David Santistevan encourages praise bands to play from memory.

When you hear the word “memorize”, you probably have one of two reactions.

• I can’t do that.
• Not a chance.
• There’s something about memorizing that is scary to us, but I don’t think it has to be.

We all know there is something good about it, right?

It helps us be more present in the moment.
It serves congregational worship by having a more prepared team.
It helps your rehearsals go smoother (if people practice).
It helps move the music from a math equation to art.
It’s a powerful tool for maturing your musicians.
As worship musicians, it helps us engage in worship more.
It also means we don’t have to kill as many trees or purchase a handful of expensive iPads.
Win win, right?

I am on a quest to obliterate the music stand from our worship teams. We’re fully there at one campus, and almost there at our second. For many worship leaders that I talk to, this is a scary transition.

You can’t just announce this and expect it right away. The musical accuracy would most definitely suffer. You might have a revolt.

That’s why you need a transition plan.

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Shawn West offers ideas to help your church stay connected in the digital age.

“Why should we stream our church services?” People often ask me this question, usually followed by a quote from their pastor saying, “If people can stay at home and watch church in their pajamas & slippers, why would they come back to church?  There are many ways to answer to this question. Inmy research and polls,taken since I started live streaming in 2009, I have found that the driving force behind people’s desire to view church online is wide and varied.  And I’m happy to share with you the TOP 10 reasons churches have decided to invest in live streaming.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE STREAM YOUR CHURCH SERVICES:

1. To show potential new members (those who visit your church website online) what your church is really like.

FACTOID: Young married couples (ages 24-34) who have recently moved into a town, will watch a live streamed church service an average of 6 times before stepping foot in the church building.

2. Providing an alternative for those who have odd work schedules or who travel frequently for work and/or play (such as snow birdsand those glued-to-the-tube during football season).

3.To provide a convenient means to attend worship for those who can’t make it to church due to illness or being infirmed; if folks are like me, when a child in the family gets sick it is impossible to bring them to church or drop them off at the nursery because you don’t want other children to get sick too.  So, the most likely situation is that one (or both) of the parents must stay home from church to take care of the little one.  With a live stream of the church services, the parents can keep up with what’s with going on in the church family as well as enjoy the sermon from the convenience of their home computer or mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, Droid, etc.).

4. For the elderly who can’t leave home (shut ins) or those living in an assisted living environment.

5. To extend church membership beyond the walls of your church (think multi-state membership).

6. For special events, music concerts, pageants (Grandma in Kentucky wants to see little Suzy sing in the Easter program!)

7.  For district conferences; now, more church members can participate in the District Conference and be part of the discussions about the direction of the church as a whole.

8. For fund raising; there are many groups within the church (women’s ministry, youth ministries) who could take advantage of this technology and use it to raise money and awareness of their mission activities.

9.  To live stream your Pastor’s sermon across campus, or across town where the church has planted a new church; this decreases the cost of having 2 pastors serve locations that are sharing resources.

10.  As outreach, evangelism and to fulfill the Great Commission (Acts 1:8).

So, as you can see, there are a lot of reasons churches are considering this new technology.  Not the least of which is that live streaming also makes fiscal sense, especially for small or mid-sized churches. Examine the dollar-cost-average of ministering to an extra 100 people per week. There are many added cost considerations such as, parking, bulletins, water, lights, heat and refreshments.  It’s often a more effective use of financial resources to reach people via online streaming.  And when you consider that the average cost of live streaming is cheaper than a typical monthly cell phone bill, you can begin to see how offering live streaming just makes sense (cents).

For many churches nowadays, the reasons areclear.  In my opinion, the most compelling reason to provide live streaming technology is that it’s the most effective way for existing church members to stay connectedto the church when life prohibits your physical attendance at church. Ever notice that even one Sunday away from church often feels like you have to start all over again with building those relationships from scratch?  Once a week handshakes, nods across the room and sudo-hugs just don’t cut it in the long-term.  It takes a commitment to learn, lean-in and participate in every way the church offers, both in person and online. Technology can be your friend and help keep you connected to your church when life gets in the way.

Shawn West is a technology adviser for churches and president of www.WorshipChannels.com

Matt Boswell from 9marks.org asks: can we sing any kind of song when gathered together?

Christians are a singing people.

Muslims don’t gather to sing. Neither do Hindus, Buddhists, or Rastafarians. Christians do. Also, while not everyone preaches, or leads in prayer, or publicly reads Scripture, we all sing.[1]

But what can we say about the nature of a corporate Christian song? What should it be like? Can we sing any kind of song when gathered together?

WHAT A CONGREGATIONAL SONG SHOULD BE

Whether our corporate worship is subject to the regulative principle or simply the principle of conscience, the exercise of singing ought to be seriously considered in light of Scripture. And Psalm 96 offers some crucial perspectives regarding the nature of a right song and its effects. Originally written for the covenant people of God for the entry of the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem (see 1 Chr. 16), this Psalm offers us much regarding the practice of singing today.

A Congregational Song Should Focus on God

God is at the center of a Christian song. When God calls his people to sing, it is a qualified type of song. In Psalm 96:1, God says, “Sing to the Lord.”

When the church is gathered together in the name of God, the glory of God is the aim of our melody making. We are to sing to him, about him, and for him. We don’t sing merely as the world sings of created things, our song is elevated to the Uncreated One. The songs of the church proclaim the character, attributes, and ways of the God of our salvation.

For those who choose songs for corporate worship, this is a task to be carried out with sobriety. Mark Dever and Paul Alexander give this advice to pastors: “As the main teaching pastor, it is your responsibility to shepherd the congregation into the green pastures of God-centered, gospel-centered songs, and away from the arid plains of theological vacuity, meditations on human experience, and emotional frenzy.”[2] If our songs are never set above vacuity, human experience, and emotions, we have fallen short of our goal. God must be the center of our worship; therefore God must be the center of our songs.

A Congregational Song Should Be Biblical

The songs of the church ought to be built on, shaped by, and saturated with the word of God. Singing is a unique way to let the word of Christ dwell richly in us (Col. 3:16).

In Psalm 96:2, we see that we are to bless his name. Apart from God’s revelation, we would not know his name, or how to bless his name. Our singing and the whole of our worship must be biblically informed in order to carry out these commands. The songs of the church should be intentionally biblical.

We might think of singing as a form of exposition that uses poetry to teach the word of God. When Isaac Watts published Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, this was his intention. His goal was not to sing Scripture line by line, but to create poetic and emotive renditions of Scripture that allow a church to sing the truths of Scripture.

Songs are sermons. They don’t work like homiletical exegesis, but they articulate, exegete, and pronounce biblical truths. Our hymns teach and shape the way people view God, man, Christ, and how we are to live in light of the gospel.

One way to ensure our singing is biblical is to comb through our songs to see if we cover the breadth of themes presented throughout the canon. Our songs should be held up to the light of God’s word to ensure we are singing the glories of its truth.

A Congregational Song Should Point to the Gospel

The contours of the gospel should shape our hymnal. We should “tell of his salvation” (v. 2), so that the gospel rings forth as the theme of our songs. If we are convinced of the primacy of gospel-centered ministry, we should surely practice gospel-centered singing. The songs of our churches must be fluent in the gospel.

One approach toward gospel-centered singing is to build on the framework of God, man, Christ, response.

• We sing to God as the holy creator of all things, who is worthy of worship.
• We sing of man and our sinful nature, our alienation from God, and our need of forgiveness.
• We sing of Christ who is fully God and fully man, who lived a sinless life and died on the cross to bear the wrath of God.
• We sing a response. In these songs of consecration and repentance, faith and praise, we joyfully respond to the good news of Jesus.

A Congregational Song Should Be Congregational

The preface to this Psalm says it is to be sung by both Asaph and his sons (1 Chr. 16:7). Christian singing is congregational at its core.

The song of redemption is not meant for one, but for many. In the torrent of individualism and self-help, the people of God don’t sing as a collection of individuals, but as one people united to Christ. Christian singing is not meant to highlight the talented few, but to include the voice of the many. Congregational participation protects the gathering from pageantry and pomp, and provides an environment for an exultant, grace-infused response to the revelation of God.

This choir of the redeemed lift a collective voice of praise as a testimony that we have been reconciled to God and to one another. Singing together in worship is a mark of unity within a church. The song of the redeemed is to be sung by young and old, rich and poor, strong and weak. Verse 7 reminds us that families of peoples will ascribe praise to God: peoples from every tribe, tongue, and nation on the earth.

A Congregational Song Should be Evangelistic

While worship is theocentric, it is also declarative. Our singing is aimed at God, but it also rings in the ear of our neighbor. God-centered worship is proclamation. As we sing of the glory of God we understand that all have not seen his glory. As we sing of the goodness of the gospel, we realize that it is not good news to all.

Spurgeon called this Psalm the “Missionary Psalm,” and for good reason. In verses 10 to 13, we see that God-centered singing intrinsically works as a declaration to the lost. God-centeredness and evangelism are not two competing targets but one inside of the other. The worship of God is the aim of evangelism.

In the same breath, we sing of the love and wrath of God. In the same melodies, we declare his holiness and the grave effect of sin. Christ is the king who will come to judge the world in his righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness. We say among the nations “The Lord reigns!” in the hope that men and women will repent of sin and trust in Christ.

A HOLY PRACTICE

The church has been given a song to sing, and Christ is its author, its substance, and its aim.

A church’s songs are not a mere preamble to the sermon. Singing is not filler time to warm up a congregation. Singing is a holy practice. We sing because God has commanded us, and our songs should fill our hearts with delight.

Matt Boswell is pastor of ministries and worship at Providence Church in Frisco, Texas.

[1] Thanks to Collin Hansen for articulating this idea in a conversation.

[2] Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005), 85.

Jamie Brown offers helpful tips for your praise set.

Each week, worship leaders are given a fresh opportunity to choose songs to put on people’s lips when they come together on Sunday. In a church with an informal liturgy, the slate is more blank than at a church with a more formal liturgy, but in either case, a worship leader who chooses the songs will look at anywhere from three to ten blank slots that he’s tasked to fill in. Where does he start?

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David Santistevan tackles a difficult topic.

I’m hoping this post will help you process why, when, and how to approach this difficult experience we all face.

1. Lack of Respect for Leadership – Something I look for in a high pressure rehearsal setting is the “rolled eye”. If a musician rolls their eyes and is very defensive when I make a musical suggestion, I confront it. I tell the musician that I have the bigger picture in mind and I’m making decisions based on what will serve the church in the best possible way. But “lack of respect” can work itself out in many ways. You know it when you see it.

2. Gossip – There are few things I hate more than gossip when it comes to being on a team. A great team values honesty, openness, and respect. For example, if you have a problem, man up and come to me rather than taking the easy way out and talking to others.

The definition of gossip is talking about a problem with someone who can’t be a part of the solution. I love what Andy Stanley: we need to be private critics and public praisers. We can disagree and work things out in private, but when it comes to talking about our ministry publicly, we get behind the vision even when it hurts.

3. Being Unprepared – Does your team have a culture of excellence here on this team where practice is personal and rehearsal is relational? When we step into a rehearsal environment, we’re not there to learn but to flow and connect. If a musician isn’t ready once (or even a few times), we talk about it and work on it. If it’s a constant, ongoing problem, it can’t be allowed to continue because it’s not fair to the rest of team.

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David Mathis: new mercies, new music.

We all love old music. Whether it’s centuries old or even just a few months, the tunes we enjoy most are unavoidably the ones we already know. And there’s no getting around it. Music has a strange power to capture thoughts and feelings from the past, recent or long ago, and send them streaming into our present at the sound of just a few bars.

It’s a common experience to find yourself moved by some old song that you’ve sung for years. And if it’s a Christian hymn or worship chorus, you might feel freshly connected to God’s amazing faithfulness, not just through the ages, but in your particular life.

That was my experience recently when I heard an old anthem called “Holy Is He.” The choir at my childhood church would sing it on special occasion, and it had been years, perhaps fifteen, since I’d heard it. It brought back rich memories and inspired gratitude for God’s mercy in my life in surrounding me at an early age with such high praise to him, even before I was old enough to understand it much or feel it deeply. Which has me sensing afresh that there is a wonderful place for old songs.

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Russell Moore asks: Do we choose Millennials or Jesus?

From time to time we hear some telling us that evangelical Christianity must retool our sexual ethic if we’re ever going to reach the next generation. Some say that Millennials, particularly, are leaving the church because of our “obsession” with sexual morality. The next generation needs a more flexible ethic, they say, on premarital sex, homosexuality, and so on. We’ll either adapt, the line goes, or we’ll die.

This argument is hardly new. In the early 20th century, this was precisely the rhetoric used by liberal Protestant Harry Emerson Fosdick and his co-laborers. Fosdick was concerned, he said, for the future of Christianity, and if the church was to have a future we would have to get over our obsession with virginity. By that, Fosdick didn’t mean the virginity of single Christians but the virginity of our Lord’s mother.

The younger generation wanted to be Christian, the progressives told their contemporaries, but they couldn’t accept outmoded ideas of the miraculous, such as the virgin birth of Christ. What the liberals missed is that such miracles didn’t become hard to believe with the onset of the modern age. They always had been hard to believe from the beginning.

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