Use the I Need Thee Every Hour lyrics video like you’d use an iWorship video – sing along with the stereo track, play the vocal demo as prelude or integrate your praise band with the click track version. Both 480 and 720 downloads contain vocal demo, stereo track and click track versions.
Church Trip: Elevation 2013
Do people line up to get into your church? They do at Elevation.
Last Sunday a visit to the famous Elevation Church prompted my article Why You Shouldn’t Use Secular Songs In Worship. This week I’ll share some of my impressions of the church.
Elevation follows the same pattern as several other ministries across the country: a rock star, magnetic preacher and top-notch music. I’ve noticed even the buildings of these ministries are similar – an industrial style with polished concrete floors, high tech screens flickering in every direction and modern furnishings in the lobbies.
These types of churches might look and act the same but there are subtle differences. One Midwest clone is more high-brow: deeper, thought-provoking sermons with a specialization in video and films. Another has a proud southern sensibility and is known for their AC/DC cover songs.
Elevation has a taste of a Pentecostal service mixed with high octane pop music (Pastor Steven Furtick’s delivery reminds me of the cadence of an old-time preacher, and the congregation often responds verbally to his preaching.) I was surprised by Elevation – I expected a cool, detached hipster vibe and instead experienced quite a warm, praise-filled service.
Elevation wins the hospitality award. As I approached the church a greeter asked me if I had ever attended. I hadn’t so he gave me a welcome pack with a CD containing a message from Furtick along with some of their original music.
LISTEN: Steven Furtick WelcomeA friend advised me to get there early – I arrived 20 minutes before the service and stood in a line of about 100 people waiting to enter the building. Why the line? Crowd control, I guess. The main Elevation campus meets in an office park and they’ve turned one of the buildings into their sanctuary.
By the time I got to the lobby, still in line, I wondered if I’d even get a seat. A volunteer greeter spotted my visitor packet and insisted I come with her – she took me to a special first-time visitor’s row and I had a prime seat for the service. The place was extremely friendly and very well organized. The greeter also made it a point to hand me earplugs.
Elevation’s music is as loud and perfect as their industrial megachurch counterparts. However, I noticed their intention to have a worship experience with a traditional praise set format that opened with upbeat songs and simmered to worship ballads – something I don’t see in most performance megachurches. A worship leader from a similarly styled church famously told me they discourage worship from happening to give more time to that all-important sermon. Elevation evidently takes their music cues from Hillsong with a longer, more meaningful worship time.
Here’s their set from that Sunday:
Can’t Hold Us (Macklemore)
Relentless (Hillsong United)
God’s Great Dance Floor (Smith, Tomlin)
Great And Mighty King (Elevation Worship)
Grace So Glorious (Elevation Worship)
Only King Forever (Elevation Worship)
Let me say I really like seeing the Church (financially) support the arts for a change, especially since the Christian music industry has, for the most part, collapsed. Elevation has assembled a talented team of four worship leaders who write, produce and record their own music.
A view from another visitor:
I attended Elevation with my friend BJ who’s recently moved to Charlotte and is looking for a church. He disliked the service and told me he would have been out the door after Can’t Hold Us if I wasn’t with him.
At lunch he told me he’s always had a negative impression of Elevation, although he admittedly didn’t know why and didn’t have a specific reason. He also felt Furtick came off as a “cocky prick.” Any popular ministry will come under attack, but videos like Furtick’s infamous “Hey Haters” clip fan the flame of a negative perception (although after reading the nasty comments here at WorshipIdeas over the years, I tend to agree with Furtick!)
Elevation, and other churches like them, are personality driven. Their preachers can (and often do) deny that fact but it is what it is. Some denominations shuffle pastors every few years to avoid the rock star syndrome, but the truth is a consistent, compelling preacher will draw crowds. And that’s exactly what’s happening at Elevation.
Take a virtual tour:
[fbalbum url=https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151535923717653.1073741826.176060742652&type=1]Thoughts On Worship Hits
Bob Kauflin on choosing popular worship songs:
If you’re a worship leader or music minister there’s a good chance you’ve heard another leader talking about the new song they just introduced. They describe it as the most “incredible, life-changing, awesome, heaven-releasing, God-calling-down, what-you-haven’t-heard-it-yet” song they’ve ever done. You heart sinks as you realize that not only have you not heard the song, you didn’t even know the CD was out. When you think of the 80 CD’s on your desk you still haven’t listened to, you really feel like a loser. “How can anyone in my church even worship?”
If you’ve ever had those thoughts, you’re not alone. The problem lies mainly in our sinful hearts. We don’t want to be out of the loop when it comes to what’s happening in the worship world. We don’t want to look like we have our heads stuck in the sand. After all, we only have to spend a few minutes on the web to know what’s going on. It’s not like you have to go to a record store…But somehow we fall behind in our new song awareness, and start to panic. That’s our pride showing.
The worship song industry doesn’t always help us. Recently I received this advertisement for a new CD in my in-box:
51 Must Have Modern Worship Hits
Few music collections capture the very best moments of an entire genre of music, but 51 Must Have Modern Worship Hits does just that. Packed with the best of the best songs that have shaped modern worship as we know it, this essential 3-CD set includes…”
I realize that this is simply a company trying to package and promote songs that God seems to have used in the church. I have no doubt there are some great songs being offered. But I think it reveals a flaw in the way many of us think about worship songs. I wanted to draw attention to how the way these songs are described might tempt us as we seek to serve our churches.
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The Number One Reason for the Decline in Church Attendance
Thom Rainer on ministry growth:
Few people will argue that church attendance in many churches in America is declining. Our own research indicates that the majority of churches in our country are not growing.
Most of us have our own ideas why attendance is declining. Many have suggested that our nation is shifting away from its Christian roots, and thus the churches are declining as a smaller proportion of our country are believers in Christ.
I certainly will not argue with that premise. Certainly attendance declines are related to massive cultural shifts in our nation. But I would also suggest that one reason for declines has a greater impact than others.
The Frequency Issue
Stated simply, the number one reason for the decline in church attendance is that members attend with less frequency than they did just a few years ago. Allow me to explain.
If the frequency of attendance changes, then attendance will respond accordingly. For example, if 200 members attend every week the average attendance is, obviously, 200. But if one-half of those members miss only one out of four weeks, the attendance drops to 175.
Did you catch that? No members left the church. Everyone is still relatively active in the church. But attendance declined over 12 percent because half the members changed their attendance behavior slightly.
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Tips For Public Scripture Reading
The state of the contemporary church 2013: I wrote an article last week encouraging churches to use church music in church. This week I’m on a campaign to encourage churches to use Scripture in their worship.
I played for a few years at a local megachurch and my parents attended regularly. Recently, I asked my mother when was the last time she remembered hearing or seeing a Scripture verse during the worship. She laughed: “Never!”
One of the odd things about my visits to cutting edge contemporary churches is that I rarely see or hear any Scripture in their worship! Following are a two articles I’ve collected with some ideas for public reading of the Word of God:
Should Pastors Speak Longer Than Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount?
A seminary student arguing for shorter, more viral sermons, in the area of 18-minutes long, claimed that pastors are not following Christ’s most famous example in the way they preach, pointing to the Sermon on the Mount. But three pastors remain unconvinced, and denounced the argument as unbiblical and misguided for the church.
Evangelist and seminary student Jeff Tatarchuck argued that pastors should keep their sermons below the 18-minute mark last week. When pastors weighed in, arguing that people’s natural attention spans are longer than that, and that it takes more than 18 minutes to develop disciples, Tatarchuck responded by citing the length of “the greatest sermon of all time,” Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which, he argued, “can be read in 12 minutes, 30 seconds.”
The student quoted Andy Stanley’s book Communicating for a Change, saying that “every sermon should have one main idea.” He argued that “many pastors (including myself) are guilty of trying to fulfill the 40-45 minute sermon expectation by filling their sermons with content not essential to the topic.” He also added that discipleship should be one-on-one, rather than from the pulpit.
To demonstrate the ability to be clear and communicate in a quick way, he cited many memorable speeches that all fit under 18 minutes: Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech (17:29), Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address (14:45), Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” (12:22), and Ashton Kutcher’s speech at the Teen Choice Awards (4:15).
“If your goal is to be impressive preach for 40-45 minutes,” Tatarchuck suggested, “but if you want to be memorable do it under 18.”
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We Remember Lyrics Video
Use the We Remember lyrics video like you’d use an iWorship video – sing along with the stereo track, play the vocal demo as prelude or integrate your praise band with the click track version. Both 480 and 720 downloads contain vocal demo, stereo track and click track versions.
Download chord charts, sheet music and tracks for “We Remember” with a HymnCharts subscription.
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