From the Archives: Sometimes Bossanova Just Happens – Lessons from Your Worst Nightmare

Today, I thought I’d share one of my favourite posts so far… I love this clip of Martin Smith leading worship, because it goes to show that no worship leader is immune from the silliest of mistakes: I remember one time when I was leading worship and we had just transitioned into the song “At […]

Sometimes Bossanova Just Happens: Lessons from Your Worst Nightmare

I love this clip of Martin Smith leading worship, because it goes to show that no worship leader is immune from the silliest of mistakes: I remember one time when I was leading worship and we had just transitioned into the song “At the Cross”. As we started singing, it was clear to me that […]

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 […]

Space

Martin Smith: Space is as important as content, and silence as important as singing.

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 […]