articles

From Mark Powers, Director, Worship & Music Office SC Baptist Convention: There is good news and bad news for the modern Evangelical church. The bad news is that we are in a rapid statistical decline in almost every category of evangelical life: 80% of our churches have plateaued or declining…

Hoss Hughes on selecting songs and organizing your set list. There’s many creative ways to plan the music for any worship service: drawing songs out of a hat, throwing darts at your pile of sheet music, singing whatever feels good on Sunday morning and hoping the band can keep up.…

Lauren Hunter: What happens when printing costs rise, volunteer help is down, and people look less and less to paper and more to their iPhones? The church bulletin is a staple, tried and true, trusted in and relied on by all. Bored by the announcements? Peruse your well-loved bulletin. Looking…

Michelle Dunn on producing a worship experience: Accepting the position to lead a creative team really took some pondering, prayer and research for me. I am a person who plans, schedules, sticks with a plan and lives within the “box.” I have found that creative people seem to “dance to…

Stephen Newman offers a Biblical example of repetition: For years we have all heard the arguments about choruses and how meaningless it seems to repeat over and over. I came out of a traditional background and could definitely sympathize with the argument. It seemed we felt that repeating a phrase…

Thom Rainer took a poll: When you walk in most church worship services, you are typically handed some printed material. It goes by different names, but the most common and the longest standing name is “bulletin.” There was a time that you could expect consistency in bulletins among many churches.…

Tim Swanson on planning praise sets for the generations: How much time do you spend trying to plan music that speak to the beating heart of your congregation? That’s what I do. When I plan services at Moon Valley Bible Church, I look for music that will connect with people…

Rob Rash on struggling with where you are and where you would like to be: We’ve all been there haven’t we? We model our ministries after the mega churches and worship conferences. In fact, we even long to be in one of ‘those’ positions someday don’t we? We’ll before we…

Ron Edmondson on making a very difficult descision in ministry: I came out of a business background, so some things that are done in ministry are different for me. And, frankly, many should be. Ministry isn’t business…it’s ministry. At the same time, we should never use “ministry” as an excuse…

David Murrow writes an article right in line with an ongoing theme here at WorshipIdeas: It happened again yesterday. I attended one of those hip, contemporary churches — and almost no one sang. Worshippers stood obediently as the band rocked out, the smoke machine belched and lights flashed. Lyrics were…

Steve Sonderman on reaching men in your ministry: I am often asked, “Why are the men leaving the church today?” Sometimes it comes out as, “What can we do to keep the men of this church?” or “How can our church reach more men?” There is no easy answer, but…

Josh McDowell, an apologist and evangelist, spoke at Southern Evangelical Seminary’s Christian Apologetics conference on three culture changes that create a “perfect storm” that challenges and poses a threat to the church. McDowell says the first is an epistemological shift that is occurring regarding Biblical truths due to modern perspectives…

James Harding offers excellent tips for finding the best keyboard for your ministry. After four years of music ministry training in college and several years leading children, youth, or adults in worship at a variety of different churches, I have seen just about every worship keyboard out there. …and, in…

John Benard gives 10 tips for how to play in a contemporary way. Set up where you can always see the face of your worship or band leader. Signals and communication will be much more intuitive. Don’t just stick to piano sounds. Pads, Rhodes, Whirly, Hammond, strings. Variety is the…

Jaime Harvill: The problem usually isn’t the congregation, it’s you! It’s Monday, and you look over your shoulder to Sunday’s service, making the observation that nobody sang along with you the during the worship service you led yesterday. It’s so easy to blame the congregation–after all, the songs you chose…