Two Secrets to Finishing 2011 Strong

It turned Fall this week . . . not here in South Florida where it’s still blazing hot, but nonetheless Fall began on September 23 for almost everyone else in the Northern Hemisphere.

It’s hard to believe, but the changing of the season from summer to Fall reminds us that this year is 75% done.

Seems like just yesterday I was ringing in the New Year and asking God to do more in me and through me this year than ever before. Now here we are with just a few months left in 2011.

This is the time of year when you and I need to do TWO VERY IMPORTANT THINGS:

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Are you making a BIG mistake in your Worship Planning?

It’s Jason Hatley, Pastor of Worship Arts @ The Journey and I want to shoot straight with you . . . I don’t like it when someone tells me that I’m making a mistake.

Call it foolish pride I suppose. Can you relate?

After all, no one’s perfect and I know I make mistakes (just ask my wife and she’ll tell you all about it :-).

But, usually after I get over my bruised ego and damaged pride and I realize that the person telling me about a mistake I’m making really has my best interest at heart, my grumblings are replaced with gratitude. After all, I’ve been in ministry long enough to know that I don’t know it all and I need people to help along the way.

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“Man, this is Organized!”

“Man, this is organized!”

Those are the words of a guest worship leader that I recently asked to lead at The Journey.

After joining us for load-in, set-up, our timed sound checks, focus time, and cue-to-cue he told me backstage that it was one of the most organized and efficient Sunday morning run-throughs he had experienced. And because the level of stress was low, everyone on the team was able to focus on their role as lead worshippers that morning.

I’ll be honest . . . it made me proud of our church. We have incredible volunteers who work hard and our system for staying on track and reducing the stress of Sunday had struck him as something out of the ordinary.

I tell you that to tell you this . . . recently I had the opportunity to be a guest worship leader at a friend’s church. Unfortunately, I didn’t walk away with the same feeling. All the volunteers were great, the church was great. But that Sunday morning was stressful and you could see it on everyone’s face. The service went fine, but it took a lot of energy to pull all the last minute details together in the minutes before the service.

It got me thinking . . . why the distinct difference in experiences? It wasn’t the hearts of the volunteers. They both had hearts of gold. It wasn’t the equipment. Both churches had the equipment needed for excellent services.

As I dug deeper into it the answer finally emerged. The difference wasn’t in what was happening on Sunday, but in what had happened long before we got to Sunday.

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3 Spiritual Growth Check-points Your Worship Team Needs

For this week’s Tuesday Morning Insight, I’m going to pull back the curtain a bit and invite you to experience one of my favorite parts of the Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Networks that I lead – the Q&A Call-in.

Throughout the course of the Coaching Network there are scheduled times to call in to ask questions and get direct feedback on things that are going on in your church.

Last week on one of my Coaching phone calls one of the worship leaders in the network asked a great question . . . “How do you ensure that your team members are growing spiritually?”

I bet you’ve asked the same question before in your ministry. While I don’t have all the answers to this question – there are probably as many ideas for how to do this as there are worship leaders – there are 3 important things that I do regularly. Read more