifting. This girl, like every person, has a God given talent and after salvation, a gifting, and she needs someone to steer her towards it (not saying that in jest, btw).

After an audition for any worship position at NorthWood, you get one of three responses from us.

1. 1. You are ready to go.
2. 2. We see potential and we need to get you into lessons/training to get you ready
3. 3. This is not your primary area of gifting. We will help you find it.

True story. A friend of mine came an auditioned for bridge team. She had trouble holding pitch and she got response #3 and told us, “That is just a nice way of saying, ‘No’.” I said it really wasn’t. That year we did our event called sportscamp that draws over 500 kids from the community, over 50% of whom don’t attend NorthWood. She headed it up that year and knocked it out of the park. After the event I saw her in the foyer and told her, “Good job.” She thanked me and said that if we had allowed her to sing on bridge she would have told the children’s pastor, “No, I cannot head it up because my ministry time is already committed.”

Don’t let people serve where they are not gifted simply to be nice. If you do, you are robbing the body of the true talents and giftings that the person has.

[video via Jeff Thompson]

[from donationcoder.com which challenges app writers to write freeware]

In the attention economy, what matters is your attention. Modern life is plagued with interruptions, some self-imposed (do you have a popup that lets you know when new mail arrives?), some not (phone ringing, people knocking on your door). The axiom is simple: your productivity is inversely proportional to the number of interruptions per hour. There exist psychological research that proves that doing two tasks -A,B- in an alternating sequence -ABABAB- is a lot harder than doing them on batches -AAABBB-. This is called task switch cost. Some research on economics proves that the same concept –switching tasks often is bad for productivity- is true organizations.

This is so simple it’s staggering. We thought: well, we don’t know how often we are interrupted, but we should! That’s how the interruptron was born.

The modern knowledge worker has a very short average time between interruptions. Some estimates are as low as 10 minutes. We need to be aware of when we have been interrupted and try to stretch time between interruptions as much as possible. Also, it’s important to be aware of when we are floating into ‘unproductive time’ and have some method to nag us back to work. This is the goal of the interruptron. Run it always, and you’ll have a good gasp of where your time goes.

Visit the Interruptron Webpage on WorkingCogs.com to learn more and download.

[via lifehacker.org]

Check out Gather Round Ye Children by Andrew Peterson. Smoking folky music and very rich doctrinally.

[via Jacob Tilton]

We need a ton of new front line vocalists and bridge team members for our large stage in the new building. We got really inspired and went all out with a recruitment strategy. We decided to let people in our congregation “cite” other people with a traffic ticket for good singing. We printed the forms on carbon duplicate-white front yellow page 2- like a real ticket and inserted them in every bulletin. We showed the video during the greeting and then in the opening of my sermon A Not So Silent Worship, I opened up by asking people to stand up and cite anyone around them who sang well. They could even cite themselves. We garnered over 40 names the first week alone after showing episode 1. Episode 2 will be shown next week with the ticket again inserted in the bulleting. All of these people will be invited to a Get to Know You Time where we enlist them to sing in our Bridge Team (choir). We are flying up the layered pdf and can email you the psd version of the ticket in case you want to hack it for your church’s context in photoshop, etc. If you want the video, we can figure out a way to allow you to ftp it down from us. It was a “cornily effective” way to enlist new singers who might have never come out of the woodwork. (Episode 2 coming soon).

singing-traffic-ticket-citation.pdf

From my new acquaintance Lou in Lebanon (where if you have been watching the news there is high political tension now):

“As I mentioned before, I’m the worship leader for a contemporary praise and worship Christian band, Stronghold’s. We are all Lebanese, young, and volunteers. We have been serving God in this ministry for 6 years now, our main goal is to make youth and young adults experience a closer and personal relationship with God, in Jesus, through the remarkable power of worship. Therefore, we use music as a means to deliver this message.

It all sounds different and more challenging when you are in an Arab country. Political parties and divisions among almost (more…)

I had someone ask me what advice they would give someone who wanted to become a traveling worship leader/band. My advice after doing the touring thing across the US back in the day (yeah, late 90’s) with dropknee.

1. 1. Don’t ever ever cancel a “small engagement” because a “big event” calls you. Let your “yes” be “yes” or your integrity gets maimed. Don’t let that “But this could be huge for us” event bite you in the rear. After all, how would you feel if an event canceled you because a “bigger name” became available.
2. 2. Do what you say, say what you mean, be on time and be a servant. If the tech rider isn’t exactly met, work with them. Don’t be prima donnas.
3. 3. Learn to looooove Denny’s. Memorize the menu, because it will be the only place open to eat after playing.
4. 4. Don’t waste money on fliers or mailers. We never did one. 99% of your events will come from word of mouth. Now that I am at NorthWood, I would never ever book someone from a flier. However, if a friend in ministry said, “So in so rocks, ” I’m probably in.
5. 5. Be highly involved in a local church. Tithe to it and let them hold you accountable.
6. 6. Incarnate. Hang out with the people you are leading in worship. Again don’t be the prima donna “we’re to good too hang with you” types.
7. 6. Most important. Don’t plan on driving people to God’s address unless you go there often in personal worship. Know the God you worship objectively as well (doctrine of Christ, Trinity, Atonement etc.).