Thoughts on Song Selection

From time to time I'll be asked what criteria we use to evaluate new songs for congregational worship. Although these thoughts don't encompass every aspect of my own thinking, they are recommended reading:

http://stephen-miller.com/worship-outward-expressiveness/

When God is God worship is joy

From blogger Tim Challies today:

Each time I sin, I declare my own independence, my own desire to be rid of God; I declare that I can do better than God, that I can be a better god than God...

...When I am god, worship of God interferes with my plans, with my slumber, with my loyalty to pleasure, to socializing, to sport, to amusement. I hate the thought of worshipping another, but long to worship myself or have others worship me.

When God is God, worship is joy, it is nourishment, it is life. There is no greater joy than to gather with God’s people to bring glory to the Creator, to give thanks to the Redeemer.

A Lesson from NBC's "The Voice"

Some of you may be familiar with the NBC show "The Voice", a spin on the American Idol formula where the judges (who are well-known singers) actually coach contestants through the competition. One of this year's contestants is Anthony Evans, a gospel recording artist and worship leader and son of well-known evangelical teacher Tony Evans.

I was recently reading an interview with Anthony where he was talking about working with Christina Aguilera (his vocal coach) and the different approach he has to take on the show:

"The kind of singing Christina does is great and I love it, and I can keep up with her on a stage when it's about me. But in Christian music and leading worship, I have to almost think opposite of her; I can't sing like that when I'm leading worship. Even though I might have the ability to do it, I am trying to engage people into singing with me. I am not singing at them. The difference about being here at The Voice is that I am singing at people, and they want to be impressed. So my mindset has to flip, and that's been the hardest thing, thinking, Impress them. Do not engage them. You're not trying to engage their hearts. You're trying to impress them. That's my biggest challenge here."

I love the point that Anthony made - that when we lead people in worship, it's not about impressing them with our talents or giving them a performance to enjoy - it's about engaging them. As lead worshippers, we have to work against the cultural trends of American Idol and arena concerts where it's all about virtuoso performances to be enjoyed and applauded. Instead of using our gifts to attract attention to ourselves, we use our gifts to point people to Jesus. As Paul Baloche has said, "The mark of an effective worship leader is that they become somewhat invisible while God becomes the center of attention".

We Praise What We Love

It's Valentine's Day, a high Hallmark holy day for our culture's obsession with romantic love. I used to be pretty cynical about Valentine's Day (OK, as I re-read what I just wrote I guess I still am) but, at the same time, I'm all for spending time with your spouse and expressing affection in tangible ways. I even like those hard candy hearts with the little messages on them. In small doses.

But as I think about the ways in which movies, books and songs - let's just be honest about this - IDOLIZE romantic love, there is an interesting connection to be drawn between what we love and what we praise.

C.S. Lewis in his book Reflections on the Psalms says this:

The most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise…lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside.…My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regard to the supremely Valuable what we delight to do, what indeed we cannot help doing, about everything else we value. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.

Lewis’ observation is true: we can't help but praise what we love...we gush about it, we celebrate it, we shout it out on Facebook. Think back to when you were dating your future spouse – how you couldn’t wait to tell your circle of friends about their best qualities. There were times where you couldn’t stop thinking about him or her, for they had captured your heart’s affection.

Our praise and worship of God ought to flow naturally out of a heart that loves Him – His character, His works, His fellowship. Having experienced His love (and faithfulness, forgiveness, protection, etc.) firsthand, we are moved to praise Him and motivated to let others know of His goodness. Read the Psalms and you’ll see that the psalmist follows the same pattern.

We praise what we love. I love Jesus. Not as consistently as I want to, and not with as great a degree of obedience as I should. I know I am not worthy of His love, but I know that while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me. That's worthy of my praise.

God is Able

This Sunday we are introducing another new song called "God is Able." P. Brian Rice will be preaching from Philippians 4:13, where Paul says that "I can do all this through him who gives me strength." I think this song will help us 1) prepare our hearts to hear from God's Word, and 2) respond to what we have heard through declaring this truth together.

Like any worship song, it is a means by which we might connect with God - or, as Constance Cherry says in her book Worship Architect - have a dialogue with Him.

On this Monday morning, I encourage you to take 5 minutes of your day and watch this video of Hillsongs performing "God is Able". Sure, you could check out what the musicians are doing, or the platform presence aspect - but I want you to just receive the message of this song. I want our hearts to be filled with this truth - that God is with us, for us, able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Sin Has No Hold on Me

We recently introduced a song called "Victory" from Gateway Worship to our congregation. It's a simple, singable song that focuses on the freedom we have in Christ - specifically, our freedom from sin. It was beautiful to hear so many voices singing out this truth on a Sunday morning. I love that every time we gather as the church we have a fresh opportunity to remind one another of who we are in Christ. This is what the Apostle Paul was getting at when he commanded the Ephesians to "speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs" (Eph. 5:20). He understood that corporate singing would be an effective means of affirming and cementing core truths.

As I was working through the lyrics of “Victory” I came to the bridge:

Sin has no hold on me
Sin has no hold on me

It’s a simple line that gets repeated several times. And it’s as if, the more I sang it, the more my heart was gripped by the reality it was affirming. I think my voice grew stronger every time I sang it out in my office. I flipped my Bible to Romans, chapter 6:

…For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. (Rom. 6:6-7)

The phrase “sin has no hold on me” summarizes the reality that Paul spells out in Romans 6. Being crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20) we now, through the Holy Spirit, are able to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God. How I need to hear this over and over again, especially in the face of those sins that so easily entangle. I need to be reminded that, in Christ, sin’s stranglehold has been dealt a mighty blow. I need to embrace this reality on a daily basis – putting off the old, putting on the new. Where once I was bound to sin (enslaved is what Paul says), I am no longer its captive.

The reality is, on this side of eternity, you and I will still struggle with sin. But when we cooperate with the Spirit’s work in our lives we can increasingly experience victory over those besetting sins. We ask for His grace and strength to keep growing in holiness as a grateful response to God’s mercy. And we know that when we fail, His mercies are new every morning.

I leave you with the words of Puritan pastor Thomas Brooks:

“The Lord has stripped sin of all its ruling, reigning, domineering, and tyrannizing power. O Christian, look upon sin as dead! It is not to be obeyed, and not to be acknowledged. The Lord Jesus has given sin a mortal wound by his death and Spirit…thus sin shall never recover its strength and shall die a lingering death in the souls of the saints.”

Worship Signals (Non-Denominational)

You have to laugh at this...

Platform Presence - What We Communicate Non-Verbally

Last fall we introduced this concept of "platform presence" - what we are communicating non-verbally when we are leading others in worship. We've been showing you a series of videos from Gateway Church in Texas, and I've been sending you links to watch our services on livestream. I want to see us grow as lead worshippers - and part of that growth will involve growing in our physical expressiveness.
The truth is, talking about "platform presence" might strike you as overkill, or uncomfortable, or unnecessary. C'mon, we're here to sing and play and call it a day, right? But here's the reality - half of what we communicate is non-verbal. If we were in a studio laying down tracks it wouldn't matter one bit...we could be yawning, slouching, look like we're flatlining. But we're not in a studio - we are out front, visible, and we have the responsibility of modeling what it means to be an engaged worshipper. This includes us instrumentalists as well as the vocalists.
We are always communicating something when it comes to our "platform presence" - nervousness, joy, apathy, intensity, etc. I may think I am communicating joy or engagement, but in reality it may be something else entirely (hence why reviewing video is helpful). Most of us have spent years singing and/or playing, working on our craft, to get to our current state of musical skill. It makes sense to think that it will take some time & work to improve our non-verbal skills. And I believe that the time and energy we invest in this area will pay dividends.
If we desire to worship God in a way that brings Him honor and fame we can't ignore what we are saying with our physical being. I want to do everything to make sure your (our) hearts are shining through. I don't want anyone to look up at us and question whether we are engaged with God. I love seeing our worship team exude authentic passion and joy. It is contagious and invitational.
Below are the Gateway Videos we have shown (most) of the team so far...if you haven't seen one or more of these please take a few minutes to watch them. In the spring we'll be asking you to do some self-evaluation and we'll be basing it on the concepts in these videos.

~Line of Sight



~Body Language & Listening Positions




~Facial Expressions




~Working with Equipment

Scripture and the Life of Worship

So here we are a few weeks into 2012. I'm still having trouble thinking of this year as "2012" - even more so than the usual delay. Wasn't it just 2010?

Anyway, since the new year has dawned, a theme that God keeps bringing to my attention is the need to be in His Word. I will confess that I often struggle to maintain a consistent rhythm of Scripture reading and meditation. There are many excuses (including my own sinful nature), but one thing that I've realized is that for far too long I have approached Scripture reading with more of a sense of duty than delight. Like taking your vitamins. Duty mixed with a fair bit of the "familiarity breeds contempt" syndrome. A toxic combination as it concerns my heart and truly expecting to encounter the living God when opening His Word.

But recently I've been thinking about something I heard from a good friend and former pastor. He said that when we open the Bible we should picture the very breath of God emanating from the pages. I'll admit, when I first heard that I thought, that sounds a little kooky. However, the Apostle Paul does indeed say that Scripture is "God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16). He goes on to say that Scripture is "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Wow, those are all great things that I want to be in on...but in order to be in on them I need to be in the divinely-inspired Word of God. And I need to believe that when I open the Bible I am indeed encountering the Author, not just of Scripture, but of Life.

But beyond that, God wants me to know Him...intimately.

One of my goals this year is to read through the Bible. I want to approach it not just as another thing to check off my list, but with genuine expectation and anticipation. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would illuminate my mind and enflame my heart as I am reading to want to know Him more.

I want to encourage you to look at Scripture reading ("quiet time", etc.) not as a chore but as a blessing and privilege. To love reading the Bible because it reveals God's plan of redemption, culminating in Jesus, and because God wants to have a personal relationship with us. He has given us His Word as the primary means for us to know Him in this life.

Let's keep each other accountable in this area. If we aspire to lead others in worship, we can't expect to lead them into a place of knowing and loving God unless we've been there ourselves.