WorshipCentral

interesting question marc,

i think praying is a good start. also asking God for opportunities is another thing you could do.

also im interested in what is your vision for a worshipping community?

God bless,
Gav.

In addtion to Gav's comments, speak to your pastor. Explain your passion for worship/creative arts, and that you'd like to be part of that developing in your church. I don't think you need to have a 7 step stretegic plan in place before speaking to someone in church leadership. A vision and a willingness to take it on is enough for a first discussion.

I'd also strongly suggest getting some resources on leadership in general. The generic questions of "How do I start developing..." or "How do I change the culture of..." need leadership skills, rather than worship skills, to answer them.

Good ideas!

Gav, you're question does cut to the heart of it. I'll think about it and put something down in the upcoming days instead of just rambling.

I suppose it would be wanting to duplicate or replicate what I see going on at HTB?

Well I've thought about what a worshiping community might be; it sure reaches into every avenue of Christian living & the church. Because of that I don't really have any criticisms for the church, it has been moving forward for hundreds of years and seen leaders far more intelligent than I who have shaped it's course! I don't think I have anything original to say, and am not even remotely qualified to say the current model of church is flawed.

My church operates quite like an average church, there are midweek groups for various purposes, a pastor leads a 2 sunday and 1 saturday service which is split into musical worship and the sermon/message. I would have to say it is successful, the leadership is genuine in their own way; I think the average church goer feels comfortable at the church. It all has pros cons and a myriad of avenues which one could be critical of (Just like any church).

So, I guess that IS a worshiping community. I may have a part to play, but it wouldn't be changing what exists, just add to it, try to serve through it. I guess my question should have been more focused; how might a community be established to support current worship leaders and build up those who have an interest in leading worship? Something that enables the use of music as a service to the church? Do you just start meeting and praying together? Classes? Workshops? I know there are a bundle of possibilities, just curios if anyone has had experience with one being more effective than the other?

I understand what Paul is saying about admin. I'm closing out a Business Administration undergraduate degree and find many applications for what I study and the church; it used to bug me (i.e. the church isn't a business!) but I found it is the administrative and goal setting side that applies, not the money making side.

Administration - the least desired of all the spiritual gifts! (Well, maybe second least desired if you count celibacy...)

Marc, as to your "how might community be established to support worship leaders" bit - it'll depend on the specifics of your church, but in general it boils down to:

1) Find people with a similar interest. Ask around, ask your leadership if they know of other people with an interest, advertise internally at the church.

2) Work on developing that interest. Meeting to talk and pray is a vital starting point! Your leadership may already have ideas on how this might look. Think on what areas you want to develop - there are lots that are important. Musicianship (individually and as a band), creativity, theology, personal spiritual growth, working with a PA/visuals, administration and leadership. Think on what resources you have in house, and what you would need to bring in. Think what format would work best.

It's something I've been giving thought to in our own church context. I'd love to see a worship leaders training programme of x weeks covering each of these topics. As someone with little musical training, learning how to work as a band or understand how a PA desk works would be really helpful. A programme like that would be pretty labour intensive to set up, and would idealy involve a group of local churches to share resources. I'd be very interested if anyone knows if a course and course material already exists for this.

A smaller idea which I've been thinking about for my band is simply to encourage reflection on four of these areas (spiritual growth/musicianship/theology/technical areas) every so often, and allow individual members to set their own goals in each of these areas, and then to review progress periodically.

Hope that rambling is of some help.

Paul

Hi mate

One area we are really looking to develop to help people engage with worship corporately is investing in small groups.

If your church has small groups why not consider meeting with all the leaders and see how the church can help resource them musically, theology of worship thoughts, alt worship etc...

If people grab hold of what it means to worship in a smaller setting I think it will really impact when me meet together as a unit.

hope this helps

im praying for you

Thanks for the prayer Debs! :) Always appreciated!

Paul, wonderful thoughts. Trying to segment the areas where a worship leader is developed, or how a community is established would really help me focus my efforts. That is really important right now because I don’t have much time to offer. I think right now I’d probably have to lean towards trying to get an informal meeting together for people interested.

The difficulty would be coming up with an agenda. Like, do we pray for eachother… does someone share a song they wrote, if anyone is even writing songs? I think it would be a good place to wade into with pastoral staff on. (Obviously, wouldn’t be a good idea to just start some program up!)

Chris, I love the idea of small groups and have been entertaining the thought for years. The biggest obstacle I came up against was the need to develop aspiring worship leaders. It would have all fallen totally on my shoulders and I just (unfortunately) didn’t have the adequate time to pour into it! (Though I desperately wanted to!)

The current worship pastor is not too keen on things that would cause more work for him, I’m not sure why.

(Or so I gather from my conversations with him. It feels like he got into church music because he could not make it in the “real world” of music. It sounds harsh, but unfortunately feels true)

Grrr…. Time, time, time, I think I’ve mentioned “time” in near every one of my posts recently. It’s been on my mind, something that’s been hounding me.

I thought this would have been about something slightly different. I was expecting a thread on how to generate "togetherness" in a fragmented parish or church setting.

In a way, my original answer might still help. What happens on a social level at your church? I think it's great when as a church, we do "non-church" things like tea and cakes, night out bowling, football teams for the kids, pensioner's bingo nights and other everyday social elements that simply connect people without the pressure of "what theology can we introduce here". If something like that is lacking, you might find a way to network through these kind of things and see what people are interested in, keen to see happening and aim for. Sometimes just being together as a community can bless your people and put a smile on God's face too.

Relevant still?!!

http://uk.myspace.com/lorenzotunes

John 3.16 --> 1 Jn 3.16 Here is love.

Thanks for the thoughts Larry! Just to clarify, I’d say the church I’m in has a healthy sense of community with small groups and misc activities. I think people hang out together often. I do see a bit of a void in the worship arena but that also seems to be kind of a norm. Maybe many churches don’t facilitate community around leading worship because it is somewhat difficult to navigate, or musicians generally aren’t gifted with admin.? I’m stoaked on the ideas here and plan on trying them in the near future. I’m thinking after the holiday season might be a good time.