Pressing In

Wow, it’s been a number of days since my last post. I’ve had a pretty busy week leading up to a trial last Friday. I haven’t conducted a trial in ages so I was a bit nervous, but I’m glad to say that God is good and we won the case, with the Tribunal giving […]

Flashback – Experimental Worship (FGA Creative Arts Ministry Mass Choir)

I recently came across this video again and it really brought back some memories. Thanks Kelwin Wong for recording it. The context of it was this: we were determined to bring a “fresh” and experimental approach to worship. One of the joys of starting out a new thing (a new satellite service for our church) […]

Epochal Song 5: Ancient of Days (Jamie Harvill and Gary Sadler)

Today, I’m continuing the series on Epochal Songs of the Praise and Worship Movement. At number 5 is “Ancient of Days” which in my view, was the high watermark for musical excellence. Hosanna Music had been slowly building up its musical prowess before deftly unleashing some of the best, world-class Christian worship musicians onto the […]

How to Choose Songs

Whenever I teach on worship leading, one of the most common questions I am invariably asked is: “how do you choose the songs?” I think a lot of people presume that the songs are found in a special room in my apartment called “the secret place” where I go “beyond the veil” to “download” the […]

Wineskins, Patches and Paradigm Shifts

I think Christianity has been one of the most enduring faiths because of its ability to reinvent itself within the parameters of its core tenets and beliefs. It is a revolutionary faith. One of the things I love doing is to look at paradigm shifts in the church, particularly in the context of worship. Certainly, […]

Apostolic Worship and the Revolutionary Spirit

Last night, I was watching a Jackie Chan film called 1911 which chronicled the 1911 Chinese Revolution led by Sun Yat Sen. I have always wanted to read up on Chinese history, but the expanse of it was always too intimidating and I never really knew where to start. 1911 was a precis about the […]

When the Music Fades…

Despite the title, this post actually has nothing to do with Matt Redman’s famous song. Today, I want to write about what worship teams often do at the end of the service: the debrief session. I’m naturally a critical, um, I mean analytical sort of person so I like to evaluate things. But a debrief […]

The Team that Jams Together, Stays Together

During the years that I was in the leadership of a worship ministry, we used to put jam sessions on our yearly program, but most of the time, no one ever seemed interested and the whole idea of jamming, driven by the mandate of leadership, just seemed a little contrived. This afternoon, a few of […]

Worship and Performance

When I was learning to lead worship, one of the things that I was taught early on was that worship is very different to performance. The two things don’t mix and in fact, I was told that performance made worship impure, for “no flesh should glory in God’s presence”. I think a lot of that […]

Epochal Songs of the Praise and Worship Movement

I have been leading worship for the last 19 years within the Charismatic Renewal and I have seen the style (and to some extent) the content of our worship evolve. Rewind 20 years back and it would have been unimaginable for the church back then that we would sing the types of songs we sing […]