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Planning Memorial Day Worship

Here’s a list of hymns and worship songs that are perfect to use for your services on Memorial Day weekend.

To help you get started, we’re giving away 1 free download for Patriotic Music using the promo code MAYFREEBIE, good through 5/30/13. (up to $1.99 value)

Audio and print previews for each hymn are available by clicking on a title.

America, the Beautiful
Eternal Father, Strong to Save
Find Us Faithful
For All the Saints
God of Our Fathers
Heal Our Land
Lift Every Voice and Sing
My Country, ‘Tis of Thee
Never Once
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
The Stand
The Star-Spangled Banner
We Still Believe

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Monday’s with Mike – The Most Amazing Conversation I’ve Ever Had Over a T-shirt

One morning recently I was getting the oil changed in my car and happened to be wearing a T-shirt from a college in which I have taught. An older gentleman in the car stall next to me mentioned that he had represented the institution in a legal case a long time ago. He asked what my connection was to the college and when I told him I was an adjunct faculty he was so happy. I asked him about the battle he referred to and he told me about several charges the federal government filed back in the ’70s that included a threat to shut down the school. Because this gentleman was the lawyer for one of the people involved who had donated to the school, he was asked to represent the college in the case. During the week of the hearing it was a touch and go situation and it looked like the school might be in jeopardy. One night after praying about it, he said the Lord gave him an idea about a possible solution for the judge. He presented it to the college administration and then to the judge and quickly, as he said it, “those Washington lawyers packed up and went home. All charges were dropped.”

I told him, “Oh man, thanks for being there for the school back then. I was teaching there last week and I can tell you for sure that many students are benefiting today because of what you did.”

Here’s where it gets special.

He started to cry and said in a trembling voice, “I’ve been a little down lately. I asked the Lord this morning to let me see today some way He has used me, some difference I had made. And now, I run into you and God has answered my prayer. I’m so blessed. I’m so happy. God is so good! Hallelujah!”

We hugged and cried while the oil change men stood by watching. And I went on my way, amazed one more time how truly awesome our God is and how present He is in our everyday lives, if we’ll just slow down enough to notice.

Mike Harland
Director, LifeWay Worship

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What are Multi-Tracks?

Multi-Tracks are individual audio tracks of the core rhythm instruments in a band (piano, synth, acoustic, electric, drums, bass, etc.) for a particular recording — when played together in audio production software (Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Garage Band, Audacity, etc.) you hear the stereo track mix of a song.

Multi-Tracks are a great way to fill out the missing pieces of your worship band. For example, suppose you do not have a drummer or bass player for your worship service this Sunday. You can use Multi-Tracks to fill in those missing parts to give your band a fuller sound.

Multi-Tracks also provide musicians an easy way to rehearse. Musicians can isolate their part or turn the other instruments down to better hear exactly what they need to play. Each Multi-Track comes with a Click Track (metronome) to keep the band in sync, which also helps your players grow in their musicianship.

There are over 500 Worship Songs and Contemporary Hymns available with Multi-Tracks at LifeWayWorship.com. You can also find LifeWay Worship Multi-Tracks distributed through our partners at Worship Band in Hand, FlyWorship, and MultiTracks.com.

Watch a brief demonstration below of how Multi-Tracks work in Pro Tools.

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Recommended Reading

Worship Without Words – Bob Kauflin
Recently I posted on Twitter: The fact that Psalms doesn’t include a soundtrack or notation clues us in to what God values most in our worship songs. I find it fascinating that God gave us a “songbook” with numerous musical references, but no actual music. It’s not that music is unimportant. Badly played or written music can make great theology sound obscure or unappealing. Great music can make shallow lyrics sound profound and incredibly moving. Which is why when we’re deciding what to sing congregationally, we want to give the greatest attention to the lyrics we’re singing.

The Legacy of Keith Green: A Conversation with Matt Papa – Trevin Wax
Matt Papa is one of the leaders in the renaissance of new worship songs coming out of the gospel-centered movement. He serves on staff as a worship leader at The Summit Church in Durham and his latest release is This Changes Everything. We had lunch a few weeks ago and wound up talking about Keith Green. Afterwards, we decided to take the conversation to the blog.

The Importance of the Worship Leader — Pastor Relationship – Jordan Richmond
Worship leader — your pastor is the single most important professional relationship you have. He is likely your direct supervisor. He’s the one who will sing your praises, or defend you to a disgruntled church member (or even before a board of directors or elders). He’s also responsible for the entire worship experience. You may be the primary facilitator of music and media, but he’s ultimately in charge — and is usually the one taking the fallout when things go awry. You absolutely want a healthy, dynamic relationship with your pastor.

The Importance of Launching New Groups – Thom Rainer
During my church consulting days, I could quickly assess a church’s multiplication mentality by asking just one question: How often do you start new groups (or classes)? I would ask the question because I’d seen over and over again a close relationship between the churches that were growing and those who constantly launched new groups.

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Ten Ways to Engage Your Congregation in Worship (Part 9) – Be a Motivator

tw-headerI am sharing ten practical ways to engage your congregation in worship. I have learned these methods through my many wins and losses as a worship leader.

My prayer is that these ten tips will inspire you to grow in your gifts, so that the church will rise up to its boundless, artistic, and powerfully anointed potential!

Click the following links for previous tips. [One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight]

9. Be a Motivator

Every move you make and every word you speak will be communicating one of two things — watch me, or worship with me.

Great worship leaders make people forget about them and want to worship. Worship leaders who have more of a performance-based mindset have a hard time leading people in worship.

People instinctively know when you’re performing and when you’re worshiping. So how do you learn to worship while you’re leading? Learn to become unimpressed with the loftiness of man [whether you are impressed with yourself or somebody else] and become overwhelmed with the awesomeness of God!

Assuming that we’ve got what’s happening on the inside straightened out, here are some suggestions/tips to do on the outside to motivate your congregation to worship. These “tricks of the trade” will help your congregation make a u-turn from being spectators into participants — transforming them from a quiet audience into a massive worship choir!

Shut down the band and have everyone sing a cappella. This creates dynamics in your worship set. Not only does your congregation get to hear themselves, it can be nice to give everyone’s ears a break from hearing your band’s wall of sound.

Tell them to sing again and listen to how beautiful they sound.

With the band continuing to play, tell the worship team singers to stop singing and tell the congregation you want to hear only them sing. This puts a healthy sense of pressure on them to sing.

Create hand motions on the chorus of a song. You might be surprised how getting peoples’ bodies involved helps them focus on what they’re singing. Also, when done right, adults are a lot more like children than you might think.

Have just the women sing a verse and then the men.

Sit them down after a couple of songs to rest, then stand them back up. Having people stand gets their attention.

Stand them up on that big chorus or modulation. Also, sometimes you just need to be aware of how the Spirit is moving and let people stand if it feels right.

Ask them to give applause to the Lord. Applause can be a very worshipful thing and can sometimes help break people out of a stale moment.

Try doing acoustic services periodically. Some worship teams tend to overwhelm their congregation with intricate arrangements and too much relentless volume. Simplifying can be a good reminder that it’s not about the show and also an opportunity for them to hear themselves with less distractions.

Next week, I’ll discuss how pacing yourself helps engage your congregation in worship and helps prevent burnout.

Tommy Walker

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Song Feature – Victor’s Crown – Darlene Zschech

darlene-zschech-revealing-jesusFrom Darlene Zschech’s latest album Revealing Jesus, Victor’s Crown is now available.

Co-written with Kari Jobe and Israel Houghton, Victor’s Crown culminates with a powerful bridge.

Every high thing must come down
Every stonghold shall be broken
You wear the Victor’s crown
You overcome, You overcome

An audio sample and print previews are available here.

Watch a live performance below.

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Mondays with Mike – Brothers, This Ought Not Be

More and more I hear about churches who are letting their Worship Pastor or Minister of Music, whatever you may call it, go after long tenures — I’m talking about guys that have been at their churches for ten, twenty, or twenty-five years when suddenly a meeting is called and they are summarily dismissed with little or no explanation. There was no moral failure, no dereliction of duties to point to. Perhaps the most they are told is simply that the “pastor and leadership want to go in a new direction.”

Brothers, this ought not be.

At first glance a person could become outraged and cynical at such an occurrence. How could a church whose very existence is to foster love and mercy, be so cold and calculating toward someone that has served them for so many years? The faithful servant-victim then shares his dilemma with all of his friends who summarily write posts — sort of like the one I’m writing now — and decry this savage practice of releasing veteran worship leaders from their ministry positions.

But now, I want to take my comments on this phenomenon in a totally different direction. Stay with me.

Ministry is all about relationships. And if you are leading a ministry for twenty years or twenty minutes, the impact of what you do will be totally dependent on the ways you nurture healthy relationships with the people you lead. And, the longer you serve in the same place, the more authentic your relationships have to be. You can survive a short ministry with surface relationships — in that case, by the time they start to really know you, you can just leave on your own terms and they will never know the difference.

But if you are in the same church for a long time, say ten years plus, you had better be building solid relationships based on a servant heart, authentic intentions, spiritually minded goals, and honest communication. The longer you are at a single place, the more likely it will be that who you really are — your fears, points of weakness, “hot buttons”, ambitions, and more will be painfully obvious to the people you lead.

Here’s something I have seen multiple times over the last thirty years; a leader who is a fantastic musician begins a new ministry — and at first, the people are so enamored with the gifts and abilities of their new leader, he can do almost anything and win approval. At the same time, the leader is so excited about the new place and new people to impress; he leads magnanimously and in an accommodating style.

And all God’s people said — “Amen!” Heaven couldn’t be any sweeter.

But as time goes by, the warts begin to show — his and theirs. And before long he begins to revert to his old tricks of motivating people to serve what at times feels to them like a personal agenda of his. He is so good at what he does that he is always attracting new people. But he is so exacting in his expectations and demeanor, he is always losing people too. It goes on year after year.

Along the way, several “skirmishes” happen. There was the time he fought the building committee tooth and nail for the new sound system and won the day — but lost some friends because of how he acted. And there was the time when he came to verbal blows with the new student pastor over the youth camp dates that conflicted with choir tour. He won that one too — but after that, the parents of the students never saw him the same way. One night at choir practice, he lost his temper because his assistant didn’t prepare the right songs for the choir folders — and he berated her to the point of tears in front of the whole choir. No one said anything — but that diminished the choir’s respect for him — big time. And just like that, year after year, one committee meeting at a time, he was losing his influence — and he didn’t even know it.

Now, after twenty years a new pastor begins to question whether or not the music leader is the right leader for their future. The Pastor begins to talk to trusted lay people and gets mixed responses. At this point, the veteran worship leader is in cruise mode. Week after week, and Christmas after Christmas, he delivers what he thinks the church really wants. All the while his circle of trusted friends is getting smaller and smaller.

And then, as sudden as a lightning bolt, a question about one of his decisions arises and — let’s just say, he doesn’t react to it very well. He is a little miffed that people half his age are questioning his leadership. The subject is minor — but the implications are huge.

The pastor meets with the personnel committee. And in the moment when all the music guy would need is one friend in the room, he has none. And the decision to let him go happens in the blink of eye. No one saw it coming. But no one is sad that it did.

The cause was not the worst thing he ever did — it was just the last thing. After twenty years of manipulative relationships, it doesn’t take much.

So, if you want to avoid this story being told about you, try this; build your ministry on a servant leadership model. Put people first, not music. Be authentic in the ways you communicate to the people you lead publically, privately, and electronically. Don’t always fight for your way and try not to win every argument. Serve other ministries. Lay your coat over rain puddles for the people that work along side of you as often as you can. Put on an apron and serve the mashed potatoes in the family night supper line every chance you get.

Remember that our friend in this example thought he was delivering what the church wanted — a great music program. He never realized that what the church really wanted was a great friend to lead their music.

And brothers, this ought not be.

Mike Harland
Director, LifeWay Worship

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Song Feature – I Will Trust in You – VBS 2013

lifeway-songsI Will Trust in You is penned by LifeWay Worship songwriters Jeremy Johnson and Paul Marino.

The song is featured in the music for LifeWay VBS 2013.

Print previews are available here.

Listen to the song below.

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Recommended Reading

Ten Reasons Why Hymnals Have a Future – John D. Witvliet
The function of hymnals in the life of the church has changed dramatically over the past thirty years. Many congregations rarely use them. Thousands of Christians seldom, if ever, open one. When people hear of the publication of Lift Up Your Hearts (LUYH), it’s natural for some of them to ask, “Why would you ever want to publish another hymnal?”

On the Flexibility of Form in Worship – Scott Aniol
Debates over worship usually center on the issue of form. “Don’t elevate form over content,” the progressives cry. “We must have elasticity of form because they gospel is dynamic!” “Don’t put new wine in old wine skins.” In order to correctly understand the issue here, and avoid common straw men arguments, I’d like to comment just briefly about form and flexibility in worship.

Doxology and Theology – How the Gospel Forms the Worship Leader
Many in the church see worship leading and theological processing at opposite ends of a big room. Theology is considered the business of pastors and professors, while worship is the business of musicians and rock stars. But a new wave of young worship leaders is hungry for something different, the desire to think not just pragmatically (sound, charts, guitars) but theologically (the gospel, justice, pastoral ministry) about worship. Likewise, pastors and churches increasingly desire to be led by thoughtful worship leaders who combine doxology and theology.

New Doxology – Gateway Worship
For His merciful kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endures forever. Psalm 117:2 Worship is eternal. When we worship we are joining with Heaven, stepping out of natural time and, as Pastor Thomas Miller says, “practicing eternity”. Worship songs have an amazing way of lifting us out of our current circumstances.

A Lesson in Music Notation – Jonathan Riggs
I once had the privilege of leading worship at Holy Family Anglican Church in Hendersonville, TN. It’s a liturgical service that also uses modern worship songs. This is a trend that I’m seeing in liturgical services based on my experience at The Table and St. John’s Anglican Church in Franklin, TN. With the popularity of the “Ancient Future worship” movement, it’s quite possible that more and more of us modern worship leaders will find ourselves facilitating very traditional liturgies at some point, including ancient church music.

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Ten Ways to Engage Your Congregation in Worship (Part 8) – Be Creative

tw-headerI am sharing ten practical ways to engage your congregation in worship. I have learned these methods through my many wins and losses as a worship leader.

My prayer is that these ten tips will inspire you to grow in your gifts, so that the church will rise up to its boundless, artistic, and powerfully anointed potential!

Click the following links for previous tips. [One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven]

8. Be Creative

We should feel a sense of responsibility to be creative because we have the Creator living inside of us. The devil is a thief and a counterfeit. He takes beautiful things that God has made, steals them and corrupts them. All the popular musical styles that we have today have originated from the church in some way or another. From classical music to the blues, these musical expressions started out as ways for people to cry out to God. It’s the enemy who has twisted them and used these and many other styles for horrible evils throughout the ages. So why are we copying the world’s rehashed versions of what was originally ours? We need to stand up and be the creative leaders again!

God has made many of us with a need to create. There’s something inside of us that gets bored easily. We get tired of the same songs quicker than other people, and we’re always longing to arrange something in a new way. We have these feelings because God has put us on this earth to create new and fresh ways of worshiping Him.

As a creative person, I believe creativity should be an important part of our personal devotions as well. Even in our prayers, we should try to communicate our heart to God with expressive, colorful words that have a sense of passion and freshness. Just like a spouse or a friend appreciates it when you say something that has been thought out and sounds sincere, I believe God does as well.

So how do we become creative?

Look for the next thing
Creative people are always looking for the next thing. Some people are good at perfecting established methods, but creative people look to do something in a way that has never been done before.

Ask questions
-Why hasn’t anyone written a song about a certain subject?
-How come we never use reggae, Latin or country grooves in our worship songs?
-Why do we always do the fast songs first?
-Why not have worship after the sermon?

Listen, Listen, Listen
Creative people always listen and observe how things work. Keep yourself aware of new ideas that other worship leaders are trying, and listen to all kinds of music. This will help keep you out of those ruts we are all so prone to get stuck in.

Take a risk
Creativity and risk go hand in hand, because creativity is all about trying things that have never been tried before. Risk is not easy, it’s often scary, and it’s why there are many more critics in this world than creators. But as I discussed above, we creators must take risks because God has made us this way. Here are a few “risks” that might help you keep things fresh:
- Teach a new song no less than every couple of months
- Try new arrangements of old songs and hymns
- Create new medleys of songs
- Sing less songs and recite more Scripture
- Have a team member read a poem they’ve written about God

Next week, I’ll discuss how being a motivator helps engage your congregation in worship.

Tommy Walker