Vineyard East Worship

Inside Worship Podcast

I agree with Kenny, though admittedly I don’t have the type of philisophical/sociological wordage in my vocab as he does =)

I just recently prayed with my worship team before practice last week and we touched on this topic.

I’ve had people pray many things over me in my life…encouraging words of how God will use my music to impact many lives, many of which seemed to have the whole ‘your gonna be like jeremy riddle or matt redman’ kindof tint to it. (Believe me, I’m in no way meaning to toot my own horn).

I have desired to make a living as a musician, as a worship leader, as a pastor…but all in all, I’m just happy doing what God has me doing right now. If those doors open up, great. If not, great.
The one thing I believe God spoke to me a long time ago was this ‘chris…leading worship is what you do…it is not who you are’.
To me, this meant my identity isn’t as a ‘worship leader’. My identity is as his child, as his love, as his creation…and out of that comes my response of worship.

I share this because i’ve seen a lot of people get caught up in worship music, the industry, who’s hot and who’s not, etc. and it scares me that they seem to lose focus/perspective and concentrate so much on ‘worship music’.

In any case, I definitely believe different worship leaders are used and anointed in different ways. Some can cut albums and have songs used in churches worldwide. Some can’t or won’t have an ‘industrial impact’, but really touch lives intimately in a local church setting. Neither one is greater then the other because God loves both the same.

I don’t know if i agree that ‘Leading worship can now be considered a career path instead of something done to serve the church’. I don’t believe it is a black and white issue. You can serve the church in such a ‘career path’…I think. However, I don’t quite know how I feel about the notion of paying someone simply to lead worship every week at church. Yes a lot can go into planning, developing and leading a team or multiple teams, overseeing worship in the church at large, but I guess I’m so used to serving that being paid for the work I do seems so foreign? I dunno…i need time to digest lol

Time for a pay raise randy!

The Church's Sound System

Ed and I spoke briefly about this so – I’ll throw in my 2 cents too anyway.

I think it’s somewhat obvious – that one main goal at our services is to worship God together…and making it accessible and pleasant.

At our church, we’ve had some sound issues. One problem has been that no matter how talented or anointed a worship leader or team is, what comes out of the house is really in the hands of the sound person/team. The problem with this is that most people we have had – have nice and humble to volunteer to do sound, but are not professionals and have little or no experience. Herein is one of the problems…inexperienced sound teams thrown to the wolves on sunday mornings.

We have recently taken steps to put our money where our mouth is (because we say worship is a top priority) and we’ve invested in acoustic treatment and are researching and having ‘professional’ sound ‘consultants’ come in and give their advice.
This will definitely help, but even with updated equipment and advice from pro’s – we still will lack professional or experienced sound techs who know the ins/outs of a board and the science of sound, etc.

Ed – I know you don’t like to mic the drums…but believe me when I tell you it makes a HUGE difference bro. My personal taste aside (I personally love to feel the kick drum in my heart when Im listening to a band play live) – but even during a sunday morning worship service – when the drums are in the mix and the sound guy has control of a drummers volume – I think it really helps and can add to the quality of the sound mix. Otherwise it can tend to sound flat.

Anyway, I may not be adding anything to this conversation – but I did want to elaborate on some of the issues we’ve had at our church.

And I have to state that I for one am very thankful for the people who volunteer to do sound cause its not an easy job. They are great people and I hope my .02 didn’t come across demeaning anyone =( Hopefully not.

Sunday worship sets

lol thanks seth – lmk how it goes buddy…interested to know man.