articles

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…

Ligon Duncan encourages greater use of Scripture in our worship: The congregation that aims to be biblically directed and informed in its approach to public worship will gather weekly on the Lord’s Day for Bible reading, Bible preaching, Bible praying, Bible singing and biblical observance of the sacraments. These things…

Russ Hutto: God truly loves the praises of His people. When we gather together to sing our songs of praise and worship to the Lord it is a wonderfully beautiful thing. God truly loves the praises of His people. The type of praise in this scripture is the HALAL (Hallel)…

Jason Vana says when it comes to your church communication tools, the quality of your graphics matter. Just take a look around. High quality graphics are everywhere. They’re on our phones, on our TV’s, found throughout our favorite websites. Schools, organizations, even neighborhood associations have stepped up their game and…

Matt Slocum offers help to pastors and worship leaders afraid they’re not doing it right. Using presentation support media like PowerPoint can be challenging and often intimidating for pastors and worship leaders. Many are worried that they “won’t do it right,” and the PowerPoint could therefore become a distraction. This…

Barry Whitlow says the impact of video use in the church is greater than most church leaders imagine. 1. Video is the #1 information delivery tool in the world today. With over 3-billion videos viewed on Youtube every day and 80 million hours of videos being watched daily the impact…

Tim Adams offers advice for novice sound mixers: One of the hardest things to teach a new sound operator is how to mix. It requires the development of an “ear” for what to change, when to change it, and what levels are appropriate. The best advice I usually give is…

George Bullard identifies ways denominations start to decline. For decades we have known that persons who smoke multiple packs of cigarettes per day are slowly committing suicide. Many of these people did not want to commit suicide. Some claim they did not know they were committing suicide. At some point…