Jon Nicol writes an open letter to senior pastors:

Dear Senior Pastor,

Before I start, I just want to say thanks for what you do week-after-week to bring us a message from the Word. Most of your congregation has no clue of the work–not to mention the emotional toll–that it takes to get up to teach and preach the message every Sunday. That alone is a burden to carry, not to mention all the other aspects of being a senior pastor.

The preparation you put into your messages is the same kind of preparation your worship leader would love to be able to put into their worship planning, practices and rehearsals. And that’s what I want to talk to you about.

A Time and Planning Barrier
I’ve been working with worship leaders for awhile, and one of the barriers they have in their preparation is the amount of time they’re given to plan their music. I’m not sure what your particular process is. But I have worked with worship leaders who can’t plan their music until the middle of the week, because they don’t know the theme of the message until then.

This creates a domino effect. Since the worship leader can’t plan the music ahead of time…

• the team doesn’t have time practice the music before they arrive at mid-week rehearsal…
• the mid-week rehearsal becomes their practice. Essentially they’re individually learning the songs when they should be rehearsing…
• the Sunday morning warm-up time then becomes the rehearsal that they should have had during the week. It’s now a scramble to make the songs sound right, when they should be just reviewing and warming up…
• the first service then becomes the warm-up…
• and finally, the second service is starting to come together, that is, if you have second service.

If your church’s team only rehearses on Sunday morning, this process gets even hairier.

Here’s the thing – imagine preparing your sermon to be spoken through seven different people. That’s what your worship leader is dealing with. They need more lead time. Since the leader may not know till Monday, Tuesday or even Wednesday what your sermon is about, he/she can’t get the music out to their team ahead of time to practice. And EVERY musician needs to practice songs, no matter how good they are.

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Ed Stetzer: the motivation behind having different worship services is key.

Having multiple services with different musical expressions has become the accepted norm for many churches. Signs and websites routinely advertise “contemporary, traditional and blended services.” Lask week, at the Momentum Conference in Ohio, I mixed it up a bit with Derwin Gray of Transformation Church, who thinks it is a bad idea. Tullian Tchvidjian has expressed similar thoughts when they did away with their traditional and contemporary services.

But, I’m of a slighty different view than my two friends—not a LOT different, but I think the motivation for such an approach matters.

In other words, whether or not having multiple service styles is appropriate depends heavily on the motivation behind the services. Are they driven by a consumerist mindset, seeking to cater to the preferences of the audience, or are they fueled by a desire to worship in a way that matches the context(s) of the congregation and surrounding community?

Has the church added worship services as a response to complaints from members or the context in which God has placed them?

After a few years of “worship wars,” many churches decided to create multiple services based primarily on worship styles or worship preferences. As a result, the “Traditional Service,” which normally had the backing of the older members (often with those who gave most of the financial support to the church), got the coveted 11:00 AM time slot, while the younger members (with little children) had to drag themselves and their half-dressed, unfed kids to church by 8:00 AM or earlier in some cases.

Over time, this changed and many now have the traditional service early, as it did (generally) experience the growth of a contemporary.

Often times, this was not a change flowing from a missional strategy, but rather one dictated by the consumeristic mindset of the church—we have to keep the customers happy. And, the problem is that it has often proven impossible for us to constantly feed our own preferences and have any appetite left to help the actual needs of those outside the satisfied family.

So, let me start by saying that a church should not be blackmailed into adding worship services by anyone in the congregation. I am not OK with older members saying, “Listen, we want this music and we pay all the bills. We’ll let you go have your contemporary service, but we want you to pander to us.” Nor am I OK with all the young people saying, “You know, I’m tired of those hymns; we want something cool and hip. If not, we’re leaving.” Preference pandering only further engrains consumerism in the church.

They were driven by complaints.

Unfortunately, this will continue until our people are taught to find their contentment solely in Jesus and their worship driven focus by God, rather than having their preferences indulged. If you’re simply coming because this is “my kind of thing,” then it’s just pandering to the consumer preferences of Christians.

Instead of addressing the deeper heart issues, churches declare a truce that nobody likes. “We won’t sing too much contemporary; you don’t sing too much traditional.”

No one is thrilled about the solution, but they are at least satisfied that the “other side” didn’t get their way. When additional services or this type of compromise are chosen on the basis of the preference of the people, we have wrong starting point.

The wrong question to ask is “What type of music do I like?” That’s finding satisfaction in the style and not the Savior.

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Worship services in evangelical churches do not mention sin, a major part of the Gospel message, Dr. Cornelius Plantinga, senior research fellow at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, said Monday at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Faith Angle Forum.

“In very many evangelical and confessionally Reformed churches these days, sin is a rare topic,” he said.

He came to this conclusion from his experience of speaking in different churches most Sundays for the past 30 years, talking to evangelical friends, observing the content of worship music used by evangelical churches, and reading the books and articles of Dr. David Wells, distinguished senior research professor at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Plantinga explained to the conference of journalists.

Anglicans, Catholics and Lutherans continue to include confession or a rite of penitence as a regular part of their worship services, he noted. But in evangelical and Reformed churches, he sees “less and less” sin-related material every year.

Over 158,000 churches in North America get the music for their worship services from Christian Copyright Licensing International, Plantinga explained. CCLI provides a valuable service to churches by streamlining the process of obtaining licenses for their worship music. Churches can pay a single fee and obtain all the licenses from CCLI’s library.

Looking at the content of CCLI songs, Plantinga observed that there are “very few penitential songs.” The “biblical tradition of lament, which is all through the prophets and the Psalms is gone, just not there,” he said.

One of the reasons Plantinga believes evangelical worship leaves out sin is a desire to be “seeker friendly” and avoid topics that may turn off non-Christians or new Christians.

“Mindful that seekers come to church in American no-fault culture in which tolerance is a big virtue and intolerance a big vice, worship finders in evangelical churches often want nothing in the service that sounds judgmental,” he said. And for that reason “lots of evangelical churches these days are unrelievedly cheerful.”

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Barna: 59% of Millennials who grew up in church have dropped out at some point.

What, if anything, helps Americans grow in their faith? When Barna Group asked, people offered a variety of answers—prayer, family or friends, reading the Bible, having children—but church did not even crack the top-10 list.

Although church involvement was once a cornerstone of American life, U.S. adults today are evenly divided on the importance of attending church. While half (49%) say it is “somewhat” or “very” important, the other 51% say it is “not too” or “not at all” important. The divide between the religiously active and those resistant to churchgoing impacts American culture, morality, politics and religion.

Looking to future generations does not paint an optimistic picture for the importance of churchgoing. Millennials (those 30 and under) stand out as least likely to value church attendance; only two in 10 believe it is important. And more than one-third of Millennial young adults (35%) take an anti-church stance. In contrast, Elders (those over 68) are the most likely (40%) to view church attendance as “very” important, compared to one-quarter (24%) who deem it “not at all” important. Boomers (ages 49—67) and Gen Xers (ages 30—48) fall in the middle of these polar opposites. While the debate rages about what will happen to Millennials as they get older—Will they return to church attendance later in life?—they are starting at a lower baseline for church participation and commitment than previous generations of young adults.

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Geoff Surratt talks about one of his favorite worship leaders:

The question seems to be, Should fat people lead worship? My answer would be yes and no. Let me tell a story and then explain.

One of my favorite worship leaders was Sherren Wilson. Sherren was not only excessively overweight, she was chronically late and consistently unprepared; but when she led worship something mysterious happened. As Sherren led children in worship they would jump, and spin and wiggle and dance along; and they would be swept up in genuine worship. I saw 2nd and 3rd graders hands raised, eyes closed, tears running down their cheeks expressing love to God. Sherren taught hundreds of children that worship comes from the heart and flows out through every muscle. What was truly remarkable, however, is that adults were swept along with the kids when Sherren led. Many leaders told me they connected more with “children’s” worship led by Sherren than any other music at our church.

Sherren had a rare gift. God enabled her to pull back the invisible curtain between “here” and “there” just enough so we could peak inside. Sadly for us God called Sherren “there” not long after her 40th birthday, but when she led worship we experienced a little of what Moses saw when he had to cover his face with a veil, what Isaiah experienced when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, what John wrote about when he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. Sherren led children and adults into the throne room of God and allowed us to experience the awe of his presence a few minutes at a time.

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Jamie Brown shares how he approaches serving as a guest worship leader for a church that isn’t his own.

This coming Sunday I’ll have the privilege of filling in for a friend who’s the worship director at a local church. He’s on vacation and asked me to be the guest worship leader. Since he’s filled in for me in the past, and it was easy for me to find a sub at my own church, I said yes. It will be kind of fun.

I wanted to share how I approach serving as a guest worship leader for a church that isn’t my own. This kind of opportunity pops up for me 3 or 4 times a year, and I’ve made enough mistakes and learned a few lessons that I thought sharing them might be helpful.

1. Approach it as a servant. You are not a celebrity.

2. Don’t just come in and do your own thing, in your own way, with your own songs, and your own personality on display. You’ll know you’ve succeeded when some people in the congregation didn’t really notice that you were there.

3. Ask as many questions as possible about what they’re used to. Have them walk through a normal rehearsal, and a normal service with you. Once you’ve settled on a song list, ask them if they do any of those songs differently from how you do them. Get lots of details.

4. Collaborate on a song list. You want to pick songs that the congregation knows really well. You’re a guest, so it’s OK if you err on the side of really familiar songs. Ask what songs they might suggest you lead.

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Jordan Stone explains one of the core values of his church.

When I first began the journey of planting a church one common refrain of encouragement from seasoned planters was, “Identify your church’s core values. Communicate them clearly and often.”

Now, this isn’t the place to quibble with whether or not mission statements and core values ought to be a “first order of business” reality in planting a church. When used rightly, just like church confessions, core values function as faithful identifiers of what a local church understands and treasures about its faith and practice.

So we came up with what we call at Imago Dei Church, “Things We Want to Be True.” Things that we hope would permeate our church’s life together and witness to the world. One of those things is that we would be “A Singing Church.”

WHY WE SING

Why have a specific desire to be a singing church? Two things come immediately to mind.

1. Singing mirrors the character of God.

Zephaniah’s only recorded sermon helped bring spiritual revival to God’s people after the long and disastrous reign of Manassah. For three chapters Zephaniah has detailed the “day of the Lord,” a day when he would, according to chapter 3, “Pour out upon them [His] indignation, all [His] burning anger . . . all the earth shall be consumed.” The picture is bleak. It’s as though God announces that His storm of judgment is coming and His people stare at a sky swelling with rolling and thunderous clouds. And just before judgment bursts forth in power, a single ray of sunshine breaks through and shines down. Zephaniah says sadness and depression isn’t the order of the day for everybody. The sun of salvation is going to burst upon the earth because “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zeph. 3:17) Our God is a singing God!

Faithful singing then is little more than a mirror of the great God who sings over His people. Our singing God creates and commands His people, which leads to the second point.

2. Singing is a mark of obedience.

God not only creates His people, but commands His people and one command is that we sing. As best I can tell, there are some four hundred references to singing in Scripture and over fifty commands to sing. God’s salvation compels the commands of Zephaniah 3:14, “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!” Did you notice from where our singing is to come? ”Rejoice and exult with all your heart.” What matters most in singing is the state of our hearts. God is honored when our hearts sings unto Him in joyful humility and honesty.

This is why we sing, because it mirrors God is and is a mark of obedience. Said another way, “We sing because He sang first over us.”

WHAT SINGING DOES

Another question worth pursuing on the topic is, “What singing does singing actually do?” If we long for a culture of singing in our churches, what kind of culture are we longing for? Among the myriad of things singing does, I believe there are four worth particular mention.

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