Unplug

This week for my creative chaos blog...

Ya know, week after week we all seem to look for the next biggest power song or the next cool in your face video because we feel we have to "out-do" last week or "out-do" the church down the street. This week, we're going in the opposite direction for our worship service.

Our band is going unplugged...sort of. We're pulling out the barstools and the acoustics and have even changed our arrangments to give a more "Shane & Shane" feel to our worship set. I believe this will give a welcome and refreshing contrast to the norm and will be received very well by our folks. So for this Sunday...it's "Welcome to the Vineville North Cafe".

If you haven't already...check out http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/ to see more Creative Chaos from worship leaders around the country.

later,
Johnny

Worship with Understanding

Carlos at Ragamuffin Soul has started a weekly thing called “Creative Chaos.” You can visit the page at http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/?p=4645. It's a great way of sharing creative parts of your job, life, or more specifically your church. It's like going to a creative conference, without going anywhere. So hopefully, if I remember, every thursday I'll post a "Creative Chaos" article about Vineville North.

So often is easy for us to get so caught up in the expressions of worship that we provide every week that we sometimes forget that everyone in our service is not necessarily at the same level of maturity or understanding of what we do when we come together. In John 4:22 Jesus even told a Samaritan woman, a seeker if you will, that her and her people didn't even understand the One they worshiped. He then went on to teach her what worship was about.

As a worship leader, I feel it's our responsibility to give people as much understanding about what we do as possible. Just last week we introduced the song "Hosanna" by Brooke Frasier. It's an incredibly beautiful song with wonderful melody and that age old chorus "Hosanna in the highest". While I know this is a scriptural phrase referring to Christ and has been sung for ages in worship settings, I actually don't think many people know what the word 'Hosanna' means.

So, here's the creative idea for you. Look it up. When you discover the deep richness of what that word means and then give a brief explanation of it to your people before singing it...it opens up a whole new world for them to worship with understanding rather than just sing a pretty song. I know most of our preachers don't want us to talk for very long...so you can keep it as brief as you need...but give your people a chance to understand what they're really singing.

That's all for now. More next week!
Johnny