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We Cannot Worship What We Do Not Know

daniellyle — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:48:32 +0000

3 Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

-Psalm 100:3

Reflecting on this verse Matthew Henry wrote:

“The matter of praise, and the motives to it, are very important. Know ye what God is in himself, and what he is to you. Know it; consider and apply it, then you will be more close and constant, more inward and serious, in his worship.

Know because you cannot worship what you do not know... A teacher of mine would often put it this way… He would say:

“I can only love my wife to the extent that I know her. Like wise I can only worship my God to the extent that I know Him.

We cannot love what we do not know and we cannot worship what we do not know. It’s just the way we are made. All of us possess personhood. That is each of us has personality. In philosophical terms personhood is defined by Intellect, emotion, and will.

Intellect: Each one of us has the ability to cognitively processes abstract ideas… In other words, each one of us has the ability to think and to reason—we have the ability to process and apply information.
Emotion: Each one of us has the ability to feel… We can love and we can hate. We can sore to the heights in joy or sink to the depths in sorrow.
Will: Each one of us has the ability to make decisions about how we will interact with the world in which we will live.

There is a relationship that exists amongst these things… You see it is our Intellect that informs our emotions and it is our intellect and emotions together that inform our will.

Worship is an act of the will informed by our knowledge of God. We don’t worship Him because we are obligated to… We worship Him because we know Him and in knowing Him we are so moved to worship Him.

The above is an excerpt from a message I preached on Psalm 100. I am planning on posting audio soon.

SMG Prerelease Of New Album, From Age To Age

daniellyle — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:14:46 +0000

Sovereign Grace Music is offering a $5 prerelease deal on their new album From Age To Age

Click here to get the details

The Gospel According to Propaganda

daniellyle — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:11:00 +0000

Until recent years, I thought the culmination of the Gospel was the “amen” of the sinners prayer. But I have since come to realize that the Gospel is far more dynamic than our moment of conversion… The Gospel has profound implications not only for our conversion and eternal destination but for everyday that lay between. Gospel hip-hop artist Propaganda does a great job at helping us understand the fullness of the Gospel.

Philosophy of Worship

daniellyle — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:10:15 +0000

In my ministry at Evangelical Baptist Church we are currently working through the process of developing our philosophy of worship. Our process, known as The Worship Initiative, is a multifaceted multistage campaign for the development and transference of the distinctives that unite the body in worship at Evangelical Baptist Church. The development of a such a philosophy cannot happen in a vacuum but must be undergirded by a great deal of study of Scripture and other resources available on the subject.

Two of the documents that have been helping to inform our study are Bethlehem Baptist Church’s ”Philosophy of Worship” and Baptist Bible College’s, “What Unites Us in Worship at Baptist Bible College.” I believe that Baptist Bible College’s statement was based on Bethlehem Baptist Church’s statement. I have shared both these documents in this post. Both documents are well thought out and worthy of consideration. Read and enjoy!

Bethlehem Baptist Church Philosophy of Worship

Values relating to corporate worship:

Many of the worship values listed in the Master Planning document are already being realized at Bethlehem. Some, like solid Biblical preaching, have characterized Bethlehem for decades, while others have begun to grow more recently. Most, if not all, of these values will be found in increasing measure if Bethlehem continues on the Master Planning trajectory of the past year. May God complete what He has already begun.

Because we value a public worship form that communicates the supremacy of God in all of life, it will focus on God. The form may vary from week to week as long as God continues to meet us in worship. It will encourage an expectancy and eagerness for God to draw near to us in reviving and renewing power.

Because we value fervent, Biblical, Spirit-anointed, God-exalting, personally-helpful preaching, we will pray that God’s Word continues to run and be glorified among us as greatly in the future as it has in the past, as all aspects of worship are shaped and permeated by the Word of God.

Because we value the importance of old and new , historic and current, we will pray that “the Holy Spirit may lead us into ways of worship that are continuous with the historic witness of worship given to the church throughout its history in the world, and at the same time He may lead us into the discovery of new forms and patterns that meet the needs of the people of our day” (R. Webber, “Worship Old and New”). We will continue to be a “both/and” people that cherishes all the richness and freshness that comes from God.

Because we value the importance of both head and heart in our worship experience , we will continue to fill our minds with Biblical thinking about God, others, ourselves, and life, while at the same time putting renewed and greater emphasis on giving expression to our heart’s affections for God during worship.

Because we value going hard after God as an all-satisfying end in Himself, we will increasingly plan our worship service for greater opportunities to linger in the presence of the Lord. He is the treasure, the pearl of great price, and we will come with an earnestness and wholeheartedness on our past that desires God more than anything.

Because we value authenticity and transparency in communicating in large and small group settings, we will strive for genuineness when in groups or by ourselves. Whether rehearsed or spontaneous, we will strive to be real before God and each other.

Because we value vulnerability with our imperfections that encourage candor, not concealment, we will minister in the strength that God supplies as we are sustained by His grace, acknowledging that our treasure is in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is not our own. We will confess public sin publicly and private sin privately, and admit openly our imperfections. We will not continue in public ministry while flagrant sin holds sway in our lives.

Because we value being a singing people with growing appreciation for diverse expressions of love for God, we will use as many musical styles and forms as are helpful to worship and respond to God appropriately, as we seek the “significant range” of “at-homeness” referred to in Fresh Initiative #2. We will encourage whole-hearted participation by the entire congregation in all parts of the worship service, as the defining sound of Bethlehem worship becomes the singing voices of all God’s people praising Him.

Because we value a place for spontaneity and lay ministry to the body, we will cultivate a sense of waiting on the Holy Spirit in worship. We will make room for God to act on Sunday morning by giving opportunities for spontaneous ministry by spiritually gifted people.

Because we value increasing in a humble willingness to support others whose tastes are different than ours, we will put understanding above accusation, forbearance above faultfinding,and Biblical unity above the demand for uniformity. We will create opportunities for God’s reality to be conveyed more powerfully by learning to affirm the forms and styles that edify our brothers and sisters. Our relationships of love for each other will lead us to patiently support and rejoice with those who appreciate other styles, believing that God is able to meet us in the context of any Christ-exalting worship style.

Because we value growing in appreciation of both fine and folk elements in worship, we will strive to affirm the strengths and avoid the weaknesses inherent in both forms. We will worship within the range of gifts that God bestows on us, never compromising spiritual qualifications for aesthetic considerations, as we pursue undistracting excellence in spiritual leadership.

Because we value a determination to welcome people different from ourselves for the sake of Christ, we will continue to embrace God’s call for visible manifestations of love toward each other and our neighbors, providing opportunities before, during and after the service to reach out to those God would have us touch.

Because we value being more indigenous to the diversity of our metropolitan cultural setting, both urban and suburban, we will seek ways to communicate and worship that allow for a significant range of diversity in those whose worship is driven by a passion for the supremacy of God in all things.

Implications:

Sunday morning worship is a corporate expression of our passion for the supremacy of God. We sense God’s leading to develop fresh expressions of this passion that 1) allow for a more focused and free lingering of love in the presence of the Lord; 2) reflect musically the diversity of our congregation and our metropolitan culture; 3) interweave the values of intense God- centeredness and more personal ministry to each other in the power of the Holy Spirit. The following clarify our worship distinctives at Bethlehem:

We will continue with one common worship service format, “that with one accord [we] may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our worship life will have a “defining center,” with significant range on either side of that center, resulting in a broader worship life than in the past that people can comfortably call “home.”

Our main lead worshiper will be characterized by spiritual maturity and depth, sensitivity to God’s leading during worship, a pastor’s heart, and breadth of musical skills. His authentic worship will be contagious to the congregation as he joyously leads us into God’s presence.

We will emphasize spiritual leadership rather than performance in all “up-front” acts, as we encourage spiritually gifted people to minister within their range of ability rather than perform.

We will design worship services mainly for the benefit of believers, as we express corporately our passion for the supremacy of God, reflecting it so clearly and joyously that unbelievers who are present may also be awakened and give Him glory.

We recommend obtaining a high quality of digital synthesizer, capable of reproducing a broad range of instrumentation (including organ), to complement and broaden the range of musical styles available.

We will encourage greater freedom in worship that is God-honoring and authentic, allowing for Biblically appropriate responses to God’s multifaceted glory as we linger for extended periods in His presence.

We will encourage increased lay participation in the Sunday morning service by spiritually gifted people.

We will encourage diversity in worship leadership that reflects the diversity of our congregation and our metropolitan culture.

We anticipate that a variety of musical groups (Choirs, worship teams, vocal and instrumental ensembles, etc.) will be used to lead in worship on Sunday morning.

Approved by the Council of Elders January 21, 1996

________________________________________________________________________

What Unites Us in Worship at Baptist Bible College

1. God-Centeredness.
We put a high priority on the vertical focus of our corporate worship services. The ultimate aim is to understand God in such a way that he is glorified in our affections.

2. Expecting the powerful presence of God.
We do not just direct ourselves toward him. We earnestly seek his drawing near according to the promise of James 4:8. We believe that in worship God draws near to us in power, and makes himself known and felt for our good and for the salvation of unbelievers in the midst.

3. Bible-based and Bible-saturated.
The content of our singing and praying and welcoming and preaching and poetry should always conform to the truth of Scripture. But more than that, the content of God’s Word should be woven through all we do in worship and will be the ground of all our appeal to authority.

4. Head and heart.
The elements of our worship service should aim at kindling and carrying deep, strong, real emotions toward God, especially joy, but should not manipulate people’s emotions by failing to appeal to clear thinking about spiritual things based on shareable evidences outside ourselves.

5. Earnestness and intensity.
We will try to avoid being trite, flippant, superficial, or frivolous, but instead will aim to set an example of reverence and passion and wonder and broken-hearted joy.

6. Authentic communication.
We utterly renounce all sham, deceit, hypocrisy, pretense, affectation, and posturing. We do not pursue the atmosphere of artistic or oratorical performance, but the atmosphere of a radically personal encounter with God and truth.

7. The manifestation of God and the common good.
We expect and hope and pray (according to 1 Cor. 12:7) that our focus on the manifesting of God is good for people and that a spirit of love for each other is not incompatible with, but necessary to, authentic worship.

8. Undistracting excellence.
We will try to sing and play and pray and preach in such a way that people’s attention will not be diverted from the substance by shoddy ministry nor by excessive finesse, elegance, or refinement. Natural, undistracting excellence will let the truth and beauty of God shine through. We will invest in equipment good enough to be undistracting in transmitting heartfelt truth.

9. The mingling of historic and contemporary music.
No church or service can be all things to all people. But we do not value stylistic narrowness. We believe there are affections owing to God that different tunes and different texts and different genres may awaken better than others. We will strive to be who we are without exalting our own tastes as the standard of excellence or power. We will see God’s guidance in each worship setting to be both indigenous and stretching.

Takeover The World With Planning Center Online

daniellyle — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:52:45 +0000

First there was fire, then came the wheel, then came Planning Center Online!

Planning Center Online (PCO) is a cloud based software application for planning your worship services and administrating your worship ministry. PCO is an indispensable tool for worship leaders of churches of any size. PCO will streamline your work flow and boost your productivity. You can even use it to take over the world! Okay, I might be over selling it with that whole takeover the world bit… But… While you might not be able to make a viable bid for world domination you can…

…Organize your music library
Throw out those clumsy three ring binders! PCO will help you manage your entier music library. All of your music gets loaded up to the cloud and is easily accessible from any computer or portable device with access to the web. You can customize meta data for each song which allows you to easily search your library by song title, key, style, topic, etc.

…Generate chord sheets
You can generate custom chord sheets for any song. The sheets will use a standardize format that will automatically insert all the CCLI data into the header and footer of the document. You can even change the key and the chords will be updated automatically! This is great if you want to capo something up! All files can be saved and printed off as PDFs.

…Import chord sheets and lyrics directly from CCLI’s SongSelect
If you have SongSelect as part of your CCLI membership you can import the lyrics and chord sheet (in any key) for most songs from within PCO.

…Share your music library with your worship team
You can grant each member of your worship team access to your churches library of music, eliminating the need to mass produce hardcopies for each member of your team.

…Link media examples to each song
You can link youtube and itunes/amazon previews to any song in your library.

…Plan your weekly services
Yes, PCO will generate your weekly orderly services but this is just the beginning… You can attach notes, files, and media to every line item in your order of service. It gets better… When you select a song from your library to add into your service it automatically adds the chord sheet as well. When you’re done planning your server you can make a songbook (a single pdf) for the service which contains the order of service and all of your chord sheets.

….Use your ipad as a digital music stand
No more paper… No more printing… No more binders… For only 2 bucks a month you can enable the Music Stand app. This allows you to use your ipad (or laptop) as a digital music stand. Simply load your order of service and all the associated files will be called up into a single document that you can “flip” through.

…View and plain multiple services in one screenshot
You can view multiple services in a single screen shot using the Matrix feature. This feature comes in super useful if you plan multiple services in advance. I typically plan a sermon series at a time. As soon as I get the series info from my pastor I plug all that info into planning center and start planning.

..Keep track of your personnel
With PCO you can keep a roster of your worship team personnel. You can assign positions, maintain contacting info, and even send messages to your team.

…Schedule your personnel
You can assign your personnel (musicians and techs) to particular services. You can then set PCO to send out automated email reminders to each member as their scheduled week approches. The email prompts the person to confirm their participation by simply clicking on one of two options: “decline” or “accept” This is probably one of my favorite features because I don’t have to make calls every week reminding people to show up.

…Generate reports
You can generate song reports for any period of time you choose. Simply set the start date and the end date and you will be given a report of what dates you played what songs. This feature makes the dreaded CCLI reporting a whole lot less daunting. You can also print off a similar report for your personnel.

…Do a whole lot more!
I have barely scratched the surface… PCO can do all of this and a whole lot more! Check it out for yourself at planningcenteronline.com

Defining Corporate Worship

daniellyle — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:59:39 +0000

Corporate worship… We all do it… But do you know why we do it? Why go to church on Sunday mornings when you could just sit at home in your PJs watching your favorite televangelist? In their excellent book, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe, pastor Mark Driscoll and theology professor Gerry Breshears tell us why we get out of bed, brush our teeth, get dressed, and go to church.

“God’s people gather because, in the depths of their regenerated nature the Holy Spirit gives the deep desires to worship God with his people. We want to see God’s people, we want to hear of God’s work in their lives, we want to know of ways we can lovingly serve them, and we want to be part of something bigger then ourselves that reaches beyond the mundane details of life and connects us all together despite our differences in age, race, gender, and income to seek and celebrate evidences of God’s grace.”

Furthermore,

“The New Testament is clear that God’s people are to regularly gather for corporate worship. This is apparent by the frequent use of the Greek word ekklesia, which simply means “gathered assembly of God’s people.” Likewise, Hebrews 10:24-25 commands, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.”

The authors then offer six Biblical principles that undergird this view of corporate worship…

Corporate worship is to be God centered—Matt 4:8-1
Corporate worship is to be intelligible—1Cor. 14:1-12
Corporate worship is to be seeker sensible—1 Cor 14:20-25
Corporate worship is to be unselfish—1 Cor 14:26
Corporate worship is to be orderly—1 Cor 14:40
Corporate worship is to be missional—1 Cor 9:19-23

Driscoll and Breshears expound on these six principles in chapter 11 of Doctrine. But Driscoll also expounds on them in an article he posted at the Resurgence, 6 Biblical Principles for Corporate Worship.

Worship The Rock: An Online Community For Worship Leaders

daniellyle — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:47:44 +0000

For the past few years I have been contributing to an online community for worship leaders called, Worship The Rock (WTR). WTR is a unique online resource that ”connects worship leaders and musicians throughout the world.” In some ways WTR is kind of like Facebook for worship leaders. There are a number of benefits to participating in the WTR community. Let me highlight a few…

Blog: WTR provides a Members Blog which you can contribute to. The greatest benefit of posting here is that people will actually read what you write. You get an instant following without having to build up a platform. If you’re smart about it you can actually increase traffic on your own site. I cross post my articles to both places… I post the full article on my website and half the article on WTR. I link the WTR post back to my website where the reader can finish reading the article. I’ve seen a dramatic increase in my web traffic since I started doing this. I use WP Jetpack to track my traffic. Many of my hits come from WTR and often those hits lead to multiple other hits on my website.
Forum: The Forum is probably the most commonly used feature on WTR. You can post about anything from music to theology and people will gladly interact with you about it. If I am working through an issue related to worship I will post a relevant question to the WTR forum. The ensuing discussion is often helpful in leading me to a conclusion. Let me warn you though… People on WTR are not supper theologically minded. Most of the contributors are lay people in the church concerned primarily with practical issues related to their weekly ministries. Just something to keep in mind.
Community: I use the word community loosely… Its pretty much impossible to have relationships with people you have never met. With that said, its kind of nice to have a place you can go to find encouragement from people who understand the unique challenges you face in ministry.
Networking: An obvious outcome of the above mentioned features is networking. WTR can be a great place to make connections with other worship leaders that could lead to other potential outcomes. Although for me it has yet to do that… But the potential is there.

I hope you found this helpful! What online worship leading resources would you suggest?

Bryan Chapell On What Drives The Worship Wars

daniellyle — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:18:42 +0000

We all know the worship wars exist, but outside of some random notions about forms of music do we really know what drives the conflicts? In his book Christ Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice, Bryan Chapell offers an exhaustive list of reasons for the church splitting tension.

“…every North American church I know has some level of tension regarding its worship style. The reasons for theses tensions are numerous: transience of church populations, the demise of denominations, family breakdown, fewer people worshiping in the churches of their youth, aging church populations, concern to stem the exodus of a younger generation, the influence of pop culture, four decades of contemporary worship music, the charismatic influences, a longing for authenticity, the erosion of traditional values, reactive fear in much of the church, neoconservatism, fresh challenges to contribute cultual transformation, a longing for anchors amid rapid cultural changes, rising interest in the global church, ancient-future church movements, and neo-Catholic movements.”

The problem is so much bigger then contemporary vs. traditional or young vs. old. The reasons that drive the conflict are dynamic and therefore they demand a dynamic answer. What is that answer? That’s for the next post…

What reasons would you add to Chapell’s list?

The CCLI Top 100 As A Benchmark For Quality

daniellyle — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:27:12 +0000

Just the other day I read a post by Bob Kauflin, What Goes On at a Sovereign Grace Songwriting Retreat? As I was skimming through the commets I came across the following comment…

“I’d be interested to hear about your success rate. How many of the songs produced by this process are breaking into the CCLI top charts?”

I found Bob’s response to be refreshing…

“I don’t think we’ve ever broken into the CCLI top charts! But that doesn’t keep us from writing. The CCLI charts reflect not only how good a song might be but also how long it’s been around, whose album it’s been on, how it might have been promoted, and a host of other factors, including God wanting a lot of people to sing it! Of course, we wouldn’t complain if more churches were singing our songs, but our aim is to strive to write better songs.

So if the CCLI Top 100 list dosen’t provide the best bench mark for judging quality songs then what does? As I was thinking through this I came up with three questions we can ask ourselves when evaluating a new song for worship.

Is the lyric of this song well written? Songs with simple or trite lyrics and little substance will often fall short of edifying your congregation. The best songs are those with lyrics of high literary value that creatively convey Biblical truth with the appropriate emotional posture.
Is the music of this song well written? Music should be melodically dynamic, interesting, and catchy. The music should also serve the lyrics as an emotional extension of sorts… I.e. If the lyrics are joyous and happy then it stands to reason that the music should also be joyous and happy.
Is this a song my church will want to sing? Worship songs should be for the benefit of the congregation (Eph 5:19) so select songs that are singable and obtainable for them. Furthermore, each congregation has it’s own personality… A song that works in one church might not work in another. Before I introduce a new song I try to imagine my congregation singing it… If I can’t imagen them singing a particularly song then I probably won’t introduce that song.

Of course this list is not all inclusive so…

What questions would you ask when selecting new songs for worship?

Driscoll Asks Some Hard-hitting Questions About Our Worship

daniellyle — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:51:36 +0000

In his book, Doctrine: What Ever Christian Should Believe, Mark Driscoll draws six observations about worship out of Hebrews 13:15-17.

15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. 17Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Based on Hebrews 13:15-17 worship includes…

Praise
Proclamation
Service, which means doing good as a demonstration of the Gospel to the world.
Participation, which means sharing with others as a demonstration of grace to the world.
Sacrifice, the giving of time, talent, and treasure
Submission and holiness

Driscoll then presents six hard hitting questions we can use to identify how well we are doing in each of these six areas.

Who or what do you praise most passionately and frequently?
How commonly and clearly do you confess Jesus Christ in the words you speak, type, and sing?
Are you one who serves others with gladness in response to God so faithfully serving you? Or are you someone who prefers to be served rather than to serve? Do you serve when it is inconvenient or unnoticed, or when you are unmotivated?
Are you an active participant in the life of your church and community? Do you give your time, talent, and treasure to share God’s love in tangible ways with others?
For whom or what do you sacrifice your time, health, emotion, money, and energy? What do these acts of worship reveal about what you have chosen to deify in your life?
Are you submissive to godly authority (e.g. partent, teacher, pastor, or boss)?