What eliminated the "6th Row Wall" discussed in the previous blog? There have been some technical improvements to sound and such... and I believe the quality of the song selections has vastly improved... but those I don't believe are the real answer.
Around December of '04 there was a prophecy given in our church... it said "{there is} a transitioning taking place here. There is a move of God taking place. I saw that it was going to come through worship..."
I began to watch the worship... when there was a noticable move of the Spirit I would look to see if it was, indeed, coming through worship. As you might expect there was usually some correlation between an inspired worship time and the manifestations of God's presence and power but it never seemed to me that it had "...come through worship..." in the way I kept watching for. (now I know all of you are thinking, "he thinks way too much")
One day as I pondered this out loud with my worship team one of the members said, "It has already come through worship. Not through what happens on platform on Sunday morning but in what happens in the back rooms in preparation... the group has become a team... united in purpose, uncompetitive... and God's presence comes through unity"
Saturday, December 24, 2005
The Grand Worship Experiment
I wrote early last year about the "Grand Worship Experiment". This was where we consolidated teams down to one team and began using a worship strategy team to meet monthly and assemble the next month's sets.
We are coming up on almost a year of using this process and the results are off-the-charts. Our repertoire has expanded and has become very current. We just completed our January planning meeting and I am amazed looking over next month's songs... they are all excellent... not a dog among them. If you aren't into worship and music you might not appreciate that statement... but a year ago our song selections were weak with an occassional winner... today the sets are energetic and passionate from start to finish most weeks. I am so pleased with this turn around.
We have also picked up a couple of people and, with the consistency we've gained by using the same team each week we have seen a few people, particularly vocalists, really step up big as they've gained confidence and experience. Something really happens when you lay your hands on someone (figuratively) and let them know that the role is theirs... we now have a minimum of 3 people carry the vocal lead any given week... and usually 4 or 5 different vocal leads on 6 or 7 songs... and they are all getting more comfortable in the role and any one of them could today lead an entire worship set alone. That was not possible a year ago.
The real goal is to work myself out of a job in the worship team. It currently still needs and depends on my leadership a great deal but it is growing less dependant weekly. This year I have targeted a couple of people to see them step up and lead more letting me begin to disappear. The system in place lets a team determine songs... and the team was trained by me on song selection... so if I leave they still pick using my model and thought process. The System allows multiple leaders. Although there is one leader responsible for the flow the service doesn't have to center on them. This allow me to not sing at all and still guide the feel and direction. Its a little hard to explain but it is happening.
We defined a purpose early on as a team, and the purpose quickly morphed into a model for our sets. It goes something like this:
By reminding ourselves of this each week we can easily arrange songs and styles to accomplish this. Our first part of the set is celebratory, moves directly into intimate worship for a song or two and then end with a big vertical anthem. We have virtually eliminated what we used to call "middle songs" that are usually beautiful ballads but are neither celebratory nor intimate and we concluded weren't moving us toward our purpose.
Yes, it can seem a little programmatic and there is always room to move and change with the spirit, but this has revolutionized our worship experience in the church. A year ago we were regularly having serious discussions about the "6th row wall"... it seemed like whatever we were doing on stage was getting about 6 rows back and falling to the floor. The first few rows were fully engaged in praise and worship while everything from there back seemed lifeless. This phenomenon we blamed on sound systems, leadership, styles, demons, whatever we could think of... today its a non issue... the congregation is fully engaged front to back... it would be difficult most weeks to identify a "section" of the sanctuary not full participating in the worship service.
We are coming up on almost a year of using this process and the results are off-the-charts. Our repertoire has expanded and has become very current. We just completed our January planning meeting and I am amazed looking over next month's songs... they are all excellent... not a dog among them. If you aren't into worship and music you might not appreciate that statement... but a year ago our song selections were weak with an occassional winner... today the sets are energetic and passionate from start to finish most weeks. I am so pleased with this turn around.
We have also picked up a couple of people and, with the consistency we've gained by using the same team each week we have seen a few people, particularly vocalists, really step up big as they've gained confidence and experience. Something really happens when you lay your hands on someone (figuratively) and let them know that the role is theirs... we now have a minimum of 3 people carry the vocal lead any given week... and usually 4 or 5 different vocal leads on 6 or 7 songs... and they are all getting more comfortable in the role and any one of them could today lead an entire worship set alone. That was not possible a year ago.
The real goal is to work myself out of a job in the worship team. It currently still needs and depends on my leadership a great deal but it is growing less dependant weekly. This year I have targeted a couple of people to see them step up and lead more letting me begin to disappear. The system in place lets a team determine songs... and the team was trained by me on song selection... so if I leave they still pick using my model and thought process. The System allows multiple leaders. Although there is one leader responsible for the flow the service doesn't have to center on them. This allow me to not sing at all and still guide the feel and direction. Its a little hard to explain but it is happening.
We defined a purpose early on as a team, and the purpose quickly morphed into a model for our sets. It goes something like this:
Raise them to their feet in celebration,
Lay them on their face in adoration,
And Lift them up again a new person
By reminding ourselves of this each week we can easily arrange songs and styles to accomplish this. Our first part of the set is celebratory, moves directly into intimate worship for a song or two and then end with a big vertical anthem. We have virtually eliminated what we used to call "middle songs" that are usually beautiful ballads but are neither celebratory nor intimate and we concluded weren't moving us toward our purpose.
Yes, it can seem a little programmatic and there is always room to move and change with the spirit, but this has revolutionized our worship experience in the church. A year ago we were regularly having serious discussions about the "6th row wall"... it seemed like whatever we were doing on stage was getting about 6 rows back and falling to the floor. The first few rows were fully engaged in praise and worship while everything from there back seemed lifeless. This phenomenon we blamed on sound systems, leadership, styles, demons, whatever we could think of... today its a non issue... the congregation is fully engaged front to back... it would be difficult most weeks to identify a "section" of the sanctuary not full participating in the worship service.
Friday, December 23, 2005
End of Year Catchall
I know I haven't kept up the blog like I should. It's been a busy year... the heck of a year. I don't know how to capture it all in print and do it justice but I'll give some of the highlights.
If you glance back a few entries you see that I changed jobs and began working at the church in January. There have been a few changes since then and, with the departure of the previous Associate Pastor, I have moved into that role. This has also allowed Marie to step into the Administrative Pastor's position providing us the much-needed income boost that far offsets the pay reductions I took in January in order to facilitate ministry.
All in all Marie and I have never been more fulfilled in ministry than we are right now. We are seeing a great deal of impact and growth in the church and leaders around us and can attribute at least a small portion of that to our efforts... that's a great feeling. And the relationship we have with Bruce and Elaine, the Senior Pastors here, is wonderful. They are far more to us than boss, or co-workers... or even mentors... they are our closest friends and, often, surrogate parents.
We still see a great need with much more to do and I feel like we have the infrastructure of leaders beginning to take shape. The next year is going to be about mobilizing leaders to step out and have impact around them. I have some ideas for that which I will write more about soon.
If you glance back a few entries you see that I changed jobs and began working at the church in January. There have been a few changes since then and, with the departure of the previous Associate Pastor, I have moved into that role. This has also allowed Marie to step into the Administrative Pastor's position providing us the much-needed income boost that far offsets the pay reductions I took in January in order to facilitate ministry.
All in all Marie and I have never been more fulfilled in ministry than we are right now. We are seeing a great deal of impact and growth in the church and leaders around us and can attribute at least a small portion of that to our efforts... that's a great feeling. And the relationship we have with Bruce and Elaine, the Senior Pastors here, is wonderful. They are far more to us than boss, or co-workers... or even mentors... they are our closest friends and, often, surrogate parents.
We still see a great need with much more to do and I feel like we have the infrastructure of leaders beginning to take shape. The next year is going to be about mobilizing leaders to step out and have impact around them. I have some ideas for that which I will write more about soon.
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