articles

Andy Lee with ideas for creating a smooth flow. As a worship leader, leading within a song is a given… But what about the in-between? Transitions are a great way to help create a seamless time of worship and reduce potential awkwardness between songs. The truth is that we practice…

Joshua Watts offers a worship checklist. So, what makes a song “congregational”? Is the content of the song applicable to a majority of your church? Make sure that the theme of the songs you select are broad enough to apply to a variety of individuals from many different walks of…

Todd Pruitt says musicians are given priestly status. There is a great misunderstanding in churches of the purpose of music in Christian worship. Churches routinely advertise their “life-changing” or “dynamic” worship that will “bring you closer to God” or “change your life.” Certain worship CD’s promise that the music will…

Tips from a top Hillsong Engineer. 1. Be approachable! Build relationships with the team on stage. Learn to work in context of service outcomes and consider the needs of the wider creative team. Example: if a mix needs to sound like something other than what you are creating, be open…

Kristen Gilles shares wisdom from her grandmother. Five years ago I was helping my mom clean out my grandparents’ house after my papaw passed away. I discovered a trove of treasures in my mamaw’s nightstand: a box full of scripture cards handwritten or typewritten by my mamaw and organized by…

Hillsong’s Taya Smith offers suggestions from her experiences. 1. The difference between preparing and not preparing is MASSIVE. Apart from knowing the songs and learning the lyrics, setting aside time to prepare my heart before God is the most important thing — it allows the Holy Spirit to speak, puts…

Nancy Beech discusses pros and cons of predictability. I have been thinking a lot about templates lately – the Pros and the Cons. When I was leading a Worship/Arts team, our mantra was to surprise the congregation every week. We believed our job was to treat every Sunday like a…

Kelley Hartnett says those folks who don’t attend church aren’t interested in attending any church. So I’m just going to come right out and say it: It’s more than likely the people in your community who aren’t “attending church” have no interest in attending yours. None whatsoever. It doesn’t matter…

Danny Watterson asks “what’s the fastest way to wreck your church?” I can think of a ton of ways to do it: bad message content, miserable music, little to no connection opportunities, or a scandal. But one of the primary characteristics we see in churches that are not thriving is…

James Merritt spent years as senior pastor of an Atlanta-area megachurch that featured a mighty choir. Then he changed his tune. At 50, he left First Baptist Church Snellville to plant a new church—200 people in a rented space at a high school 12 miles away—focused on reaching a young…

A vicious circle is playing out across the religious landscape, to hear church musicians tell of it. Fewer young people are studying the organ, which has led some churches to remove the instrument for lack of practitioners. And without the physical presence of an organ to spark interest, even fewer…

Time to hire a single’s pastor? Most churches don’t have ministries for the now-largest demographic. Never before have there been more single adults in the United States than married ones, indicating that the times are changing. Tipping the scales at 50.2 percent, 124.6 million singles now form the majority of…