Drama and Video in Worship Services?

My brother had a great blog entry he just wrote that I wanted to share with you all:

When I was growing up we did these things at our church called a "Cantata", pretty cool word eh?Anyways, if you've ever seen one, then you know they take a lot of work. Its pretty much a Christian Broadway production complete with a choir, actors, even live animals. Rehearsal for these things would begin about a month after each major Christian holiday (Easter and Christmas) and lead right up until the night when you'd do the production 2 or 3 times. After it was over the Pastor would get up and give an invitation for those who were ready to receive Christ.
Today it seems most churches have found media (video) to be the new drama. Its easier on many levels. Some churches base their entire weekend services around video, around their favorite move clips or the latest short story released on sermon spice.com.

But on the topic of Drama; how well can you do them? And how do you stray from the "cheese" factor? Paper swords and cardboard angels tend to take me to my happy place. I'm not against drama, we do drama's here at our church once and awhile, Im just really big on doing them as well as we could do a video, or a song, or any other method we use on weekends to communicate.

The question before attempting either is this;

What will this add or take away from what the goal of the service is to accomplish?
Are you a church that makes video's or are you a church that takes the gospel to people through the mode of media? The same can be asked concerning Drama? Does this drama further clarify God's word or will it lead the crowd to a better understanding of the message of the Gospel?

Here are some ideas for video that I've seen done really well;
Ideas for videos:
-"God at Work"
My friends Andi Rozier and Joel Smith down at HBC in Elgin, IL film people in their church who tell their testimony via video. It's more than that, but you get the idea. An amazing evidence of God at work in the church and a powerful way to communicate what God is doing in the congregation and not just the pastor.
-Baptism Highlight Video
we're working on this right now, highlighting a "best of" video remembering all the baptisms that took place in 2008)
-Ministry Highlight Video
have a ministry in your church or area of serving that needs some promotion? Make a video highlighting why people need to know and how they can get involved
-Weekend Announcements via Video
(Buckhead's famous "the 10 before" idea. Instead of boring Joe Annoucnement guy, why not think of a way to incorporate video announcements
-New Sermon Series Preview/Teaser
the week before a new sermon series, highlight the upcoming sermon series with a brief direction as to where the series is headed, a great tool for casting vision and leading the flock
-Scripture arranged to a song
a great and creative way to incorporate scripture to the worship package by having each verse arranged on the screen for people to read and meditate on

Say Uncle

Well I found out that I am going to be an uncle to a little boy. My brother and his wife are having thier first child. It's going to be amazing. Im so excited. This blog is dedicated to all those that are Aunt's or Uncles. Im new at this. So if you could leave me some comments on what exactly a good uncle is suppose to do that would help me out.

Thanks!

Just when you thought America had the best talent...

Anyone of these contestants could blow most American Idol finalists out of the water...





So good... Enjoy!

"LIVE" in the Bahamas

Imago Dei

Read: Genesis 1:26-31

Think: What is the apex of God’s creation? You are. Before you write this off as some feel good pick me up, let’s see if this can be supported Scripturally. Go get your Bible, and turn to Genesis 1:26-27. What does it say? God has stamped on you his image. What other creature on planet earth, or the whole universe for that matter, has God placed his identity? God has chosen man, both male and female to rule and subdue the earth in such a way that reflects his image in the way that He rules and looks after the earth. Because of the fall recorded in Genesis 3, our image has been distorted. The rest of the Bible records God’s pursuit of restoring “Imago Dei” (Image of God) back in humanity. The fullness of our identity is fully realized in Christ who takes on the “Imago Dei” himself and models for us what living life to fullest really looks like.

Be: Today, as you go throughout your day, begin to ponder the ways that God takes care of his creation. Thank Him for your identity as being an image bearer of God. Thank Him for sending His Son, Jesus Christ to model for us how to be “fully human”. And today, look forward to the day when God restores us completely and places us back in the new Eden, namely, Heaven!

Congradulations to My Bro and His Bride

Just wanted to give a shout out to my brother and sister in Law for their second year of faithful marriage. Gotta love men that are commited to one woman for life. Gotta love woman that stay faithful to their men.
Happy 2nd Anniversary!


Check out his blog:

Passionate/Reverance

p.s. Erin, I pray God blesses me with a wife like you!

Chris Tomlin Hello Love

The Drama Of Scripture

I spent 3 hours last night reading through the first 100 pages of this incredible refreshing book on the Old Testament for one of my MA classes I am taking at Bethel College. Understanding the OT first as a Grand Storey, the authors Craig Bartholomew, and Michael Goheen reflect on each book and give a wonderful synopsis of the OT.

Most of us, if we are honest do not know the Old Testament. We are scared of it. We don't know where to begin. We don't like reading geanioloiges. We don't understand why God allows so many people to die in what seems like ancient Holy War.

If you are still only enjoying Part 2 of God's Word and havent spent much time investigating Part 2, here's what your going to do.

Go but... "The Drama of Scripture"
I promise you will be able to understand it.
I promise you will be more familiar with the OT by the time you are done.
I promise you will have a better hermeneutical framework the next time you open up your bible somewhere in the OT.

WOW, that's a lot of promises, but I am extremly confident that you will not be disapointed!

Just an idea...

I don't know about your church but our church sends out what's called "THE BEACON" every month. It's basically a church newsletter on steroids. I had this idea. What if "THE BEACON" had some theological reflections from Senior Leaders of our staff pertaining to the health, mission, and ministries of our church. It just dawned on me, that I don't know of any church that prints out a publication to their congregation every month where the congregation gets to read articles from "ALL" the staff about what God is laying on their hearts. Of course, the weekly sermon is the platform the Senior Pastor gets to Vent, but what about the rest of His Staff? By producing a "LEADERS CORNER" type magazine and sending it out monthly to your congregation this is what it will accomplish:

1. Multi-perspective on issues
2. Help introduce new comers to all the staff of the church
3. Affirms the Leadership of Your Church
4. Shows that the Senior Pastor is not the only one with brains and passions
5. Brings unity within the diversity of your staff as they talk about different issues pertaining to the same mission of your church.
6. It can be a way to recomend further growth, and resources to your congregation (ex. Children's Pastor writes about Parenting and then recomends a book for struggling parents to read)
7. It constantly re-enforces the vision and mission of your church as long as each article references in their designated topic the reason for their topic and how it relates to the Mission of the Church.
8. It shows your people that you aren't slackers, but rather thinkers. (A lot of people have no respect for Pastors because they only see what they do on the weekends and they think they are lazy throughout the rest of the week)
9. Concise articles written by known people on relevant issues produces great results.
10. In each article depending on the topic a call to Mission to your congregation can be made. (ex. The Worship Pastor writes on a topic entitled, "Why do we have a church service on Saturday?" In the article he shows how conducting a Saturday worship service does not hinder, but rather enable the Mission of the Church to go forward. At the end of the article he encourages people to come check it out.)

Right now, I am proposing this idea to my Senior Pastor, as I recommend all of you young whipper snappers do first as a way to honor not undermine His leadership. I hope to be the monthly author of a column called, "NEW SONGS" - Taking Ps.98:1 literally!" In this article I plan to introduce the congregation to a new song that we as a church will be singing. The article will include: 1. The Lyrics, 2. The Reason We Are Singing It, and 3. When the next time as a Church We will be singing it.


Just a thought...
Let me know what you all think?
Would you read a journal style Magazine that was written on various subjects although pertaining to the mission of your church written by your Pastors?

Why I love Marc Driscol so Much

Hillsong - This Is Our God (PART 2)

Hillsong - This Is Our God

The latest from our friends at Hillsong is an album called, "This is our God". It comes out tomorow, August 12th in the U.S. Do yourself a favor and pick it up.
Here is one of the songs featured on the album. Amazing storey behind this song:

Real Beauty

An illusion is never as beautiful as the real thing. To all my sisters in Christ, escape the illusion of outward beauty and focus in on a Proberbs 31 type woman. Beauty is fleeding but a heart for God is priceless!

Back from Bahamas

I lost my luggage! Out of all the people flying on my place, guess whose luggage they lost? Mine. Yes, that's right I am back from our Mission Trip To Bahamas. It was no vacation at all. We worked every day from early morning till 2am setting up our Venue, doing our Concert, and then tearing down 50,000 dollars worth of equipment and then packing it back up in a u-haul truck. I got to hang out with 11 other high schoolers that are some of the coolest most talented kids I have ever met. Our mission was to help out a ministry known as Karazim. We were the main feature band for the WORSHIP WEEK CONFERENCE.

Highlights:

- Going to the Beach Once
- Eating Conch
- Watching Kevin (homeless) get long term help
- Dancing during Behemian worship services
- Seeing Lizards everywhere
- Riding "Discovery" Cruise (just kidding, never ride this boat)
- Leading Worship Every Night
- Riding home alone on bunch of planes
- Losing my luggage

Alright, so that is my update. I hate looking back in life, as you can tell by my short post. I always want to be looking forward to the next thing God has in store so much so that I have no time to blog about what has been done in the past. I'm a full steam ahead type guy I guess, but it is also good to take time and remember the faithfulness of the Lord. He once again was faithful on this trip to reveal himself to me through a man named Raul. More about Raul is to come...

Connecting With Your Audience in ......... 3 minutes and 43 seconds

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Right now I am in my office as I just escaped a Concert that is going on right now at our Church. I will not mention the name of the band as some of you might know them and I don't want to give them a bad name as I really believe they have sincere hearts. But that's just it. If we allowed every sincere heart sing in church, or in this case perform all accross America, America would blow up! Just because you think you can sing only means that your mom wasn't honest with you growing up. You can't so please don't get into the music business.

After watching 40 plus people get up and leave our church, plus one old man left givng the boo! sign as he headed toward the doors, I just sat there and thought:

IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE!

For all you Worship Leaders or Up and Coming Performing Arts people. Listen up! You can sing like Celion Dion, but if you do not connect with the people you are trying to minister too, you have nothing! Stop using the audience as a way to get off on yourself. You are there to cater to the audience. The audience is your employer (so to speak) so you do what they want, when they want it, how they want it. I am so tired of Christian Musicians thinking they have a little bit of talent, and can sing How Great Is Our God and we just let them on stage.

A worship leader, and or performer MUST MUST MUST Connect with Your Audience!

Who's our audience?

Our first audience is God Himself. We must connect with Him or else our music is just that, and our message comes accross phony. Plus, if we really believe in the power of the Holy Spirit using our Connection with Him to Connect with the hearts of others than it is even more important to make sure we are connecting with God while we lead.

Next...

We must also connect with our fellow worshipers. A worship LEADER, must do exactly that LEAD!!!!! Who are you leading? PEOPLE!!!!!! "Oh no, I don't care what people think of me, I'm just worshiping God right now." If I had a penny for every time I heard that I would be Bill Gates. If you are on stage during a worship service you are a serregate Moses, or Joshua or Paul. You are leading God's people somewhere. Stop paralyzing yourself in your own false humility, and rise up and LEAD!

How do you lead?

With CONFIDENT HUMILY! The very same way you like to be led. No body likes a cocky leader, but no one also likes a passive wimp. The reason men don't come to church today is because it's hard to worship a brown hair, tea sipping, robe wearing, Galilean whom you think you could actually beat up. Jesus Christ is not a wimp! He's a Savior, a warrior, a champion, a King. Lead your people with confidence, and humility to that Jesus, not the hippy Jesus.

Okay....

Im done venting. I litterally wrote this in 3 minutes and 43 seconds, the very same amount of time we have to CONNECT WITH OUR AUDIENCE.
So, do me a favor... If you are a worship leader or in the performing arts thing. Go ahead and print this off and read it to your people. You can not stress the importance of CONNECTING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE.

Okay? Now Go and LEAD!!!!!!!!!

3 Cool New Things

Hey All,

I just got back from Chicago for a freind's wedding at (get this) Narnia Estates. It was exactly like it sounds.... "Enchanted". I think I saw Aslan...

Anywho, it is good to be back in the office blogging. I am still getting use to the fact that I actually have a blog. But this blog will make it all worth it when you find out about these 3 Cool New Things:

1. Red Box



In Port Huron, we have our "Red Box" in our Kroger grocery store. I am not kidding when I say that there is no start up costs and each and every DVD you rent is only 1 dollar. Plus the first one is free if you put in this code: JC10LK

Go check it out... oh and your welcome!!


2. V-necks


Yes that's right. V-necks are coming back in. I just went to Forever 21 and bought my first one. It's grey and if you are lucky you may see me sporting it soon. I never thought I would own one of these dangerously low beuties, but I am a v-neck convert. Go get yours and we will sport them together. (My friends and I are touring in Bahamas for a worship conference in a couple weeks and guess what we all bought and are wearing?)


3. Daniel Renstrom "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder"


I found this new artist out through a friend and now I can't get enough of this one old hymn that he sings. It's called, "Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder". Go to itunes and do yourself a favor and buy the whole CD. It only 6 dollars. I love it! I very rarely love a CD, but I love the combination of artistic ability with crazy weighted theological content. The Blog is over, so go buy it now!

To Worship Him

I wrote this song Friday Night sitting at the piano, and took it to our Venue Band on Saturday Afternoon and we sang it this weekend for both the Saturday and Sunday service. Way to go guys! I wrote this after listening to Mark Driscoll's recent sermon on worship. All of life from Creation (Vs.1), to redemtion (Vs.2), to suffering (Vs.3) is a gift from God to give creation an oppurtunity to Worship Him. So thus the song is entitled, "TO WORSHIP HIM". Some of you have requested to words. So here they are. All the glory to God of course:

To Worship Him

The earth was spoken into place
The darkness ran to hide it's face
To Worship Him
To Worship Him

Creation rose with morning light
Dressed in flesh to see His might
To Worship Him
To Worship Him

And we are Your people
And you are our only God

CHORUS:

You are God the Father
God the Son
God the Spirit
Holy Three in One

Your name exalted
Your fame restored
Until all the nations
Worship and Adore

Vs.2

A curse was placed on Adam's race
When we had failed to revere His name
To Worship Him
To Worship Him

Bur now through Christ we've been redeemed
Satan's crushed and all our free
To Worship Him
To Worship Him

And we are your people
And you are our only God

(Repeat Chorus)

Vs.3
Even when in suffering
Your love endures so I will sing
To Worship You
To Worship You

And whenI faill into this earth
I will share in this new birth
To Worship You
To Worship You

(Repeat Chorus)

BRIDGE:
So come and Adore Him
Worship the Lord of all (2X)

(Repeat Chorus)

99 Balloons

This past week we had a guest speaker, Josh Hossler speak. We are helping him and his team plant a church in Macomb county outside of Detroit. www.evidentchurch.com At the end of his message he showed a video that made everyone in the audience cry like I've never seen. What a powerful video. God bless this couple:

Worshiping Worship

Worshiping Worship - Written by: Jonathan Seller

Oh how subtle this modern allure
How worship becomes our self indulging cure
Dressed in white but black beneath
A worshipers confession of songs sung only for me:

Echoes of glory on Sunday I hear
And traces of majesty don't soon disappear
But I am not mistaken and neither is He
This is not for Him, it's simply for me

I savor on the melodies
Relish in the symphony
Raise my hands in familiarity
To a King who's no longer a mystery
He's brought down to my reality
Only to give him my idolatry
My selfless self sufficiency

It is I the King of Glory
The recipient of these songs
It is I the great magician
who fools the crowd but only so long
My secrets are revealing now
My illusion has now appeared
Those that believe I'm giving praise
Take heart, "Consuming" is what you hear.

Every line of every song
Describes Him but serves me
Every note on every page
I've hijacked selfishly
They serve my feelings
Deep down inside
Where true worship occurs
For self to Thrive

Basking in the created
And leaving no room for Him
For this "worship" is immediate
A thrilling temporary whim...


There was no God in church today
And that's quite okay with me
I haven't missed His presence
And I never miss a beat
I'll keep singing sweet familiar songs
As long as I grow old
Describing the wonder of His love
And never knowing it in whole.


Oh how I pray for those that lead worship every Sunday. Woe be to us if we exalt the means over the end, worship the created (music) rather than the Creator, and fall in love with a Heaven and care less if God were there. Our Worship must come from the power of the Holy Spirit as he hides us from the familiar, shakes us into reverence, and causes our hearts to delight in the person of Jesus and the accomplishment at the cross. To this end we labor: for our affections to rise and our motives to fall. Truly, He must increase, and We must decrease in order for our songs to leave the ceilings of our churches and reach the heart of God.

Bad Day At Work

There is something to be said about a Bad Day at Work, but this just seems to be over the top! This recent video is tearing up the web: Check it out and thank the Lord everyday for wherever you work!