Jesse Saunders offers ideas for children’s worship.

My name is Jesse Saunders, I am the Austin Stone KIDS band coach, and I lead worship with our grade school students (1st-5th grade) at the St. John campus.

In our KIDS large group worship times, we have 4 primary goals.

Teach sound doctrine

While trying to meet this objective, a lot of thought and prayer goes into our song selection each week. As a part of our large group worship time, we lead the kids through two songs each week. In order to help our kids learn and retain the songs we are teaching, and provide continuity across services and campuses, we have one song-of-the-month that is led by all of our bands each week.

As often as possible, the song of the month is a new song to KIDS, and is tied to the overall curriculum theme for that month. Likewise, the second song each week generally addresses themes tied to the scripture being studied in the classroom and being taught in The Word.

Create an exciting and fun environment for kids to learn

In addition to the theological elements involved in week to week song selection, we try to ensure that at least one of the songs being sung each Sunday is high energy, to get the kids excited and engaged in worship. This, along with having a full band, (we’re always looking for new musicians to volunteer) a sound system, and lighting, help to give kids a sense of what ‘big church’ worship is like, while offering those who have chosen to follow Christ the opportunity to worship God on Sunday morning with their friends in KIDS.

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Jaime Brown on awkward salary conversations.

Several years ago I posted some thoughts on a “worship leader’s job description and pay“. And of all the posts I’ve ever written in almost five years, that one post has gotten the most hits, the most Google searches, prompted the most interesting conversations (especially from one guy who’s apparently sold more records than The Beatles), and emails to me from various worship leaders from around the country asking for advice about how to negotiate their salary.

Since I am not currently having this conversation with my church I thought it might be a good time to share a few thoughts (for whatever they’re worth) on negotiating a salary when you’re serving in full-time ministry. I just received a question from a worship leader about this yesterday, and here’s basically what I said:

1. In principle, your church should pay you around the average income in your area, for a person of your age, with your experience, education, and taking into account whether you’re single, married, and have any children. Wikipedia has this info for most cities, I think! It’s not unreasonable to ask your church to pay you a fair salary. Too many church employees think that it is.

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Greg Steir talks about those churches who are stealing your congregations.

I’m not talking about churches full of red-lipped, pale-skinned Draculas (that would be creepy!) No, I’m talking about churches that live off the lifeblood of other churches (well, I guess that’s creepy too.)

This breed of church flies into town and announces their arrival with a flashy marketing campaign and an entrancing stare (Lights! Camera! Action!) Then they steadily, and probably unintentionally, sink their fangs into the necks of the smaller churches in that community and drain them dry. The results are church members, offerings and involvement sucked away from these smaller churches and the vampire churches increasing their own size, budget and strength.

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Last week, worship leader Jamie Brown’s post lit up the Internet:

Last week I spent a couple of days attending the National Worship Leader Conference, hosted by Worship Leader Magazine, featuring many well-known speakers and worship leaders. The conference was held about 15 minutes down the road from me, so it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I’m glad I went.

I met some new people, heard some thought-provoking teaching, enjoyed some good meals and conversations with worship leader friends, and experienced in-person some of the modern worship trends that are becoming the norm in evangelicalism. It was eye-opening in many ways.

Over the last few days I’ve been processing some of what I saw and heard.

Worship Leader Magazine does a fantastic job of putting on a worship conference that will expose the attendees to a wide variety of resources, techniques, workshops, songs, new artists, approaches, teachings, and perspectives. I thought of Mark Twain’s famous quote “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait 5 minutes”. The same could be said of this conference. It’s an intentionally eclectic mix of different speakers, teachers, worship leaders, and performers from different traditions, theological convictions, and worship leading philosophies. You’ll hear and see some stuff you like and agree with, and then 5 minutes later you’ll hear and see some stuff you don’t agree with at all.

It’s good for worship leaders to experience this kind of wide-exposure from time to time, and the National Worship Leader Conference certainly provides it.

Yet throughout the conference, at different sessions, with different worship leaders, from different circles, using different approaches, and leading with different bands, I picked up on a common theme. It’s been growing over the last few decades. And to be honest, it’s a troubling theme. And if this current generation of worship leaders doesn’t change this theme, then corporate worship in evangelicalism really is headed for a major crash.

It’s the theme of performancism. The worship leader as the performer. The congregation as the audience. The sanctuary as the concert hall.

It really is a problem. It really is a thing. And we really can’t allow it to become the norm. Worship leaders, we must identify and kill performancism while we can.

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Just why is congregational singing so important? David Mathis answers.

Worshiping Jesus together may be the single most important thing we do. It plays an indispensable role in rekindling our spiritual fire, and keeping it burning. Corporate worship brings together God’s word, prayer, and fellowship, and so makes for the greatest means of God’s ongoing grace in the Christian life.

But thinking of worship as a means can be dangerous. True worship is fundamentally an experience of the heart, and not a means to anything else. So it’s important to distinguish between what benefits might motivate us to be regular in corporate worship, and what focus our minds and hearts should pursue in the moment.

According to Don Whitney, “There’s an element of worship and Christianity that cannot be experienced in private worship or by watching worship. There are some graces and blessings that God gives only in the ‘meeting together’ with other believers” (Spiritual Disciplines, 92). Surely, many more could be given, but here are five such “graces and benefits” that we experience uniquely in the context of corporate worship.

1. Awakening

Often we come into corporate worship feeling a sense of spiritual fog. During the rough and tumble of the week, the hard knocks of real life in the fallen world can disorient us to ultimate reality and what’s truly important. We need to clear our head, recalibrate our spirit, and jumpstart our slow heart. Martin Luther found corporate worship powerful in awakening his spiritual fire: “at home, in my own house, there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through.”

Better than Luther, though, is the experience of the inspired psalmist. In Psalm 73, he begins by despairing over the prosperity of his wicked peers (verses 2–15). But the fog clears as he comes consciously into the presence of God: “When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end” (Psalm 73:16–17).

He was embattled. The spiritual haze was thick. But the breakthrough came in the context of worship. Which then leads to this climactic expression of praise: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26).

How many times have we found this to be true for us as well? Instead of staying away from corporate worship when we sense ourselves to be spiritually lethargic, precisely what we need more than ever is the awakening of worship. When our hearts feel it least is when we need most to remind our souls, “For me it is good to be near God” (Psalm 73:28).

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