Guitarist Kendall Combes demonstrates guitar technique on his song We Remember.
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Is It Legal to Use Secular Songs in Worship?
from Christian Copyright Solutions Founder and President Susan Fontaine Godwin:
The first time I remember hearing a secular song used in worship was at a rural church in northern Indiana. It was “Let My Love Open the Door,” by Pete Townshend, performed by a spunky blond woman from the praise band. It was a catchy and energetic way to kick off a service closing out their “Doors” series, which would invite people to walk through a large door on stage to symbolize their acceptance of Christ.
I became an instant fan of using secular music in worship, if it supported the message. I anticipated opposition to the idea from our church’s leadership, partially from a legal perspective (was a church even allowed to do that without special permission?) but mainly from a theological perspective. It can be controversial, as a lot of people feel secular music has no place in sacred worship. Granger pastor Tim Stevens makes the case for using secular music in his book, Pop Goes the Church, saying there is biblical precedent and gospel imperative for churches to leverage pop culture to reach secular people.
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Rick Warren Returns to Pulpit Four Months After Son’s Suicide
Rick Warren, bestselling author and pastor of an evangelical mega church in Orange County, preached for the first time on Sunday after his son’s suicide.
Matthew Warren, 27, shot himself in the head in April following a long struggle with mental illness. The Warren’s youngest child died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He shot himself with an unregistered gun he purchased online.
On Sunday, his father appeared in jeans and a black T-shirt in front of an estimated 10,000 congregants at his Saddleback Church in Lake Forest and vowed to fight prejudice against people with mental illnesses.
“It’s amazing to me that any other organ in your body can break down and there’s no shame and stigma to it,” Warren said. “But if your brain breaks down you’re supposed to keep it a secret.”
“If you struggle with a broken brain, you should be no more ashamed than someone with a broken arm,” he told the crowd.
“It’s not a sin to take meds. It’s not a sin to get help. You don’t need to be ashamed.”
On Monday, he tweeted: “I’m back. And fearless after months in God’s presence.”
After his son’s suicide, Warren and his wife, Kay, launched a petition about mental illness urging “educators, lawmakers, healthcare professionals, and church congregations to raise the awareness and lower the stigma of mental illness.”
“Matthew was just one of about 11.4 million American adults that suffered from severe mental illness in the past year,” the petition states. “In fact, one in five Americans experiences some sort of mental illness.”
Ultimately, they both hold to the hope that God is with people during their times of trouble, and that God will raise the dead. Matthew’s body was buried in brokenness, Kay said, but will be raised in strength. Rick reminded everyone that heaven is coming. He quoted the Book of Revelation: “Then God will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will pass away.”
Rick then made a promise: Saddleback’s next big ministry push will be to remove the stigma associated with mental illness in the church. “Your illness is not your identity, your chemistry is not your character,” he told people struggling with mental illness. To their families, he said, “We are here for you, and we are in this together.” There is hope for the future: “God wants to take your greatest loss and turn it into your greatest life message.”
For the next six Sundays, Rick will preach a sermon series entitled, “How to get through what you’re going through.” He will devote a message to each of the six stages of grief: shock, sorrow, struggle, surrender, sanctification and service. A larger program to address the specifics of mental illness has yet to be revealed, but it will be similar, Rick said, to the way their church has helped to tackle the HIV crisis.
Then, as the service closed, Rick joined the worship team in singing “Blessed Be Your Name.” He lifted his Bible high above his head and declared boldly to the God he serves: “You give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name.”
Church Signs of the Week
This week’s signs put the “fun” in Fundamentalist. At least you know where these churches stand. Ambiguous, they are not. See more.
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A Critical (Often Overlooked) Trait of an Excellent Worship Pastor
Sam S. Rainer on creating the framework for worship:
A good worship pastor knows how to lead artists. Indeed, observing a worship pastor lead a group of artists is a work of art in itself. Worship pastors often get labeled as innovate yet quirky, creative but peculiar. Let’s be honest—many fit the label. But quite frankly, I believe far too many churches squelch the creative passion of artists for the sake of mundane familiarity. True worship art (or perhaps more correctly, artful worship) is always accompanied with risk.
While I value the creative world of worship pastors, most do something that is entirely overlooked by others: They create the framework for worship. Within the artful expression of worship is a structure built almost entirely by the worship pastor. My worship pastor teaches doctrine first, then how to sing. He cares more about theology than music style. Praise team practices, orchestra practices, and choir practices are more about practicing the doctrine of the songs than performing the songs.
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Shooters In Churches: Federal Panel’s Guidebook Counsels ‘Run, Hide, or Fight’
The federal government has released a guidebook to help churches respond to shooters and other on-site emergencies as part of President Obama’s executive actions to fight gun violence.
Titled “A Guide for Developing High-Quality Emergency Operation Plans for Houses of Worship,” it offers suggestions and instructions apart from any laws or mandates. The guidebook is the work of a panel of 100 experts encompassing faith leaders, first responders, law enforcement officers, educators and emergency planners, who also released books for K-12 schools and higher education.
The faith leaders wanted to talk about making schools safer — and more, Vice President Joe Biden said in announcing the guidebook.
“They know, they’re worried, that their congregations are at risk. So they wanted to know what should they be thinking about when someone stands up in the middle of a congregation and decides to do something similar to what we saw in the schools,” Biden said of the group’s deliberations.
“So we gave concrete direction. We said, all of you come up with what you think are the best practices, the most concrete recommendations that you could give us that will enable us to teach or prepare or lay out a menu for the school districts and churches.”
The guide advises churches to develop a plan of action and, in the event of an active shooter in the church, to have the congregation already trained to “run, hide, or fight” depending on opportunity. Nowhere does the document advise church members to arm themselves with guns or other weapons.
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Buying Drums for Worship Part 1
Occasionally my worship leader friends ask me what kind of drums and cymbals they should buy for their church. Even though I’ve covered this subject a bit in my Worship Drums Guide it’s a question worth answering again because there are so many brands and options.
So where to begin? Let’s start by asking what kind of church sanctuary you have before you buy your church’s first drum kit. There are many shapes, sizes and floor surfaces of church sanctuaries that I’ve played in over the years that require the appropriate types of drums and cymbals to keep your sound guy happy. You have to be honest with yourself and ask “do I just want to rock out?” or “do I want to buy the right drums that would be the most beneficial for church worship?” Would the age of your congregation, design of your sanctuary, size of your soundboard and size of your church benefit more from real drums or electric drums?
Electric Drums
An electric drum kit is usually the first place a more traditional church goes when they move to a contemporary service. The electric kit is a very practical solution for easing an older crowd into drums in the sanctuary and the volume level is also easily controlled. The only downside to electric kits have been the drum samples – especially cymbals. But with more and more drum sample libraries entering the music software market we’re starting to hear some incredible drum samples. The only problem is most electronic kits on the market do not have these quality samples… yet. I believe they will in the future with more research and development. There’s a way to incorporate better drum sample libraries into your electronic kit which I cover in the Worship Drums Guide. I also feel a lot of churches probably will not know the difference and the stock samples in your electric kit should do the job.
The Benefits of Electric Drums
The biggest benefits of electric drums are containment, minimal input usage and volume control. If you’re just using the stock sounds from your electric kit’s brain then all you need are 2 inputs for your whole drum mix. That certainly makes things easy on the sound man especially if you’re a smaller church with a smaller soundboard. The electronic kits are also easy to move and live on a smaller stage. They don’t take up a lot of space and you don’t need a drum shield to tone down the volume.
There’s only one electronic kit I recommend and it’s any of the Roland electric kits from the TD-KV series and all the lines that go up in price from it. They range from $1500 to $7500. I like the Roland kits because of the real swivel of the cymbals when you hit them and the mesh heads of the drums. I also think their sounds are great and the integration of any outside midi is easy to patch in. For me, the feel of the Roland kits have been the best. You can also add the Roland SPD-30 pad and trigger loops or more auxiliary sounds.
Real Drums
You’ll have to experiment to see if real drums work for your room and congregation. You might want to either start with a drum shield or add it later if your drums are too loud. A drum shield will take getting used to for your drummer and worship team and requires its own set of rules. I have played drums with no drum shields in small rooms and it’s worked just fine. Of course this approach takes some major restraint on a drummer’s part to not overplay and hold back in volume.
Drum shields make sense in the older sanctuaries because they were built for choirs, organs and to amplify unplugged sound from the stage. Drums are naturally going to be boomy and overpowering in an older church building.
The Benefits of Real Drums
I prefer to play real drums over electric drums any day of the week. I also notice a difference in energy from the stage when the band plays with real drums. Even if your whole band is using in-ear monitors the drums are still live and loud. I also think real drums sound the best. It takes a great sound man to know the room, right equipment, and right mics in order to pull off a great live drum sound.
Next week I’ll share my favorite drums and cymbals.
Jon Skaggs has played drums for Christian artists like Brandon Heath, Chris Sligh and Nichole Nordeman, is a music producer, clinician, and author of the Worship Drums Guide. Visit his website at www.jonskaggs.net.
Pastor Helps Nab Thief Through Social Media
CBN News reports a pastor in Houston helped authorities catch a thief. And he did it using social media.
It all started when a brand new trailer filled with the church’s sound equipment, chairs, and other items went missing from the storage facility where it’s kept between services.
After reporting the theft to police, the pastor was able to get an image of the thief from surveillance video. He posted the picture on social media sites, asking people to share it.
“We put that still picture on Facebook and just asked people to share it,” Pastor Chris Parrott of Canvas Church in Houston said. “Honestly, we were not expecting to recover anything, but we thought, you know doing something is better than not doing anything. If we do something we’ll have a better chance of recovering our equipment.”
His efforts paid off.
A neighbor’s tip led police to a house where they recovered the equipment and arrested three suspects.
Pastor Parrott said the trailer and its contents added up to about $15,000. For the relatively new, small church, recovering the equipment meant a lot.
“We’re here to bless the community,” he said.
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