A friend of mine and fellow blogger posted some great thoughts on his blog at ScottRodgers.tv.  I read it and it really got me thinking about the things we do in church and why we do them.  So I am gonna jump on the topic bandwagon and do it too!  

Why is it so easy to get into a rut?  I am not speaking directly at any certain church or congregation, but more of in general.  For those of you that know me or read my blog very often you know that I am a worship pastor and have been leading the music at churches and youth groups pretty regularly for the past 10 years or so.  I have lead in many different churches, youth groups or gatherings that all have their own styles and traditions.  I think that is awesome!  I know that there isn’t one church that is going to be the best fit or reach every person.  I like that there are lots of different kinds.  I like something completely different that many of my best friends!  But what I don’t like is when we are so set in our ways that we can’t see that our traditions or routines or whatever you want to call them are not impacting our lives at all anymore.

Now, I am not saying that every church needs to be like mine.  I’m not saying that at all!  I am saying that we should all be looking at the things that we do and the reasons that we do them.  Scott Rodgers wrote about the difference in singing in church and really getting into the music.  That doesn’t mean we should stop with the hymns.  I know people that absolutely love the hymns and really get into them.  That doesn’t mean we should stop with the contemporary music.  I grew up in a church that is a very vibrant and growing church that has a congregation that gets into their music.  It also doesn’t mean that we should stop with the progressive music either.  I myself get into this much more than anything else!  The thing is that there are people in each place that are just singing because that’s the thing to do and that’s what the guy or girl leading said to do.  That’s the craziness in church.

But it doesn’t stop with just the people in the crowd.  I believe it can happen to anyone!  I know it has happened to me before.  This past Sunday was Easter Sunday.  We ended the experience with Salvation Is Here by Hillsong.  We have done it before.  It’s nothing new to the church.  But still it’s funny to watch sometimes because I can tell by the expressions on people’s faces when they are singing just because and when they are really getting into the music (and by getting into the music I don’t mean just the beat but the lyrics and true drive of the songs).  The pastor spoke about worshipping a living Jesus instead of unintentionally showing the world a dead Jesus.  This sparked life into many people that morning.  They were no longer just singing some church songs, but they were engaged in the lyrics and passion of the songs!  He is a risen Lord!  Salvation is here and He lives in me!  He is the Way!

Why is it so difficult to be so engaged in the music?  We have no problem doing it at concerts of our favorite bands!  Why do we let ourselves (myself and many other pastors and worship pastors included) forget why we are doing these things?  Why do we let the most expressive, emotional, and passionate time of music become the mundane once a week blah?  How can we ever forget that Christ gave up everything to live a life on earth and die a horrific death for us?!  As Scott Rodgers said, “If you’re just ’singing in church’, maybe it’s time to connect His story with your story.  It’s time to express your response to what He’s done and is doing in your life.  Maybe it’s time to stop singing and start worshipping.  After all, singing in church is just strange.”

Well, I think I have officially moved to WordPress.  I know the site isn’t perfect and my page is busy/boring and I don’t have my cool palm trees anymore, but there are some other things that I can do here that I couldn’t before.  As you may have noticed I have a couple other pages at the top that you can choose to go to that have been more or less a dream of mine to do.  One of the things that I love to do is help others in their ministries.  Obviously, the music side of that is the easiest thing for me to help with, but still.  There is a church in Amarillo that I have had the chance to help with switching to multiple sites and using a click track and Pro Tools.  That stuff is a blast to me.  

So for those of you that are interested, I am hoping to continue using the other pages on this blog as a tool for other worship leaders.  The more input we have there the better it would be for all of us.  The page Setlists is a page that we can use to share the songs that we are doing and that we like (you don’t have to be a worship leader to give input).  The churches around me aren’t my competition they are my team.  Let’s work together and share some of the basic stuff!  The page Worship Resources at the moment is just a list of the songs that I could email out to someone that needs one of those songs chorded for them or is in a hurry.  I am not sure yet, but hopefully I can figure out a way to just upload stuff to the page itself and cut out the emailing.  But my vision for that page is that we can share some of the actual resources that way.  Maybe just a way of connecting us there.  Who knows.  But its all the start of a vision that I believe could make us better worship leaders and help us realize that we are a team and not competition.

As you may already know, I am a worship pastor.  One of my favorite things about working for LifeChurch.tv as a worship pastor is that I have the freedom to play what I want.  Of course, what songs go over well, songs that are rather new, songs that are singable, etc. goes into it as well, but I still get to choose.  That is great.  But one of the things that I think every church and worship pastor deals with is the question of how to get people to engage in the music we are doing.  Several of the things that I think help are songs that are singable, understandable, catchy, powerful, familiar as well as a band that believes what they are playing and singing.  Obviously as a worship pastor, this is something that we always strive for.  What are your thoughts?