Worship Wars 4: It might be time to move away from tradition

By Kenny Lamm | August 17, 2011

Worship is not all about style.  The style of music is merely a tool that we use to craft a worship experience that is conducive to true worship, much like a painter uses a palette of different colors to create a masterpiece. I have attended traditional and contemporary churches that really worship.  I have also attended […]

Tongue-tied Worship Leaders

By Guest Blogger | August 12, 2011

Tongue-tied Worship Leaders -Guest post by Micah Chollar (Jason’s brother) If there were two words I could delete from today’s worship leader vocabulary it would be “just” and “continue”. Have you noticed there seems to be a growing trend of worship leaders who are quite gifted musically yet lack the ability to communicate any coherent […]

Worship Wars 3: Ending the Worship War without a truce

By Kenny Lamm | July 25, 2011

Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research, has written an excellent article on worship wars. There’s some great material here for our consideration as we dive into the issues surrounding the worship wars. The reason worship wars exist is because the church thinks it is fighting for something permanent when it is actually temporary. Musical styles and […]

Practical help for band rehearsals part 3 – Standard song forms

By Guest Blogger | July 18, 2011

Practical Stuff for Practicing Our Stuff: Standard Song Forms The problem with some of us worship leaders (read:me) is that we use our artistic/free spirits  as an excuse to “just flow with it.” Sometimes we’ll even say we’re moved by the Spirit. I’m all for moving with the Holy Spirit. But often, said “spirit” is […]

Practical ideas to improve rehearsals (part 2)

By Guest Blogger | July 12, 2011

As promised, we’re going to dive into some practical stuff to help us practice our stuff. The temptation is to start with the band and vocalists and “laundry-list” them with what they should be doing to prepare. But it needs to start with us leaders. As worship pastors, music directors, lay leaders, etc., it is […]

Food for thought – Andy Flannagan on worship music culture

By Guest Blogger | July 7, 2011

Andy Flannagan is a worship leader, singer and accomplished song-writer who is passionate about justice issues, and the Director of the Christian Socialist Movement. He recently sent us this extract from an interview he gave to a student which he thought the Sanctuary would be interested to make more widely available. We are publishing it […]

The difference between practice and rehearsal – new guest series

By Guest Blogger | July 6, 2011

Do you find your worship team re-rehearsing almost every song on Sunday morning? It’s like the mid-week rehearsal didn’t occur. Or at best, it’s three steps forward and two back. Transitions have been forgotten. Dynamic changes are sucked into some black hole in the collective band brain. And that major change in the chart we […]

Is the heart all that matters? Re-connecting our worship

By Sam Hargreaves | June 28, 2011

“Don’t worry about the music, the theology, the pastoral issues… as long as your heart is right before God, then your worship is okay.” How often have you heard that? Is it entirely true?  It’s quite easy to say, and it is right that God, in his grace and through what Christ has done for […]