articles

Barna conducted a multi-phase research program. Many churches today are explicitly constructed not to look and feel too much like a religious place. A stark contrast to the ancient cathedrals and churches of old—the very design of which was intended to help people experience the divine. How does this design…

Tony Guerrero served as Music Director and Director of Creative Arts at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA. I spent some time considering what the main tips are that I not only recommend to people in classes I teach and articles I write, but that I also use in my…

Glenn Packiam attempts to dispel stereotypes: What are the repeated critiques you hear about modern worship? It is so noisy. And why is every bridge a monosyllabic chant? (eg. ‘whoa…oh oh…) It looks too much like a concert. The songs are so repetitive. It’s too much about ‘me’. I am sure there…

Adam Dolhanyk muses about the demise of a worship record label. Recently, you might’ve have seen, or heard or read about the troubles at Mars Hill Church and with their Pastor, Mark Driscoll. The question was put to me in regards to all of this: what do we do with…

Katie Strandlund talks about how you can live through getting burned and not lose your faith. Getting burnt out while working in a church is bad enough, but getting burned is a horrible experience. Transition is natural in our work, but when it happens in churches the result is often…

Kenny Lamm says we are breeding a culture of spectators in our churches. Worship leaders around the world are sadly changing their church’s worship (often unintentionally) into a spectator event, and people are not singing any more. Before discussing our present situation, let’s look back into history. Prior to the…

Tim Adams explains the differences for ministries. A lot of churches are wanting to switch their lighting systems over to LEDs because of the inherent electricity savings and long-lasting nature of the technology. However, it’s important you understand exactly what to expect when considering a change. First, LEDs are certainly…

(RNS) Can a megachurch survive the departure of its megastar pastor? For Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, it’s an open question. Mars Hill announced last week that it would dissolve the multisite network of 13 churches across the Northwest that took root under pastor Mark Driscoll, who stepped down in October…

R.C. Sproul says if a church is not evangelical, it is not an authentic church. When we consider the predicament that the evangelical church of the twenty-first century faces in America, the first thing we need to understand is the very designation “evangelical church” is itself a redundancy. If a…

Nathan Busenitz asks how much is your church like the ancient church? That’s a popular question these days—especially if you read guys like Robert Webber, Brian McLaren, Wolfgang Simson, or Frank Viola and George Barna. Most of the contemporary discussion about the ancient church attempts to show discrepancies between what…

Jason Whitehorn explains that God can still work even if your worship isn’t perfect. If you are like me just a few short years ago – you tend to think too much about what went wrong in a service. Chances are you may have a “horrible service” because a note…

Russ Hutto encourages worship leaders to be intentially productive. Worship leaders, have you ever had someone asked you what it is you spend your time doing all week? Here are some of the guesses that I’ve experienced over the years: “You get paid to sit around and listen to music,…

Cliff Lambert claims bad vocals can be fixed. Over the last 30 years or so, the role of the vocal team in worship has changed dramatically. We’ve moved from full choirs to ensembles or “praise teams” of 4-12 and now down to a worship leader with a single harmony vocalist.…

Daniel Darling says churches that worship at the altar of relevance divide ministry into age-graded demographics. Did you hear the latest research about the attitudes of Millennials? Me neither. I’m being sarcastic, but kind of serious. It’s good to study the trends and behaviors of the next generation so we…