John Benard gives 10 tips for how to play in a contemporary way.

1. Set up where you can always see the face of your worship or band leader. Signals and communication will be much more intuitive.
2. Don’t just stick to piano sounds. Pads, Rhodes, Whirly, Hammond, strings. Variety is the spice girls of music.
3. You are playing in the same sonic spectrum as the lead guitarist so try to hear what each other is playing and work together, combine rhythms, you play low, they play high, you play chords, they play lead, take turns etc. If you can’t hear them at least watch their fingers for the rhythms they play.
4. Use sus2 chords (1,2,5) instead of full triads (1,3,5) – it adds a sense of ambiguity and space to the sound
5. Your left hand performs a very similar function to the bass player so be careful not to clash and give them room to do their job. Common mistakes are playing ‘pushes’ that don’t lock in with the bass line or kick drum, freestyle rhythms that don’t lock in with the main groove and general business.
6. If in doubt tie your left hand behind your back and just use your right hand. I’m serious!
7. Learn the 1st and 2nd inversion of the basic triad so you can link from one chord to the next with the closest voicing
8. Don’t rely on transpose button all the time. Once you are confident in C, learn to play in G then D then Bb, Eb – use the black notes!
9. Use reference tracks and try to copy exact keyboard parts from CDs, it will build your knowledge of sounds and train your ear.
10. Work out what style your band is trying to play in and listen to as much music from those who inspire your sound.

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 were top-charting worship choruses, and you even sprinkled in a few hymns. But they just stood there looking at you, mute and seemingly uninterested. Of course it was the congregation’s fault: they are spiritually immature and musically unsophisticated…or are they?

The problem usually isn’t the congregation, it’s you! It’s time to address a problem that seems to be increasingly more prevalent in churches: people can’t sing the songs because they are in a key that is out of the congregation’s singing range.

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Matt Keller offers excellent ideas for a big paradigm shift in your church.

Moving from 1 service to 2 services is a major cultural shift for your people and is going to make people nervous. What we have discovered is that any time, ANY TIME, a church makes a major cultural shift, it breaks trust with attenders to some degree. It’s not bad, it just is a reality that leaders must not be naïve about.

Here’s how we teach it to pastors. Anytime you make a major cultural shift in your church (add a service, move facilities, etc.) you effectively “spook the sheep.” People get uneasy and are less likely to invite their unsaved, unchurched or dechurched friends. Unconsciously they’re thinking, “Is this safe?” “Is it going to be the same?” “Is it going to be too big?” Etc.

In our experience, it takes between 4 and 6 months to regain that trust and for attendance and giving to rebound. We call it “the 6 month tail.” Don’t let it throw you if you don’t “double over night.” You’ll grow, just probably not as quickly as you think you will.

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Ron Edmondson: Before you start signing people up it might be helpful to take a look at why people are NOT volunteering.

Do you need more preschool workers to serve children? Do you need more greeters to greet? Do you need more ushers to…ush?

If so, you’re in familiar territory.

I’ve never met a church that said, “You know…when it comes to volunteers, we’re good. We’ve got plenty. In fact, there’s a waiting list for the nursery.”
Churches everywhere need to mobilize more volunteers to get ministry done. But before you start signing people up and filling slots, it might be helpful to take a look at why people are NOT volunteering.

Here are FIVE REASONS people might not be volunteering at your church:

1. You’re not asking correctly. It takes more than blurbs in the bulletin and pleas from the pulpit to move people into volunteer positions in your church. If you want people to serve, you’ve got to learn how to ask correctly.

2. It’s hard to sign up. Signing up has to be simple and immediate. Hidden tables in the lobby don’t work. Remembering to email so-and-so isn’t a good strategy.

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