I’m still trying to figure out how to encourage our people to clap during worship, both during the upbeat songs and after them. Most of the people in my congregation have grown up with traditional worship that sadly didn’t encourage physical expressions of worship. Therefore, clapping is, I imagine, quite uncomfortable for them. But — and I don’t want to sound New Agey here — there is an energy that builds when people clap in worship. I’m going to work on this one for the foreseeable future, taking the initiative myself to teach and model clapping. How I’ll do this while playing an instrument will be the challenge.

Return to Sender, our youth band, led our contemporary service this past weekend. We’d needed to regroup a little from having lost a couple seniors last year, which is why we waited until February for the band to lead on a Sunday morning. Thankfully, our group is quite young, with [...]

Better late than never. I received an email from one of my vocalists who wasn’t serving this past week. Near her among the congregation sat an older man she didn’t know. Throughout the entire service he didn’t sing a note, that is until the last two words of our closing song, when he sang “to you” in a deep, raspy voice.

What a day on Sunday! Four worship services, starting with the early service and ending with our youth worship gathering. Darah led our contemporary service wonderfully, including a song I’ve liked singing but may like her doing better, “The Stand.” Included in the band were two of her brothers. I [...]

Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is” last year and Billy Joel’s “A Matter of Trust” this past week. All I need is to somehow include an Elton John song in a future service.

A great service that didn’t begin very well. I should say, our soundcheck was delayed by some technical glitches. I’ve written about the PowerPoint charts we use on stage (see the post). We’ve become completely dependent on them, so there was a brief scare when we couldn’t get it to [...]

This was the second of our blended Sunday morning services. Last week for Christmas we merged both morning services into one (and a Christmas Eve service). This week we did the same for New Year’s Day. Whereas on Christmas we featured our normal “rock” band with two electric guitars, this week we scaled down to just two acoustic guitars.

As a kid I’d never attended a Christmas Eve service. Only one Christmas service do I remember, but I don’t think it was on Christmas Eve. Ten years ago I was expected to lead one. I did all that I knew then, and I’ve continued over the years with a similar approach to Christmas Eve: worship.

Three weeks into Advent — or is this four? I’ve never been a part of a liturgical church, so I’m not sure when Advent starts. Whatever the case, at my church we were three weeks into the Christmas season, and in particular our Christmas sermon series called “Simple Christmas.” This week was “Less Display, More Splendor.”

I’m also realizing I need to buy some jingle bells. Our live version often sounds a little thin, and I’m thinking it’s the lack of jingle bells. Every Christmas song needs jingle bells. I’m thinking it’s much too late by now to buy some. Surely the stores are out of stock. We may need to make due with a loose tambourine.