Do Buffet-Styled Churches Honor God?

For years, I have bought into the church growth principle that the more choices you give people in a church, the more successful the church will be.

To agree with that principle, you must gauge a church’s success by the number of people who stay at that church.  But is that true success?

Here are the courses that the American church is serving up:

  • Worship – traditional, contemporary, blended, cutting edge, emergent, ancient future, classic, golden, choir, band, hard rock, country western, southern gospel, chandeliers, go-bos, expensive organ, expensive guitar, etc.
  • Discipleship – Sunday school, community groups, small groups, Bible fellowship classes, on-campus, in-homes, co-ed, single, married, guys only, girls only, by hobby-interest, by age, by life situations, etc.
  • Preaching – coat and tie, jeans and t-shirt, podium, table, old, young, hip, wise, screen, video, sermon, message, talk
  • Family Ministries – discipleship times, creative programs, glorified babysitting, “community” sports programs with a side of Christ, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, single, divorced, newlywed, with kids, with small kids, with fussy kids, for fussy kids, puppets, Awanas, GAs, RAs, children’s choir

And the list could go on.

  1. Is God honored when we explain what church we belong to by describing the type of music we like?
  2. Is God honored when we defend our group’s methods within the church rather than celebrating the diversity of the whole church?
  3. Is God honored when we try to woo members from other churches because this program is better than that program?

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Does Your Worship Team Need a LIFT?

You know the feeling.  It’s worship practice, and there is something in the room.  Call it stagnation, complacency, hitting a wall, getting settled, or maybe something else, but you know when you work with your worship team and it just seems like you aren’t getting anywhere.  You’ve hit the bottom.

That’s why you need a lift.

On March 26th (UPDATED DATE: we had some scheduling conflicts, and pushing it back makes more sense) we will have a free worship workshop held at North Side Baptist in Greenwood, SC.  At Lift, you can bring your whole team and get equipped on how you can lift your worship, your team expectations, and your team’s abilities.

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Passion 2011 Recap

Still processing all that Jesus did in me and around me at Passion 2011.  I needed to go a day late due to church responsibilities, but college students were texting me telling me how incredible everything was before I even got there.  Being able to worship alongside our students and join them in giving sacrificially to worthy causes was such a fantastic way to begin the year.

I could go on and on about the programming of Passion.  Who wouldn’t love to hear Louie Giglio, Beth Moore, Francis Chan, John Piper, Andy Stanley, and David Platt speak?  Who wouldn’t be overjoyed to be led in worship by Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, Matt Redman, Charlie Hall, Kristian Stanfill, Christy Nockels, and other special guests?  No one would deny the energy getting 22,000 college students together for lively worship with incredible, impacting media presentations.  Everyone was impacted by the profound presentations of the needs in the world.

All of that was great, but it wasn’t my favorite part.

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Dust of the Ground Video Shoot – Preferences

Wednesday, we got to work with the talented group, Dust of the Ground.  Jeremy and Austin are the duo that make up this talented media company.  Since I’m friends with Jeremy (Jeff Lethco’s son), I’ve seen some of the fantastic projects they have finished.  When I saw how talented they were, I knew they might be the answer to an idea I had.

I’ve had all these worship instructional video ideas in my head for a while now.  3 minute clips that could be used in churches to drive home a concept concerning worship during a service or at the beginning of a message.  By taking a biblical principle concerning worship (true worship, lifting of hands, why we sing, etc.), and giving a mini-message through the power of film, I thought we might could go further faster on some of these areas which churches struggle.

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Knowing His Thoughts

We had practice on Wednesday for Sunday, and everything went great except for the feeling I needed to change things up.  So Friday, I sent an updated list for this morning.  I wanted to scale things back and really let our voices fill up the room with praise for our King.  I’m so thankful for a team that doesn’t complain when I send them an email and say we need to go in a different direction.  Each team member jumped in there this morning prepared and knocked it out of the park!  Great job!

Today, we worshiped to:

In addition to a great worship time, Ken also gave us a word of testimony concerning how the City has already impacted him.  This is an online tool that our church is starting to use to communicate with one another.  If you want to join the early group getting connected on the City before our January 9th launch, go here.

OG (the David Denton) also gave a word of testimony for our church.  After losing his father this year, he went through shock and pain.  But OG chose to believe in the hope we have in Christ.  He cited that he was able to overcome due to the church surrounding him and caring for him.  Such a great word from such a sharp dressed guy in his shiny white shoes!

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Vocal Warmups for Worship Groups

Last night for our worship team development time as we focused on capability – leading with excellence, I decided to bring in a vocal expert: my wife.  Amanda has her Master’s in music education and focused on vocal pedagogy.  So, she got us moving and thinking about some ways that we can use our vocals more effectively at the beginning of practice.  We had all our musicians and techies go through the exercises, because it will help everyone out.  Don’t worry, our vocalists are going to be working on the soundboard soon.

Here are some of her great notes that she gave us last night:

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Worship Wars

Many churches are involved in what church growth experts have labeled “worship wars.” Not wanting to lose a particular style of music, many churches find themselves in a battle to maintain their preferential style.  It’s more than contemporary vs. traditional.  It has to do with instrumentation, volume, genre, layout, lighting, etc.  Unfortunately, many churches split …

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“That Was ‘Good’ Worship”

I’ve been so humbled by so many comments from Sunday’s worship services.  People have gone out of their way to say how impacting the time was, how we should have just kept singing for a few more hours, how tears of joy were flooding their eyes as we sang to our King.  Most of people commented, “that was ‘good’ worship.”

I’m not gonna lie.  I thought we were about to sing the roof off that place all 3 times Sunday morning.  I personally almost sang myself back into tonsillectomy rehab cause I just couldn’t hold it back.  But was it really “good” worship?

Sure, I loved the song selections.  The band was smoking and played the dynamics just right.  The singers nailed their parts.  The choir sounded like an angelic force to be reckoned with.  The congregation was outsinging all the microphones on stage.  It was loud.  It was engaging.  It was powerful.

But was it really “good” worship?

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One Worship Team’s Task

“And he [Jesus] had to pass through Samaria.” -John 4:4

It was the shortest of ways for Jesus to travel. Traveling through Samaria would be shortest distance geographically, but most Jews would bypass that city because of their disdain for the Samaritans. Racial stereotypes kept most religious Jewish leaders out of that city.

But Jesus had to go through that way. He had work there.

In that city, he didn’t feed the masses or heal numbers of people, he spent time with a loose woman by a well. She had been married numerous times and was living with a man who was not her husband at the time. As Jesus was sitting by the well, she came his way, and she would never be the same again.

In this amazing passage, John chronicles Jesus’ uncanny knack for reaching people far away from God. As he draws her in, she begins to realize she is not dealing with your average passerby. When she realizes this fact, she begins to discuss one of Scripture’s worship wars. These feuds about how worship should be done didn’t start when drums were brought into a sanctuary; they’ve been around a while.

“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do now know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:20-24).

Did you catch it? She was more focused on when and where and how worship should take place. Worship happens when it’s in this location in a certain type of way and it doesn’t happen when it’s different than what is expected. Jesus reveals that worship cannot be confined to preferences. It is not manmade. It is not manufactured. It is a lifestyle. It is on God’s preferences and not our own.

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One Worship

Today, we worshiped to: The Longer I Serve Him The Heart of Worship – Matt Redman Sing to the King – Billy Foote Amazing Grace – North Side Worship How Great is Our God – Bethany Dillon How Great Thou Art – Paul Baloche 3 services, 2 buildings, 1 flowsheet.  One worship. Today was incredible. …

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