LOVE THIS!

A couple of months ago I was searching around the internet for some ideas on a creative Christmas Eve service. What I didn’t want was the standard fare: Stale Christmas Carols with the usual candlelight, the same passages of scripture that are read every year and, after an uneventful hour, everyone goes home to something more interesting. What I wanted was something more creative that still had the presence of God at the center. Honestly, if I was asked to attend the same old Christmas Eve service that I’ve been to before, I would make an excuse so I wouldn’t have to attend. With this in mind, my art-degree pastor and I set out to come up with something interesting for our church.

When starting out with a newer church, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when providing these sorts of extra services. First, you will almost always have (dramatically) less attendance on anything that is NOT a Sunday morning service. Don’t panic. This is quite normal for a newer church. You should never, ever take this to mean the following:

1. You screwed up and this is God’s way of telling you.
2. You suck and no one likes your church.
3. Your church will fail in the next year because you can’t keep a reasonable headcount.
4. All of the above.

There are a lot of reasons for the dramatic drop in attendance of what I consider to be “extra-curricular” services. Most of the time it’s simply chalked up to having other commitments and conflicts. This isn’t always the case, either.

In newer churches, there are a lot of other things happening. A couple of months ago I mentioned the foundation that is laid in a new church. The foundational period is absolutely critical. Not only is there a spiritual foundation being laid, but a communal one as well. Depressingly enough, it takes a while to develop a strong bond of community, as well as getting people interested and excited in what’s happening in the church. Often times people like hearing that their organization/church is active, but they are reluctant to have their lives inconvenienced by attending any of it. It takes a while to develop.

This is hard for pastors because they want so much to bring people together through fun events - it’s just how God made them. Pastors have a million things they want to do in the community and among the body, and it can be discouraging when so much time and effort is put into something for a small handful of people who show up.

If you are currently in this situation, don’t give up. It’s all just a part of the process of church planting and building. Remember to take joy in the small victories - the ones we see through God’s eyes. Okay, so you didn’t hit 100 church members this year like you aspired to. I’m sure God has done other things with the 30 strong you now have. Okay, maybe you can’t quit your job and become a full time pastor because your church isn’t great at tithing. Ask God to show you where His victories have been this past year.

So, while searching for ideas on a Christmas Eve service, I came across a blog called “Creative Leading.” Coincidentally enough, it’s written by some dude who is from Seattle, loves coffee, and is a worship leader out in the middle of nowhere in Illinois.

Ok, I really don’t know if he’s living in the middle of nowhere, but it’s Illinois so I have no real reason to believe otherwise. Either way, what are the odds that I’ve found another person with these things in common as myself? I decided to plug his blog into my Google Reader.

One big difference between our situations is that it appears he is paid to be the worship director at a large church. I am not. How it usually works is God tells me I have to go to some dinky start up church and slave away day after day, training future leaders for little to no reward, and I go. If I don’t go then I end up absolutely miserable wherever I am currently at. By now I know God well enough to know that I do not argue. If He says “you will go to the martial arts church” then that’s what I do: I go. I do no not pass GO, I do not collect $200. And so, this was how I ended up at my current church.

I remember being a worship leader in a larger church. Those were the days, dudes. It was inspirational. The groundwork was laid and people showed up for the extra services with bells on. Nightly services were the best ones to lead worship at because the people who show up for those are the ones who have come with an expectancy of God’s presence. It’s not like a Sunday morning service, which can be more of a mixed bag - more on this in a later worship volume.

Anyway, I read his blurb about his wonderfully awesome Christmas Eve service. Five hundred people showed up to what was probably a big production. The worship team (apparently he’s got enough people that he rotates worship team members six months on and six months off - my thoughts on this in a later worship volume) rehearsed for two and a half hours. That’s right, two and a half hours.

Yeah, I remember what that was like.

Sometimes we, as human beings, have a very goofy way of looking at Kingdom successes. There are very polished churches out there with huge productions and we look at that as if it’s what we should aspire to, often forgetting that God doesn’t always grow us into big churches. We’re obsessed with church growth — walk into your local Christian bookstore and take a look around. Entire sections are devoted to the “formula” it takes to grow a church. It’s tough being small. It can be depressing being small. Those in leadership feel ever so alone. We want to be bigger. We think success means lots of people and this isn’t always the case.

So in comparison to this worship dude at the bigger church: Do I think what God has me doing is any less relevant? No, not at all. I’m in the trenches with the best of ‘em, raising up the spiritual leaders of tomorrow. It isn’t easy raising up leaders, but I’ll tell you something — at the end of my life when I am called to account, I don’t want to be the one who refused to raise up the leaders God had given me to train. I’ve trained many people now, and everyone is a new ball of issues to tackle. Worship practices usually comprise of having to teach the basics of leading worship — and feeling a tremendous win when your guitarist turns to you and says, “I actually worshiped during that.” You can’t help but get all excited because people are actually starting to GET IT.

Remember, take joy in the little victories.

And now, without further ado, I wish to recap my first Christmas Eve leading worship at my current church. Please make sure you are not drinking anything, as you will probably shoot your drink out of your nose. I’ve already told a couple of my friends this story, so if you’ve already heard it, you can skip it. Unless you’re one of those who enjoys to revel in my misfortune, then by all means, continue.

I got sick on Christmas Eve day. That sucked because I really needed the entire day to get ready for the service. After I managed to throw up a couple of times (you’re welcome for the visual), I was feeling slightly better and was able to do a last minute scramble.

I had asked my guitarist and his wife (who was the previous worship leader) to play an instrumental duet of “O Holy Night” during communion. She plays a recorder, and I liked the idea of juxtaposing the raspy recorder with the picking of an electric guitar. I had given them a month to rehearse.

I had asked them to show up at 5:30 (the service started at 7:00) so we could run through the songs. When I get there, they were already there, practicing. It was a bit spotty, but I was very encouraging. I just hoped it would be “okay” and not “horrible.”

They also had their two year old son with them. Since 12:00 they had been out at the local Catholic church, because they also contribute to the music efforts there, and had been a part of their afternoon Christmas Eve service. So it’s now about 5:30 and they hadn’t been home yet, or eaten. This includes their two-year old.

Those of you with children can already see the train wreck this is heading for. I don’t have kids, but my spidey senses are tingling. Still, I rely on people to manage their children and I figure it will be fine.

After I let those two practice their duet for 45 minutes (wtf) I finally interrupt, apologize, and say I will need to end their rehearsal in 3 minutes. They are OK with that. My guitarist and I rip through the songs. The last two songs require fast chord changes, so I inform him that I will play those alone. If he would like to sing with me during the songs, it was optional - he had set up a mic for himself on his own volition.

Then his wife starts to play a hand drum. I tell her she’s more than welcome to stay and play it during the service if she wants, and she happily says she would love to.

I rush my pastor into the back of the building and we pray.

The service starts. The two-year old is hungry and tired and wants someone to play with him. As soon as the first prayer ends and I start the song, the kid JUMPS UP OUT OF HIS CHAIR, RUNS UP TO THE FRONT OF THE ROOM WHERE WE’RE PLAYING, THROWS HIMSELF ON THE GROUND AND STARTS SCREAMING.

So you hear: “Come, now is the time to worsh — WAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

I’m sick, exhausted, we have another church in the building, and a two year old is screaming on the floor in front of me.

The song is completed and I switch gears into “The Heart of Worship” ala whining, crying and occasional screaming. Funnily enough, the Spirit of God showed up for this, so I was most grateful.

After the first two worship songs, we go to communion. This is when the instrumental duet of “O Holy Night” is supposed to take place. The two parents are looking at me, pleadingly.

Ok. I stand up from the keyboard, feeling all eyes on me. I walk around to the front and offer my hand to the kid. Immediately he stops, stands up and takes my hand. He was like the perfect little gentleman. I take him over to the Sunday School room, which happens to be the first room off of the main room. I hand him Mr. Potato Head. He takes it, plops down on the floor happily, and starts to play. I sit down with him. He hands me arms, legs, two choices of feet, a nose…

Then I hear a bit of the instrumental duet happening outside.

I have no idea what happened out there with the duet because I turned my back on this 2-year old for one second. While my back was turned, he had found some noisy toy that started playing some crazy loud song, and I had to lay on top of it in order to muffle the noise. This is no exaggeration.

As soon as the communion is over, I have to run back outside to the service. I open the door, tell the boy that his mom is coming into the room and I motion her to get her butt in the room. She nods back at me in what I thought was understanding. Apparently not because she went into the room, brings her kid out, and sits him back down at the front of the room, expecting that for some reason he will suddenly decide to be quiet.

He isn’t.

I start to lead “Gloria, In Excelsis Deo.” Again, the kid runs to the front of the room, flings himself down on the floor and starts screaming. After that carol, my guitarist gives me a sympathetic look. I nod back and excuse him from the rest of the service. He takes his wife and screaming kid out of there and I did the rest of the service on my own.

I was fine with that.

Tom and I stayed late to help clean up the church with my pastor, then I went home, made Tom a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup, did the dishes, and then passed out on the couch while he watched Food Network.

This service goes in my Hall of Fame as one of the Top 10 Funkiest Church Services ever.

Now that my boss is the newly crowned CIO, he is always trying to find ways to improve morale. It’s not a surprising move - IT has repeatedly had the lowest employee satisfaction scores in the company, and in the past few months the scores have dropped even lower. In my boss’ defense, it isn’t his his fault and is something that can be fixed.

So my boss decided he wanted holiday cookies in every division today. Earlier this week I called around and made sure I could get them everywhere. For my office, and our satellite building about 10 minutes away, I purchased about $100 worth of cookies at my local Wegmans.

Wegmans has their own in-house bakery and they make great stuff. I gave a couple of containers to our satellite office (they will probably only have about 15 people in there today) and the rest went to my building. It was a pretty nice spread, and I hoped to have, you know, 1 - 2 cookies per person.

Then I sent out the notice from my boss’ email saying the holiday cookies are out in the break room, enjoy and have a happy holiday. Or whatever I said.

No sooner had I sent the email that I look up from my monitor and the droves are returning from the break room and, not with one or two cookies as I had estimated, but platefuls of cookies. I don’t think there will be enough for everyone. If anyone ends up not being able to get any cookies, I’m going to direct them to the greedy jerks who took off with small mountains of them.

If this wasn’t already up to $152, I would buy this — but I’m not saying who I would inflict this upon.

eBay: Drive Someone Insane with Postcards

In case you can’t click the link, here is what the item description says:

You are bidding on a rare chance to traumatize a treasured friend or relative with baffling, mind-numbing, mystery correspondence from abroad. Here is the arrangement:

I will be spending the Christmas holiday in Poland in a tiny village that has one church with no bell because angry Germans stole it. Aside from vodka, there is not a lot for me to do.

During the course of my holiday I will send three postcards to one person of your choosing. These postcards will be rant-ravingly insane, yet they will be peppered with unmistakable personal details about the addressee. Details you will provide me. The postcards will not be coherently signed, leaving your mark confused, guessing wildly, crying out in anguish.

“How do I know this person? And how does he know I had a ferret named Goliath?”

Your beloved friend or relative will try in vain to figure out who it is. Best of all, it can’t possibly be you because you’ll have the perfect alibi: you’re not in Poland. You’re home, wherever that is, doing whatever it is you do when not driving your friends loopy with international prankery. Your target will rack their brains in the shower. At dinner. During long drives. At work. On the golf course.

“Who did I tell about the time I got fired by a note on my chair?” they’ll ponder, “And where the hell is Szczeczinek?”

But wait, there’s more.

To add to the sheer confusion and genuine discomfort, one missive will be on an original promotional postcard announcing the 1995 television premiere of Central Park West on CBS. Another will be a postcard celebrating Atlanta’s disastrous hosting of the 1996 summer Olympic games. Your mark will be at a complete loss, desperate for answers, debating contacting people he or she hasn’t talked to in years.

“I know this will sound weird,” they’ll say, “but by any chance were you in Eastern Europe ranting about cantaloupe… twelve years ago… right before some show with Mariel Hemingway debuted?”

When you decide to end the torment is completely up to you. If you can, I recommend owning up on 1 April 2008 - giving you nearly half a year of joy and a George Clooney-esque level of prankage. If you can’t hold it in that long, I totally understand.

My honey-do lists for Tom are usually computer-related, and last night I asked him to make a couple of changes to the ol’ blog. As you may have noticed (or not, if you’re viewing this in a Google Reader type program), the menu on the right side has changed. The list of archives by month has been replaced by a single link that takes you to a new page. There, you will find the list of archives by month and you can search. There’s also a search bar up at the top, and to be honest, I don’t know if it’s new or not. Since this is the first time I’ve noticed it, let’s say it is new. Also, I have a hard time noticing if there are comments to my posts, so Tom has added a section for recent comments. So from now on, if you post a comment, I will see it and be able to respond.

Thanks, Honey!

Every year I send out boxes of Christmas cookies to my friends. Well, I did skip a year just recently, but I’m back in full swing. The last group I sent out was extremely disappointing; a group of fruity recipes I had never tried before became the theme of my Christmas delicacies. Most of them did not travel well or even come remotely near to what I had been expecting. They were fruity and flimsy and fun and, before they left my kitchen they were even kind of pretty, but they weren’t at all the sexy cookies I am used to.

This year, I went back to my roots and made a mess in my kitchen that would have had my mother praying to Jesus. I’m feeling a little more confident in what I’m sending out, although it’s hard to be completely assured that what you’re sending will make everyone happy. Also, I’m excited that I’ve been able to add good friends Jeff and Caroline to my list, even though I have no clue what kind of sweet treats they enjoy.

So I went with half cookies, half chocolate confections. Right now I have a batch of raspberry shortbread dough chilling in the freezer, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to fit them into the packages. It was my one and only fruity cookie, but I don’t think it will make it. Another time, perhaps. Here’s what we ended up with for this year:

Butterscotch Blondies
Peanut Butter cookies with Hershey’s Kisses
Orange Chocolate-Chip Biscotti
Chocolate Mint Candy (Fudge)
Chocolate-Cranberry Truffles
Fantasy Fudge
Chocolate Earl Grey Truffles

Have a very, merry Christmas, and enjoy!

The first snowstorm hit. We didn’t capture shots of what the back porch looks like (about three feet deep in snow) but we caught a bit of the front before the storm kicked in. If you add another two feet to what you see, it’s pretty accurate to what is going on out there right now.

And yes, our house is mint green. Like the ice cream. And do you notice the ginormous rock in the front of the house? That was the deal maker for Tom.

And, of course, the Christmas tree that Tom and I had allegedly agreed we wouldn’t buy, but I did anyway:

I love my house.

I found this linked on Alton Brown’s blog and wanted to also share it with you: Cave Cibum

Hilarious and clever. And scary. Great tastes that go together.

I wanted to wait until I was able to post pictures along with this, but I think I just really need to get it out of my system: Yesterday wrapped up the first semester of Architectural Drafting.

For the first half of the semester, we learned basic drafting techniques (with pencils and vellum, not with CAD) from the head of the Interior Design program. The majority of the class didn’t like him. The class is filled with 18 year old girls who are fresh out of high school and whine a great deal. They don’t understand the concept of being on time, reading syllabuses and assignment sheets rather than having someone spoon feed things to you, etc., and the teacher was pretty adamant about these things, as they are all things he preferred in his classroom. Everything was to be turned in on time at the beginning of class and no later or it would not be accepted. His office hours were rigorous and he insisted that appointments should be scheduled if you could not make his office hours. Most of the class couldn’t stand him.

A changing of the guard occurred during the second half of the semester, when we no longer learned drafting and switched to model-making. This is when we ended up with the batty teacher I had last year for IDE 101 & 102. I like her as a person (most of the time), but she is constantly making things exponentially more difficult than they need to be. She’s unorganized and forgetful, and tries to cram everything in at the last possible minute.

Homework assignments were given out, and she completely forgot she had assigned them. “Rough sketches” were insisted for our sketchbooks with the criteria that these should be rough, freehand drawings, and when they were returned to us, we found them graded harshly and received a huge lecture about how much better they should have been. I was the only person to receive an A on the assignment, and that is because I had taken her before and went through great pains to carefully draw with a ruler and measure — even though she specifically said we weren’t to do that. Quizzes were scheduled and then forgotten. In fact, she was supposed to give us a couple of quizzes but never did so gave us a rush quiz on the last day of class after we turned in our final projects - she’s not organized at all. Assignments were given out with little instructions and then when we received them back, we were marked down on things she admittedly forgot to teach us. And, for the grand finale, instead of receiving the instructions for our final project when the other classes were receiving them, she held off for two weeks to give us other model assignments as filler and “practice” so we wouldn’t have the model to work on over the Thanksgiving holiday. And then when we finally received the assignment, her instructions were exponentially more difficult and required much more than the other classes were required to do - with less time to do them.

On the last day of class, before the teacher came in, I was in a discussion with a group of girls who were comparing the teaching styles of our first and second teachers. Everyone in the discussion (except myself) agreed that they liked the second teacher better. Why? They said:

Because she’s a girl, you know, so she’s, like, more understanding.

I could hardly believe it, either. Their grades were worse with her and the assignments were exponentially more difficult, but because she’s female, and because she lets people take breaks whenever they want and eat in the classroom, they find her to be a better teacher.

I couldn’t stop laughing to refute the argument and just had to let it go. But the good news is that this second “better” chick teacher will not be teaching anything at all next semester, and we will be getting the first guy again, who I liked better. I can’t eat or drink in the classroom but he shows up on time and gives assignments back on time? I can live with that.

But anyway, this final project. All semester we had been learning to draft this house - the same house. For the final project we had to build a foam core model of this house, 1/2″ = 1′-0″ scale, of a two-story 40′-0″ x 20′-0″ house. Our model was required to have the ceiling come off, as well as the north and west walls come off — oops, she changed that to north and east walls a week before the project was due — so we can take a look inside. We were required to turn in a practice model of the staircase and roof, at the very least. My practice staircase was disassembled and my practice roof was not good enough for her, so it was severely marked down.

One and a half weeks before the project was due I had all of my exterior and interior walls cut out, but had not yet done a staircase and roof — and there were girls in the class who hadn’t even started with exterior walls yet. Needless to say I felt pretty good about where I was at.

Tuesday night, the night before the project was due, I sat down to do the stairs and roof, cut out the windows on my final exterior wall, and assemble. I thought I’d be done by 11:00.

We got done at 4:00am. The entire night was a series of things that just kept going wrong. Tom stayed with me the whole night, changing the music CD, making me coffee, beveling edges, gluing and pinning and piecing together my entire project.

He has won the Best Husband Award of 2007, which is good because there are only a couple of weeks left in the year and I was getting worried.

Seriously though, he was amazing. I don’t think anyone else would have done that for me. Well maybe my Mom would — I can think of a few school projects she did with me until the wee hours of the morning (I love you, Mom!). But those I procrastinated on, and this one I hadn’t procrastinated on.

In the end, my project looked pretty beautiful. The windows were beautifully cut, the beveled edges of the house were perfect, and it really was one of the best models that were turned in.

The next morning I made it into class 30 minutes early so I could review for the test we were supposed to take. My brain was only half functioning at this point. I walk into the classroom and there are a half-dozen people in there, frantically trying to finish up their projects which look horrible. Immediately as I walk through the door they’re begging me for pins and glue and supplies — and of course I happily donated whatever I could to the cause. Most of the girls couldn’t figure out how to attach the ceiling to the roof (because we were never told how to do this stuff, just that we were to do it) and I said that in the end, I pinned them together instead of gluing. I had purchased a $20 beveling gizmo for the ceiling, so it would glue to the slanted ceiling, but it just wasn’t working. We pinned it. I told the girls what I had done, and they all started lining up so I could pin it.

Now, when I pinned mine, Tom and I did it carefully so we wouldn’t pierce the ceiling. Of course by then I was so tired that I did make a couple of tiny punctures in the top, but I fixed it so that at least no one would get stabbed. One of the girls said she didn’t care, grabbed pins and started stabbing the ceiling into the roof so that four pins were sticking straight out of the top. And when I flipped her roof over you could see that she had, at one point, cut herself badly because there were smears of blood all over the model.

It was quickly dubbed the “Stephen King House.”

Most of the other houses were messy and many of them didn’t even have exterior walls that came together. Even though I was really proud of my house and I did a great job, it did not receive the A- that I had expected. Because I ended up not taking the additional 4 hours to install skylights and vaulted ceilings in my house, nor did I give the assembled practice staircase and an acceptable practice roof, she gave me an 87.

Everyone was marveling at what a great grade that was, because she was pretty harsh in her grading. I was furious. Absolutely furious. Maybe because I was tired, I don’t know, but I think it at least deserved a 91. And, admittedly, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t think. Everyone had stayed up as late as I did, and some hadn’t even gone to bed yet (like the Stephen King house girl).

The beginning of the semester was fun, and I really enjoyed myself. Drafting was fun and I felt like I was learning something cool, but when the second teacher took over, I found myself caring less about doing well, and just wanted to get assignments done. I know the other people aren’t looking forward to having him back in the classroom next semester, but I am.

Okay, so we’ve been praying about and discerning what it is that God is doing in our particular body (the church). Out of that, we’ve developed our “Core Songs” that are somewhere between 30 - 40 song titles for our worship sets.

So now what?

Building your weekly church set can feel overwhelming. If you’re having to do it every single week, it can also feel very repetitive and tedious and start to slip into boredom. The most important thing to remember any time you build a worship set is that it’s not your worship set. It’s God’s worship set.

Similarly to praying about the overall direction of the church, it is essential to pray about the particular service. Every week, God has a message. I like to think of it as a theme. If you charge into a service, guns blazing, without asking God what he wants to do, don’t be surprised if you end up missing it. Of course there’s grace and God always has a way of working things out, and he never lets us down. With that said, you can always just grab out whatever songs you like and put them into whatever order you think is best because God will always show up when we praise.

On the other hand, it would be so much more powerful if we were aligned with what He was doing.

I can’t remember if I said this before, but even if I did, it’s worth repeating: Prophecy plays a big part in leading worship.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” You’re saying. “I’m not one of those prophetic types.”

Prophecy is a big word. It’s loaded with tons of preconceived notions of being the almighty voice of the Almighty God, normally accompanied by rolling thunder or cherubim singing in blissful harmonies while someone, usually someone exponentially holier than you, loudly and profoundly gives you a piece of God’s mind.

No.

Prophecy is practical. Prophecy is for real people. Prophecy is for every Christian.

That means you, too.

I realize that you think I’m detracting from the main point of the series, which is to talk about church worship. This is going to come up time and time again in the series, so I’m not going to let it go. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.

Let’s forget about what we think prophecy is and lay hold of the reassuring truth: It’s just God talking you. You’re reading your Bible and a couple of key verses pop out at you. That’s God talking to you. You’re praying and suddenly you start praying in a certain direction because it’s just suddenly in your head. That’s God talking to you. You’re leading worship and in the middle of a song you just feel the need to shout out a prayer. Again, that’s God talking to you.

Oh sure, there’s that whole first person prophetic “Thus sayeth the Lord” business, but let’s face it: You don’t really like that kind of a thing anyway. The common, day-to-day hearing from the Lord (prophecy) can be just as effective as Mr. Thus-Sayeth-the-Lord — the same Spirit of God that motivated you to play “Here I Am To Worship” this coming Sunday is the same Spirit who was speaking through the Thus-Sayeth-the-Lord dude.

I don’t know if we have time to talk about why there’s a difference in the way God talks. That could take another series in itself to talk about so I won’t. What I will say is this: The grass is always greener on the other side. Maybe you’re envying the person who can deliver a first-person prophecy every Sunday morning while all you get is “well, I saw this picture of a big box of crayons…” or maybe you don’t even get something that concrete. God talks to everyone in different ways and — see, I’m already opening a whole can of worms by saying this — for all intensive purposes of the worship series, I will say that the way God talks to you is based entirely on Him and not on you.

If someone said that to me I could fire back with a bunch of reasons why that can be incorrect, but for the sake of staying on the worship topic, let’s leave it at that and move along.

The point of this sidebar on prophecy is to say that however God is talking to you, don’t shun it. You’ve gotta go with it, people. Embrace it! By doing this, you will allow God to speak to you more strongly, more frequently and, dare I say, in other ways as well. You need to hone that in order to hear what He is saying in regards to a theme for your Sunday service.

You will also need it while you are leading your worship service, but that’s for another volume.

Moving along. Once you have your theme, I would give you the following rules of thumb to keep in mind while you choose your songs:

#1. You don’t have to do the fast songs first and the slow songs last. Mix it up and be creative. For example, this past Sunday, I did the following songs:

Desire - Track 2 on the link. Not a fast song, nor is it a slow song. It has movement while being very worshipful.

God of Wonders - Track 9 on the link. Normally done as a slow, worshipful song, but we kept it moving at about the same tempo as Desire.

Come and Fill Me Up - Track 9 on the link. This marks about the middle of the worship service so we kicked it into high gear and did it at a pretty exuberant pace.

This Is Love - Track 20 on the link. After our high geared song, we break for communion. Taking advantage of the brief intermission and communion, we quickly switched gears and went into a very worshipful song. Yes, I’ve been criticized for ramping up the worship set in some fast, rocking worship and then turning a 180 on everyone. This can work but you have to make sure to do it successfully. “This Is Love” is appropriate lyrically for the communion, and also gives us a layer of depth to our worship set as we have just thrown in something very intimate and worshipful. At the end of your worship set, everyone needs that grand finale - that final “oomph,” if you will, to the end of the set where they can just let out how they feel. Throwing this worshipful song will give an added dimension to the final song:

Forever - Track 2 on the link (scroll way down). We had ramped up the worship early on and half way through and then cut everyone off. But you don’t want to leave them hanging. The final song should be your appropriate finale, to give everyone that “oomph” that they need in order to express themselves. If you don’t give that at the end of your set, you’re leaving everyone hanging. It’s like the novel that didn’t give you a satisfactory ending. Don’t do that.

#2. Change your songs to keys that everyone can sing. Yeah, it’s great to sing “I Can Only Imagine” but when everyone tries to hit that high note, suddenly no one is worshiping anymore - the congregation is sitting around feeling embarrassed because they couldn’t hit that high note.

#3. Make sure the lyrics of your songs make sense as you flow from song to song. If you change themes every single song, it’s W.W.: Worship Whiplash. Don’t do that.

I’ll try to get another volume in the next couple of weeks so we can continue some of the things I talked about in volume 1 but wasn’t able to come back to. Post any comments or questions below and I will be happy to discuss.