articles

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…

Jeremy Smith asks if we really need to have the offering plate present to make our regular gift to the church holy. It would seem that tech is being used for many great ways in church including youth ministry games, digital communications, and safety checks for our children. Yet, I…

Dan Wilt helps take your vocals to the next level. 1. Vibrato Is Out – Tight Blend Is In. When microphones were first put in front of church vocalists back in the day, chorally or folk-bred singers brought their vibrato to the microphone. If you’re the only one singing, or…

Doug Lawrence says most churches move through worship leaders like he goes through firewood in the winter. Like pastors, worship leaders take lots of critical “hits” in their vocation; they just make a lot less money and are often not as well trained as traditional clergy. Oh, and they are…

Katie Eckeberger offers ideas for being confident, while still honoring God with humility. You might think it odd that I’m addressing stage presence in a worship leading context, but all too often I see worship leaders struggling to maintain a leading presence for their congregations. It might be a confidence…