Why the Distinction Between “Praise” and “Worship” Matters

In an earlier post entitled Defining Worship, I introduced Harold’s Best definition of worship as continuous outpouring. If worship encompasses all of our life, then “worship” is a much bigger concept than “praise”. In fact, we can think of “praise” as a subset of “worship”. Robert Webber once said that “worship is a verb”, but […]

What Type of Worship Leader Are You?

Years ago, I came across John de Jong’s catalogue of different types of worship leaders (from his book Riding the Storm), which I thought was rather amusing. It’s tongue-in-cheek, but in the process, he makes some quite incisive observations about worship leading methodology. So here are the categories, but I want to just make the […]

Worship Leaders Who Talk Too Much

I had just finished a couple of hours of tennis with some friends of mine, some of whom actively serve in church worship. One of the guys (a young, upcoming worship leader) made the observation that sometimes, worship leaders spend too much time talking at the start of the service. In fact, he said, at […]

Worship Leader’s Hand Signals

Today, I want to look at the hand signals that worship leaders use. Having visited a number of churches, I have noticed that worship leaders (depending on how they were trained) approach hand signals very differently. I am not talking about the core shapes, because it seems that worship leaders around the world have somehow […]

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 […]

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 […]

In Honour of the Worship Revolution Band 2010/11

I can’t believe we are now in the second last week of 2011. It’s been an amazing year full of God’s faithfulness and favour. In another post, I will reflect more broadly about this year, which was filled with some amazing transitions (though not yet complete) and faith-building experiences. But today, I want to honour […]

Numbers Count

In my last post, I talked about Elevation Church’s Code. In this post, I delve deeper into the thought “it’s all about the numbers”. How important are “the numbers” in terms of the health of a church? Often numerical growth is juxtaposed against spiritual depth as if they are diametrical opposites. In 2008, those who […]