Kristen Gilles on worship in the midst of tragedy:

Our nation was jolted last week by the tragic, civilian “war zone” created at the Boston Marathon after two terrible explosions killed 3 people and horribly wounded nearly two hundred others. The news media photos depicted bloody carnage on the streets of Massachusetts, terror rarely witnessed on U.S. soil in modern times.

These acts of violent terror against humanity happen every day around the world. No matter how it happens, or where it happens, the heart of God weeps with all who weep in the aftermath. And His righteous anger is stirred against the wicked. He is not sleeping. He is not deaf. He hears the bloody cries for justice. And He has promised to righteously judge the wicked.

How should Christians respond to the rampant evils, oppression and injustice of this world as we live to trust, obey and declare what is true about God? What should our worship of God sound like in response to such evil? Consider this Psalm of David, which he sung to the Lord as his own cry for justice in the face of great persecution and violence.

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Jason Hatley compares the Disney culture to ministry:

Recently, I was asked to speak to a group of pastors in Orlando and while I was there, I was invited to go on a “behind-the-scenes” tour of Walt Disney World.

Needless to say… I was excited! Sure it was going to be fun, but the real reason I love experiences like this is because I believe that God has ministry lessons for you wherever you are, if you’re looking for them.

My ears were open and my eyes were peeled. But even I was surprised by how applicable these THREE BIG leadership lessons are to what you and I do every week in leading our churches and Worship Ministries. (I’ll cover the first one today).

Here it is:

#1 – OVER-MANAGE THE DETAILS

That is… don’t assume. Go above and beyond to ensure that every detail that can be planned and examined is… well… planned and examined.

Let me explain.

Early in our tour, we found ourselves backstage at one of Disney’s “audio-animatronic” shows. It was early that morning before the show opened to the public. If you’ve been there before, you know that these robots that depict American Presidents and other historical figures are incredibly life-like. But they’re not human… they’re robots. They run on a computer program and do the exact same thing in the exact same way at the exact same time every day (sounds like some churches I’ve been to – ha!).

The point is… they don’t have to rehearse because they always do the same show.

Yet there I stood early that morning, watching as a robot show that has played almost identically for over 30 years went through it’s daily morning test run.

No one was there to see it, but the engineers told our group, “We do this test run every morning because we want to make sure that the show that our guests see today is the very best it can be.”

To some it may seem like a waste of time, but these guys were so committed to excellence that they went above and beyond, looking for anything that might keep these robots from performing at their best.

Now – in our churches we don’t really use the terms “show” and “performance”, but the principle is right on.

• Over-manage the details. When it comes to your worship service this Sunday…
• Don’t assume that everyone the individuals on your team know they’re serving. Confirm them by phone or email to ensure it.
• Don’t assume that your band knows how you want to do the song at rehearsal. Send them some notes early in the week to inform them.
• Don’t assume that the video and lighting transitions will happen at the right time. Take some time to practice those in your cue-to-cue Sunday morning (more on this idea next week).
• Don’t assume that the broken piece of equipment from last week will work fine this week. Have it repaired and test it before Sunday.

Charles Swindoll says: “The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail.”

Let’s not settle for a “good worship experience” when, with attention to some key details, we can provide a “life-transforming worship experience”. God has already promised that He’ll do His part. Now let’s do ours!

Be fanatical about the details. Lead your team to care about the details.

Doing so (I believe) is an act of worship.

Dr. Thom S. Rainer on a church in decline:

I was their church consultant in 2003. The church’s peak attendance was 750 in 1975. By the time I got there the attendance had fallen to an average of 83. The large sanctuary seemed to swallow the relatively small crowd on Sunday morning.

The reality was that most of the members did not want me there. They were not about to pay a consultant to tell them what was wrong with their church. Only when a benevolent member offered to foot my entire bill did the congregation grudgingly agree to retain me.

I worked with the church for three weeks. The problems were obvious; the solutions were difficult.

On my last day, the benefactor walked me to my rental car. “What do you think, Thom?” he asked. He could see the uncertainty in my expression, so he clarified. “How long can our church survive?” I paused for a moment, and then offered the bad news. “I believe the church will close its doors in five years.”

I was wrong. The church closed just a few weeks ago. Like many dying churches, it held on to life tenaciously. This church lasted ten years after my terminal diagnosis.
My friend from the church called to tell me the news. I took no pleasure in discovering that not only was my diagnosis correct, I had mostly gotten right all the signs of the impending death of the church. Together my friend and I reviewed the past ten years. I think we were able to piece together a fairly accurate autopsy. Here are eleven things I learned.

1. The church refused to look like the community. The community began a transition toward a lower socioeconomic class thirty years ago, but the church members had no desire to reach the new residents. The congregation thus became an island of middle-class members in a sea of lower-class residents.
2. The church had no community-focused ministries. This part of the autopsy may seem to be stating the obvious, but I wanted to be certain. My friend affirmed my suspicions. There was no attempt to reach the community.
3. Members became more focused on memorials. Do not hear my statement as a criticism of memorials. Indeed, I recently funded a memorial in memory of my late grandson. The memorials at the church were chairs, tables, rooms, and other places where a neat plaque could be placed. The point is that the memorials became an obsession at the church. More and more emphasis was placed on the past.

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Russ Hutto: What does the word perform even mean? Is it a bad word?

Growing up as a kid of the church (my dad was a youth pastor, worship leader, pastor), I’ve heard just about every church cliche you can think of. Being a youth pastor and media/music pastor myself for most of my adult life, has also led to me probably BEING some of those cliches at times.
WORSHIP IS NOT A PERFORMANCE

I think one of the most misused, yet well-intentioned churchy phrases is “Worship is not a performance.” Most of the times (if not all) it’s used when talking about the quality or excellence of our worship MUSIC. I definitely agree that worship itself is not a performance. But I believe when we in the church use the cliche we’re talking about the music we use to worship (not worship itself).

For the record, I agree with the general heart behind that cliche. We don’t worship for our own glory, or for the glory of our bands, or even our church. We worship to glorify God. Period.

But I wanted to break down the idea a little bit and present a different angle.

As a trained and fairly skilled musician (almost 30 years experience on trumpet, and all of my high school and adult years on piano, drums, guitar + studied music theory & composition in college) I’m aware of what it takes to be a “good” performer. My entire “school” experience was based on practicing endlessly, then coming together to rehearse daily, and then being a part of performances, the goal of which was to be as close to perfect as possible. It was all about the performance.

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Joe Porter on inexpensive communication ideas:

“If I had an unlimited communications budget, then I would _______.”

I would make a pretty confident bet that no church has dedicated an unlimited amount of funds to communications. In fact, most of us operate on what we consider a limited budget. This means we have to get creative about communicating with excellence. Here are the five ways that I have been able to make my limited budget go as far as possible:

1. Dig on Vimeo for Promo Videos

If you’re looking to add more visual appeal to your advertising, you may be considering using video content. However, constantly hiring a production company may not be the most practical solution. There are countless videos on YouTube, but most of them may not meet your quality standards. Luckily, there is a solution that could save you time and money. You could search for and download freely available content from platforms like Vimeo, where many commercial animation studios openly grant access to their work. You can then use these downloaded videos and focus your budget on design and editing to create a unique and professional look for your project. Just be sure to check the licensing and usage terms before downloading and using any content.

2. Download Existing Designs for Marketing

It might surprise you to know how many large and growing churches use pre-existing designs, templates and other shared media. If you have a limited staff and budget, you probably should not be spending 10 hours working on a custom graphic for your men’s banquet or hiring a designer to do it. An example of a website that facilitates this inexpensive design sharing: CreationSwap. Most graphics are free and can be downloaded as a source graphic (i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)

3. Target Market with Facebook Ads

If you are bummed that you don’t have the budget to do a mail drop to the 20,000 people in your market, then this will comfort you. You can reach an exponentially larger and more targeted audience for much less money by harnessing the amazing power of Facebook ads. For example: We ran a simple five-day ad on Facebook to promote our Easter web page. It targeted those who are friends with someone already connected to our Facebook page (approximately 1,800 followers at the time) who also live in a 10 mile radius from our church. The results?

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