articles

Rick Muchow offers tips for smaller gatherings. Over the years I have led worship for many small groups. I love it! Almost every small group I have led worship for has been grateful for the music as if they had a deep hunger to worship together in their intimate setting.…

Michelle Weger gives guidelines for a great resume. Recently, I have had several recent college grads and friends contact me as they are looking for new ministry opportunities. I’ve spent time tailoring many of their resumes and candidate packages and thought I would offer some streamlined advice on these things.…

Joe Thorn says celebrity pastors have now become “a thing.” The “celebrity pastor” is now a thing. Maybe it’s always been a thing (1 Cor. 1:10-17), but over the past few years it has become a source of concern and consternation for many. On the one hand I do see…

Gangai Victor’s guide to getting better at using words in worship. Speaking is probably the no. 1 pet peeve people have against worship leaders. More specifically—what we speak, when we speak, how we speak, and above all—how long we speak! Now, this doesn’t mean we should stop speaking all together!…

Phil Cooke explains why it’s a mistake for the congregation to watch the rehearsal. Worship leaders are an incredibly important part of today’s church. But from time to time I take them to task, like in this post on What Katy Perry and Taylor Swift Can Teach Church Worship Leaders.…

Stephen Miller offers tips for helping your band play like a team. Every musician has his or her particular style preferences and bents. It’s what makes us who we are. Funk bassists. Jam Band acoustic guitar players. Gospel drummers. Arena Pop Rock electric guitarists. And yet, in the midst of…

Chelsen Vicari reports Sunday morning worship sets lack depth and reverence. Admitting the problem is the first step towards recovery. So let’s admit it: if we swop the lyrics of a Taylor Swift ballad with some of today’s contemporary Christian worship songs, no one would know the difference. Others have…

Commentary by Tom Krattenmaker: It’s not easy being a celebrity pastor these days with that pesky Internet around. Consider the struggles of Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Faced with mounting accusations circulating online –plagiarism, misusing church funds to prop book sales, silencing anyone in his church with…

David Manner suggests using other elements in worship services. The origin of the idiom “One Trick Pony” goes back to the days of the traveling circus. A trained pony or small horse was often used as a main circus attraction. Without any other acts or animals, these small circuses were often…

David Staal: fresh data shows a valuable trait ascribed to church volunteers: commitment. Kids Hope USA, the national mentoring organization I work for that partners local churches with local schools to run mentoring programs, wanted to know more about volunteer mentors. So we put together a 2014 survey that gathered…

Kenny Lamm says children’s choirs are making a comeback. Over the past years, many churches have cancelled their children’s choirs for a variety of reasons. As some churches have tried to simplify their overburdening schedules, children’s choirs were one of the first things to go in the children’s ministry. As…

Daniel Crawford offers tips for being the best sit in worship musician you can be. At one time or another, every church gets in a pinch and needs a musician to come sit in. Regular worship team members might be on vacation, suddenly ill or just unavailable, so they bring…

Millennials are not necessarily inclined to attend a church that mixes sacred tradition with secular trends, says Christian writer and author Andrea Palpant Dilley. Dilley, who is familiar with being a member at both a mainline Presbyterian church and a modern, non-denominational congregation, advises churches to carefully consider their outreach…

Kevin West says the volume music is played at can have a direct result in how engaged a congregation is in worship. I have noticed a shift that has taken place musically over the past 30 years, which greatly affects us as worshippers — since it affects us as worshippers,…

Dave Barnhart gives excellent reasons for alternate worship times: I had to struggle to close down evening services at the last two churches I served. Both were holdovers from a previous era, a time when people would go to church several times a week. These services had dwindled to a…