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John UpChurch wonders if youth ministry is Biblical: I tried to keep my skepticism in check. After all, my friend pastored this new church plant, and we wanted to be there for their first Sunday to support him. But the focus on “family-integrated worship” definitely took some getting used to—especially…

T. David Gordon lists 8 reasons the change is happening: 1. Contemporary worship music hymns not only were/are comparatively poor; they had to be. One generation cannot successfully “compete” with 50 generations of hymn-writers; such a generation would need to be fifty times as talented as all previous generations to…

Roger O’Neel shares praise band principles: We have had some great comments about the first post “Less is More” on both this site and a sister site worshipchat.com. Some of them stole my thunder on what I wanted to share in part 2 of this post. In the first post,…

Chuck Lawless offers a checklist for churches: I’ve written posts for this site and my own that describe some of the negatives our church consulting teams and “spies” have found in churches. The goal of this post is to show some of the positives we’ve seen in different churches. The…

Bob Kauflin explains how he planned a service after a sudden death in his congregation: Last Thursday at 10:06 AM, Brian Chesemore, a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, texted me and the other pastors. He informed us that one of our members, 42 year old Wade Stephenson, had…

Brad Bridges helps churches think about visitors before they arrive at your doors: Most people think of church hospitality occurring on Sunday mornings. But what if I told you church hospitality could extend even further using these seven guest experience tips to show church hospitality outside of Sunday morning? Yes,…

Aaron Niequist says U2 is the perfect model for a traveling rock show, but a potentially unhelpful model for weekly church. About ten years ago, I wrote a piece called “Everything I Know about Worship Leading I Learned from an Irish Rock Star“. But after seeing U2 last week in…

Amanda Furbeck offers a great example of how to engage others in our worship music: Is your worship music contagious? Do your songs draw people in, point them to Jesus, and help them give words to their praise? We don’t have to be worship superstars to create an atmosphere of…

Scott Brown offers tips for public Scripture reading: For the person reading Scripture, a time like this requires careful preparation both of the heart and the body. First, let’s take the preparation of the heart.  The heart is moved only by what is in the mind. Thus, your mind must be…

Christopher Cook reveals his personal technique for learning, preparing, and rehearsing new music: As a music director, session player, and clinician, I’m often asked to speak about my personal technique for learning, preparing, and rehearsing new music, as well as my approach to team rehearsals. However, above the technical delivery…

Robert Gifford offers great advice for those joining a new ministry: In this post I’m going to assume that you have found a new place to serve and now change is coming. If you haven’t found a new place to serve yet you should check out fellow Worship Ministry Catalyst…

Mike Sessler says we have to get rid of the idea that just because someone wants to serve on the tech team they should. When I was writing my previous post on ProPresenter training, it occurred to me that I haven’t written about the one thing that we never want…

Looking for worship videos? Kenny Lamm has created an extensive list.

Michelle Van Loon explains how she’s learned to appreciate liturgical traditions: When it comes to event planning, I am a person who loves a themed event. Think a pirate party for a five year-old boy, complete with pirate-themed games, a cake that looks like a ship, and eye patches for…

Gangai Victor explains his selection process: I believe 50% of good worship leading is all about good song selection—the right songs by themselves will influence worship positively and reduce the pressure on the worship leader. So, it goes without saying that dropping the ball on song selection will usually shipwreck…