Live Talk with Dwayne Moore: Recent Episodes
NLW International
A weekly talk show presented by Next Level Worship International and broadcast live online and on satellite TV. Live Talk with Dwayne Moore: Biblical. Worship. Perspective.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne speaks with Josh Anders, Worship Pastor at The Pointe Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Josh shares his ministry journey and leadership principles he has learned along the way. Josh shares about his family, and how to balance the high demands of ministry and family life.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne welcomes pastor, speaker and author Dave Edwards to the show. Dave and Dwayne discuss tips on how to be a good communicator, Dave's new book called Life Verse, and a new discipleship program by Dave Edwards.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne Moore speaks with Pastor Wilson Bugembe, pastor of one of the fastest growing church in Uganda, The Worship House. Pastor Wilson shares his story of how God saved him from a life of homelessness and raised him up to be pastor of this large church.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne Moore shares an update from Zimbabwe about the first half of his month-long Africa training tour. He also shares a message that he gave in Germany about his new book HE. WE. THEY. : The Life-Altering Formula of the Model Prayer.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne Moore sits down with Henri Pretorius, on location in South Africa. Henri is a worship leader there, and Dwayne and Henri discuss their recent time of ministering together in Zambia, and also what worship ministry is like in South Africa.
This week Dwayne Moore sits down with Kenny Lamm, Worship Ministries Strategist for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, to discuss life and ministry. They discuss his Worship Leader Boot Camp curriculum, and also his article "Nine Reasons People Aren't Singing in Worship and What to Do About It".
In this week's episode, Dwayne Moore sits down with Josh Miller, who is the Worship Development Pastor at Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. They discuss his role at Saddleback, and the importance of developing worship leaders both on and off the stage.
In this episode, Dwayne Moore sits down with author, worship leader and coach Rich Kirkpatrick to discuss his latest book Mindblown: Unlock Your Creative Genius by Bridging Science and Magic. They also discuss his recent book The Six Hats of a Worship Leader.
In this episode, Dwayne Moore sits down with four participants from the Sponsorship Program with Next Level Worship International. Two pairs of sponsors and sponsored leaders share their experience with the program, and how God used this program to build up leaders and develop relationships.
In this episode, Dwayne Moore sits down with Roger Breland, the founder of the group Truth, and Executive Director of the Roger Breland Center for Performing Arts at the University of Mobile in Alabama.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne Moore sits down with veteran worship pastor and author Ray Jones. Ray shares how he is devoting time to training the next generation of worship leaders, especially in the area of discipleship.
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne welcome Steven Brooks to the show. Steven is the author of the book The Week That Changed the World: Daily Reflections on Holy Week. Steven walks us through the events of Holy Week in detail from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday!
This week on Live Talk with Dwayne Moore, Dwayne welcomes two very special guests. First, Dwayne speaks with John Bolin, Worship Pastor at Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy, TX. John informs us about the upcoming Music Houston conference in July, and explains why the worship-leading choir is so important in churches today.
Then, Dwayne speaks with Rory Noland, worship author and speaker. Rory's book "The Heart of the Artist" has been used by countless worship teams around the world. Rory and Dwayne talk about his new book, Transforming Worship.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne Moore welcomes Dr. Herb Armentrout, Worship Pastor at Broadmoor Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. Dr. Armentrout describes the multiple worship services in different styles taking place at Broadmoor, as well as how he challenges his Worship Ministry to take worship outside the walls of the church. He highlights a recent trip to an area prison and the amazing things God did during that trip
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne welcomes Suzanne Provagna, author of a new book called Better, Stronger, Wiser based on the book of Proverbs. Suzanne is a long time friend of Next Level Worship and has been on multiple mission trips with the team. She speaks about the relationships she has formed on these trips through the mentoring and sponsorship programs.
On this week's episode, Dwayne Moore speaks with Stephen Benham, President of MIWC (Music in Worship Cultures), a non-profit organization that supports the global church by equipping musicians, music leaders, and pastors for strengthening the worship life of their local congregations and reaching their communities with the good news that Jesus changes lives. Stephen shares how they are partnering with Next Level Worship International to send aid to Ukraine and help those Christians who are suffering during this difficult time in their country.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne Moore speaks with Pastor Wilson Bugembe, pastor of one of the fastest growing church in Uganda, The Worship House. Pastor Wilson shares his story of how God saved him from a life of homelessness and raised him up to be pastor of this large church.
On this episode of Live Talk, Dwayne Moore is joined by Pastor Shaun Pillay, Associate Pastor at Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL. Shaun speaks about church planting, and his journey from South Africa to be a missionary in the United States. Dwayne also shares an update on the situation in the Ukraine and a prayer time for the people there.
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne Moore welcome Dr. Johannes Schröder, teacher, conductor, and pastor from southern Germany. They discuss the state of worship in Germany today, the importance of choirs in worship, and his role as a professor at a seminary in Germany.
Join Dwayne Moore for another episode of Live Talk. This week, Dr. Sam Green joins Dwayne for a discussion about worship leader programs on the college campus. Dr. Green is the Worship Director at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, TN.
Join Dwayne Moore as he talks to Pastor Galen Huck, Lead Pastor at Cheyenne Hills Church in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and James Damey, Worship Pastor. They discuss ministry in the US Midwest, keeping your volunteers happy, and the importance of maintaining a good relationship between the Lead Pastor and Worship Pastor.
Live Talk Ep. 18 Scot Longyear In this episode of Live Talk, Dwayne Moore interviews Scot Longyear, pastor of Maryland Community Church in Indiana, and also one of our speakers at our upcoming REFOCUS Global Worship Retreat. This episode also features an interview with Elizabeth Spencer, our REFOCUS Host,
Join Dwayne Moore for another episode of Live Talk! This week, Dwayne shares a wealth of leadership development training that focuses on raising the lid on your team's potential, whether you are part of a church, a non-profit organization, or any other organization.
Join Dwayne Moore as he welcomes Pastor Curtiss Kanagy and his family to Live Talk. Curtiss and Robin Kanagy have been married for 26 years and have 2 children, a son Wynn married to Victoria, living in Maine and a daughter Breanna, a missionary in Mexico.
Join us for our first Live Talk of 2022! Dwayne Moore welcomes guest Donald Kutala, who is the Africa Director for NLW. They discuss their new book called "How To Move A Vision Forward."
Join Dwayne Moore as we rebroadcast our Christmas Praise Gathering from 2020, called "A Christmas Wrapped In Praise". This international celebration of praise includes praise of our Emmanuel from around the world!
This week on Live Talk Dwayne Moore shares an interview with Linda Sheha, one of our Next Level Worship community members and author of the book "Hold On No Matter What".
This week on Live Talk, Dwayne Moore sits down with pastor, author and speaker Dr. Constance Cherry. Dr. Cherry is the author of the book "The Worship Architect", and in this episode they discuss the new 2nd Edition of the book.
Join Dwayne Moore for this special edition of Live Talk, where we rebroadcast our Christmas Praise Gathering, which just took place on December 2nd, 2021. Join worshipers from all over the globe as we celebrate together, Emmanuel Moments: When God with Us became God In Us. Our special guest for this global online event will
Join Dwayne Moore for this episode of Live Talk. Dwayne Moore interviews long-time missionary and church planter, Mitchell Lawrence, about how to empower others and release them to do ministry and move a vision forward. Dawn Kelley also shares a devotional, and Dwayne shares some NLW Community News.
Join Dwayne Moore for this episode of Live Talk. Dwayne shares an interview with Dr. Clay Hallmark about a new church-wide Bible study on prayer called "HE. WE. THEY." Dwayne also shares a Biblical teaching on worship from Romans 12 that he recently taught to church leaders in Pakistan.
Join Dwayne Moore for this episode of Live Talk with special guest Scot Longyear. Scot is the lead pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in America. Scot talks about leadership issues facing church staff members today. You can more information and resources as Scot's website: https://scot-longyear-productions.square.site Dwayne also shares some Next Level Worship
Join host Dwayne Moore for another episode of Live Talk. This week Dr. Randy Norris joins Dwayne for a discussion of how his church blessed their pastors during Pastor Appreciation month. Then, Dawn Kelley from Next Level Worship interviews author and speaker Caris Snider about her new book, Anxiety Elephants for Tweens.
In this week's episode of The Heart of Worship Podcast, Dwayne invited Jon Tyner and Chris Mellon to join him for some reminiscing about their adventures and ministry time in Ethiopia. They share their unique experiences and perspectives about the incredible Christian believers and leaders in Ethiopia. They also share about
The “how” does not matter until we understand the “why." In this episode (which first aired on Radio Christian Voice in Zambia), John Martin uses Romans 12:1-2 to explain the “why” behind our worship of God. Why do we worship? Because of God’s marvelous grace and redemption!
Big announcement! We have just launched our very first weekly radio show! It airs every Monday morning at 3:40am Central USA time. You can listen to the livestream here: www.rcvoice.co.zm If you live in Zambia, you can listen to the live broadcast on these stations: Lusaka & Chipata 106.1 fmLstn/Ndola 98.9 fmKitwe 105.3 fmKapiri 101.1
Recently during one of our LEGACY Coaching sessions, Dwayne sat down with Stephen Moore, lead singer for Carrollton, to discuss songwriting with the online students. Here is part of that conversation... Live Coaching Interview with Stephen Moore As we start out tonight having a conversation about this let's set the stage by saying, trying to
[kc_row use_container="yes" _id="629447"][kc_column width="50%" _id="182162"][kc_column_text _id="48781"]. Excerpt from an interview with Dr. Herb Armentrout during one of our recent Worship Leader Coaching Sessions. Herb Armentrout: I love this. I'm fired up about sharing some things here. We know that worship is our first priority but born out of our passionate expression of worship, we must
Josh Anders: You know, a church like ours, we're a church of about 1100 on Sunday mornings. You got a lot of preferences. I mean, a lot. You do. You have a lot of preferences. You just have to learn, you have to have a foundation first of all, that you're never going to be
Herb Armentrout: One of the reasons it's so critical that we're have this, that we're worshiping in our heart. I hope I didn't communicate that we're approaching music in a slipshod fashion because we're all about doing things with excellence. But if there's not heart engagement, if there's not an expression of praise that's visible
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q&A podcast. My name is Dwayne Moore. Each week we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking.
Today our topic is how to challenge our worship team to grow spiritually during rehearsals. We have a special guest back with us today. His name is Herb Armentrout. Herb is the worship pastor at Broadmoor Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. He has become one of our dear friends and wonderful supporters of Next Level Worship. He, in fact, is one of our team members, and he uses our materials with his team, with his people that he mentors, so we invited Herb to come on as a guest with our coaching program with our coaching students just a few weeks ago. What you’re going to hear today is an excerpt from that coaching session. You’re going to love what Herb says. He’s so full of wonderful ideas, practical suggestions you don’t want to miss.
Before we start that excerpt, I want to put in a plug for our upcoming Worship Leader Coaching. You can join us for the next opportunity for coaching, which begins in September. Sign up at nextlevelworship.com, then click on the training tab and you can find out more information. Also, you’re going to want to come to our Worship Leader Intensive in October in Louisville. It’s going to be awesome, and we are so excited about the many people that are coming from different states to experience a powerful week together of growing and evaluating where we are and where God wants us to go in our ministries. So please go to our website, nextlevelworship.com. Click on the training tab, and you can see these different opportunities for growth.
And of course, there’s also our ReFOCUS Conference, which is in February in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. This year we have Laura Story, Tim Timmons, Dr. Vernon Whaley. I’ll be there speaking. It’s going to be incredible time. Don’t miss it. You can go to our website, find out about all of these opportunities.
With no further ado, here is Herb Armentrout talking about challenging our worship team and choir to grow spiritually through rehearsals.
Continual Worship
Herb: We remind folks regularly that Sunday worship is to be a celebration of God’s mighty works during the entire week. It’s not a once a week fix. And that continual repetition of just this idea…
Dwayne: Wow. Say that again. So you encourage your folks to understand the continual, that it’s continual in the praise.
Herb: Right. This is not … Sundays, or whenever your worship service, is not a one week fix, and so that is critical for us, and we … I will say too that we regularly talk about dangerous text, dangerous text, and I’ll often stop in the middle of the song that declares our allegiance to the Father, or desire to walk in His will, and just stop in the middle of the song and say, “Do you really know what you just …”
Dwayne: I love it. Yeah.
Herb: “This is what you just said.” And the Father’s here, and he heard everything you just said. So take a step back. And if you don’t mean it, don’t sing it. Just sit there till we get to the next anthem. If you do mean it, sing it like crazy or play it like crazy. So, we’re focused big time on the text of the songs, and we encourage that also in Praise band rehearsal and orchestra rehearsal, because a lot of times, as you’re going through chord charts or whatever, maybe you’re not as connected to the text, so we take time to talk through those texts and encourage all the groups to use those in their personal worship. And there’s something happens, too, if you’re practicing on your own for Sunday, maybe you focused on a song and you just sing it acapella or just play it to Lord in your personal worship time. Man, when you get to worship on Sunday, it’s full on. Then it’s just, it’s brimming over because you have spent time in the Lord’s presence.
Changing the Culture
Dwayne: Hey, I have a question. I know these other guys probably have some questions for you too. Man, you’ve been there for several years, think you said 19 years. So now it’s ingrained in the culture. Everyone expects you to take time to go for the text. You know, they’ve learned, they know. That’s what we’re going to do when we come to our rehearsal at Broadmoor Church, we’re going to take time to look at the text. But I know when I went to Louisville, it took a while for them to change from the culture just running and gunning, running in there and rehearsing and just getting the chord chart rights and then leaving. We hear all this and we want to jump out there and do it tomorrow.
How long did it take you? I mean, I know it’s been a while now, but you may remember. I mean, did it take … Did you walk in and like six months turned this thing around, or was it already like that when you got there? Because these are things that all of us wish we were doing more of, but the reality is, we’re probably not doing them all, and how long does it take for one to really ingrain some of these things into your people?
Herb: I would say that the things I’m describing are done in small doses, and they’re woven into the fabric of the rehearsal. These are not… It’s not like, oh, now this is what we’re doing now. A lot of times we’ll often start with prayer, but these other things are just kind of woven in, and not all of it are prescribed, if that makes sense. And I think that kind of variety and the way that we do these things brings about an openness.
Rehearsals
The rehearsal is quick paced, but even the rehearsal itself, folks want to feel like their time is well spent. They also want to, when we finish a song, they want to talk to the person next to them because they hadn’t seen them since four days, and so they’re catching up, but then they want … There needs to be a spiritual reward in all this because that’s the reason they’re primarily there, is because they want to be in God’s presence and they want to worship and they want to be a part of making music with a group of people, whatever group it is.
The worship choir is hour and a half. I don’t direct the orchestra, but they do meet for about the same period of time, and occasion I’d go in there. High school choir is an hour and 15 minutes, and then I work with some other groups, singing ministers and stuff. So I guess the shortest period of time I have with any group is probably an hour, something like that. So it’s not very long, but you still got to get through the music, and I think that’s the … at the heart of the issue is the understanding that music ministry is not about music first, it’s about people. So if your quest is to make perfect music, you’re going to leave people in the dust.
We do occasional book studies, and these have been great. We’ve used certainly Pure Praise. Rory Noland’s … I know, I’m sure you’ve talked about this, Dwayne. Rory Noland’s book on Heart of the Artist. And I would say a brand new book that has just … I’m just starting in it, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to do it at some point, is called How to Ruin Your Life, and it’s by Eric Geiger. It’s just … I don’t know if any of you guys have heard of this.
Well, it’s a story, essentially, of King David, and it’s an implosion of integrity and his life, but man, you talk about direct to us, primarily leaders, whether it’s worship leaders and pastors or leaders in any area of business or whatever, even a family leader. It just talks a lot about setting up guidelines in your life for everything, not just one particular section, but how to avoid this implosion that seems to be sometimes an epidemic proportion of … in this epidemic of loss of integrity.
We do a group prayer time. Different ways that we pray, we have prayer partners for short periods of time, and we’ll just assign those because we want folks to get to know other people. Always men with men and women with women. We’ve also done something kind of crazy with secret partners where we will assign folks someone there to pray for, but not tell them who it is, and then they will also bring a gift every Wednesday for a month to this, and just put it on their chair. Then at the end they meet each other. The only danger is if you got some losers who don’t buy in, and nobody gets a gift. You know what I mean? If you’ve got somebody just doesn’t buy in, it’s kind of tough.
Structuring Care
Then in our high school choir, we have teams where the kids rotate through their sponsor teams. We have care group leaders in all of these. And I think maybe to answer that question regarding vestment is, our care group leaders and all of our teams really carry out a good bit of spiritual and emotional care because it’s just the way families work. A large family, you’ve got people assigned to care for other people, and then that shepherding is shared, so you’re developing within these folks who are already committed. You’re sharing leadership responsibility and they’re growing.
So you’re kind of building a framework of leadership that’s strong spiritual leadership around you, because wherever we’re serving, we’re there temporarily. And so if we’ve built a structure of strong spiritual leadership that’s shared, man, that helps your folks feel like they’re invested in something that matters. A family is of such high importance right now, folks scattered.
One of the things that we do in terms of just celebrating is recognizing, in our rehearsals and the time that we have together, is that God is at work, and we do brief testimonies on our choir tours, and also [inaudible 00:10:37] choir where we … It starts with, “I saw God, I saw God doing this.” So we celebrate that, and then finally, in this section, I would … God stories. We have people submit God stories on the memo, on their phone. “My name is,” and it’s 90 seconds long, “and this is how I saw God intervene in this situation.” They send it in, then we can play it back with just a picture of theirs. We’ve done that at worship. So for those folks who are paralyzed by having a camera on them, they’ll talk and we give them a little outline. This is the problem, this is God’s intervention. and this is how He’s bringing glory to Himself now.
Dwayne: Well, once again, Herb Armentrout has challenged us and helped us with some wonderful ideas, incredible ideas, of how to grow our group spiritually. We’re going to have Herb on again with our podcasts, so you don’t want to miss the next episode of the Worship Q&A podcast.
If you have a question that you would like us to answer, please send us your question at office@nextlevelworship.com. I hope you have a wonderful week in your church and within your family. Thanks.
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Dwayne Moore: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q & A podcast. I’m Dwayne Moore. Each week we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking.
Today our topic is, How Do We Shepherd Our Team? We have a wonderful guest here today to tell us how to do that, and he is certainly one that’s doing that extremely well at his church. His name is Herb Armentrout. Herb is the worship pastor at Broadmoor Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. Herb was our guest for a coaching session a few weeks ago where he taught our students about shepherding their group, mentoring, as well as how to do missional worship outside the walls. We’re gonna bring you an excerpt from that coaching session today, specifically with Herb answering the question, How Can I Shepherd My Group?
Before Herb joins us, let me encourage you to join our next phase of coaching. It begins in September, and we will continue to have special guests in, like Herb and others and we will learn how to make an impact within our church and within our community to grow, not only our team, but more importantly, to grow disciples and the Kingdom of God. Please, go to our website, NextLevelWorship.com, click on the training tab to sign up to be a part of our coaching.
Another thing that you need to check out and we’d love for you to be a part of is our worship leader intensive. We call it the Reimagine Intensive, which will be held in Louisville in October of this year. It is a five-day event that, I promise you … in fact, I guarantee you, that it will impact your ministry for years to come. Please consider joining us for that. Go to our website, NextLevelWorship.com, and click on the training tab and there you will also see information about, The Intensive. Here is Herb, talking to us today about shepherding our group.
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Herb Armentrout: We need to start foundationally, in terms of being a good shepherd. We’ve got to spend time with the Good Shepherd. It’s always what we say foundationally just to be a spiritual encourager for the folks that are entrusted to us. We first have to be connected to Christ vitally, because we know we can’t produce living water out of a spiritually speaking, out of a dry well. I think for me it comes back to just some foundational things. Number first … number one, just praying daily and reading God’s word, utilizing a devotion book. One of the things that really helps me a whole lot in terms of just connecting with folks in our ministry has to do with praying for them, by name. We use prayer request cards in some of the rehearsals that I do where folks submit a prayer request card with their name and their specific prayer request.
Then I take that and I pray for it, and send out an email to the rest of our musical family, whatever it is. A choir or an orchestra, and then taking time to ask them when I see them how God has provided, or what kind of answer he has brought in regard to their specific request? Lets them know that I care deeply about them, and spiritually connected to them. Another thing that’s been a tremendous help in terms of shepherding is memorizing scripture. Changes my heart and then it’s really speaking from a worship pastors perspective, constant memorization of scripture, really negates, almost the idea of being creative in verbal segues and worship leadership because it’s at the ready. I mean you don’t have to be creative and come up with something clever to say you just use scripture.
I’m then I would say, foundationally, for me, too, in terms of being a good shepherd is just to work to be in a bible study or a small group and not one that I’m not leading, because I’m constantly being dead, so and then I have an accountability partner who will ask all the hard questions. I’m just talking about foundational things here in terms of being spiritually responsible as a leader.
One thing I think that really helps, and I’m gonna connect back to this later, is to have a personal mission field, outside the scope of your music ministry. For me, that, and you know, I think when we ate together, literally we will ask waiters or waitresses in restaurants where we frequent how we can pray for them? And so we’ve begun to build a mission field, really in a simple way, in restaurants. And then running and swimming groups. In point of fact it’s hard to be, really encouraging our people to be on mission with integrity if we’re not on mission. These are just some foundational things that I jotted down in regard to discipleship and ministry is that kind of … We’re headed in the right direction?
It’s a constant deal for all of us. In terms of shepherding or discipling or mentoring or team encouragement, however, maybe we would title this, I would say a big key, first of all is to understand that music is a means of ministry and it’s not the end game. And for musicians it’s important to remember that musical perfection does not equal successful ministry. It just, it doesn’t equate. The useful, first of all, in terms of mentoring to start closest to home, because if you blow it with your family you’ve failed in ministry at the most fundamental level. So set up boundaries.
And then the discipleship at a basic level, to me, is a kind of a two-way deal. In terms of mentoring that we have somebody who mentors us. And God provides these people for us, certainly. Someone to pour into our life with wisdom and counsel and for me that’s Larry Heslip, who’s education minister at Tallowood Baptist in Houston. A friend for 35 years, and I can call him and he’ll tell me the truth, and he’ll guide and whether it’s in the same way, turn that around and constantly be asking God for folks that you can mentor.
That can be individuals in your ministry or small group. For me, occasionally I work with a small group of young men doing just mentoring them. Just in basic preacher principles and then occasionally doing mentoring with a group of young worship leaders. In fact, I used Pure Grace the last time we went through a mentoring group and that was a great, great study for these young worship pastors here in Shreveport. And then other groups would include maybe a worship team? Or praise band, or music staff or choir or orchestra. These are folks that we have an opportunity to encourage and mentor and guide spiritually. I think it’s important, maybe to be intentional in our discipleship, because the way that we disciple? The way that we mentor and encourage? Trickles down.
And it’s an enormous responsibility when you consider the fact that in these rehearsals, this time that we share with our team a lot of the principles that we’re utilizing or the things that we’re sharing, many times make their way into homes. Or into other ministry groups. Or, so putting forth that we’re intentional in this … In our rehearsals we begin with a prayer time, but it’s usually pretty brief. We really utilize, because our folks are so busy that if we allow folks, a lot of people to share individual prayer requests in our rehearsal settings? That can take most of the time-
For rehearsal so we ask folks to write those down and then at the end we lift those up and we also post them so everybody can pray through those in emails through the week. Because most of the time we’ll have some type of devotional thought. In choir we utilize our choir officers. Sometimes I’ll do it. And I’ll … most of the time if I’m doing it I’m connecting it to worship music. Either that will be in the rehearsal or in the upcoming Sunday’s worship set. Often we use worship songs as a part of our warmup and we’re not doing those songs to rehearse. We’re doing those songs to begin to worship.
Our preparation for worship, not just technical, because if we begin to kind of open up our hearts and we do that in a variety of ways. Sometimes we pray in pairs. Sometimes it just depends on what’s going on in people’s lives. A lot of time you can sense it. I think if there’s a spiritual sensitivity to what’s going on in the room? A lot of times God, I think, will give you an awareness as to how begin a rehearsal in a way that will help folks connect to the Lord. So, if … we do it in different ways, different Wednesdays and different Sundays when we have these rehearsals, because every week’s different.
You can look in people’s eyes and sometimes people are just hanging on? You know? They come straight from work to these rehearsals and straight from work they haven’t eaten dinner or sometimes there’s … there’s a lot of heaviness.
It just depends. We spend a lot of time talking about heart preparation for our weekend worship services.
I’ll write our Grace Notes. Our newsletter is called, Grace Notes. I’ll often choose one song from the worship set to zero in on that and I’ll do some studying too … Maybe the background of the composer or the story of the hymn or worship song. That kind of helps people begin to think about that.
And then I encourage everybody in the worship teams to choose one song during our midweek rehearsal to focus in on for the balance of the week. Sometimes during the rehearsal I’ll invite folks to just share what this song has done for them, because most of these songs the-choir and praise team works so they rehearse. They’ve been working on it for weeks, so God’s begun to do many times a work for them and then they’ll connect, maybe with one song, come to the altar. Whatever the song is. They’ll grab hold of that and God’s spirit’s doing a work in them so they’re kind of eager sometimes to say, “Hey, I gotta tell you. This week we experienced some loss in our family and this song that we’ve been singing for four weeks now just, I’ve just camped there.” Then we remind folks, regularly, that Sunday worship is to be a celebration of God’s mighty works during the entire week. It’s not a once a week fix.
Dwayne Moore: So thankful for what Herb has shared with us today. I know that it has encouraged you, and perhaps convicted you in the same way it did me and our students with our coaching session when he joined us a few weeks ago. Please, let us know how we can pray for you. Send us an email at, Office@nextlevelworship.com. And, also, let us know if there’s a topic you would like us to address here on The Worship Q & A Podcast. Thank you, again, so much for joining us today. Have a wonderful week.
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Hello everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q&A Podcast. I'm Dwayne Moore. In this podcast, we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking.
Today, we have Tony Guerrero (TonyGuerrero.com) back with us for the second week in row in our podcast. I love Tony. I loved the time he spent with our coaching students just a couple of weeks ago, and we are now offering some segments of that teaching, that live teaching here on our podcast. Today, Tony will be teaching on how to attract quality musicians into your worship ministry. You're going to love this teaching. It's so practical; it's so helpful.
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Before we feature Tony and that teaching, let me encourage you to sign up for our coaching program. We begin a new phase of coaching in September, that will go September, October and November–10 weeks. You can be a part of that. You can join from anywhere in the world. Join us online every week as we meet together and we grow together as worship leaders. So, don't miss that. Be sure to go to our website at nextlevelworship.com and click on the training tab, and then you can find out more information about our coaching program.
Now, here's Tony speaking on how to attract quality musicians…
Tony Guerrero: I'm going to talk about four little factors that I address in my book that I believe need to be present, but let me start by saying this. If you're sitting in your church office wondering why musicians aren't just clamoring to be in your program, you're making a huge mistake by first just sitting in your office. Remember I talked about all those club musicians who are playing on Saturday night? If you're not going out and finding the musicians in your community and letting them know that you exist … Here's another way I put it. Before you go on your next mission trip to whatever country, to Hawaii, before you take your next mission trip, recognize that you're a musician and one of your primary mission fields is in your neighborhood to the musicians in your community.
So, here's another question you can ask. Do the musicians who live in my town, outside of the ones who are in my church, do they even know I exist? Do they know my name? Do they know me at all? Have they ever met me? Have I ever gone to see them play? Do I have any relationship with the musicians in my community? If the answer is no, then you sitting in your office waiting for them to come in is the totally wrong way to go about that. You need to go out and start meeting those musicians, letting them know that you're a musician, letting them know what you do every week. Now, obviously some environments are not ideal for all of us to be in, but how great if you're at some restaurant where there's live music, and there's a whole table of people from the church cheering on this great guitar player? Eventually you're going to meet that guy. He's going to wonder who this table is that's so enthusiastic and clapping after all of his solos. There's going to be a relationship built there.
What a great mission field that is for you to go out and start meeting those people. So, I almost regret the title of my book being Attracting Quality Musicians, because there are things we can do to attract them, but it leaves out what's such a key thing is that we also should be going out and getting them.
Four Important Factors
In terms of attracting them, if that musician walks into your church for the first time, I believe there's at least these four things that need to be in place.
- Quality The first one is the quality factor which is a lot of what we're talking about. The fact is quality musicians want to be a part of quality music. So, if a great drummer walks in and you've got a band up there who can barely hold it together, there's not a whole lot of impetus for him to get in. Here's the thing. He may be very ministry minded and say, “I'm going to dive in and help these guys.” That's great, but that's not you attracting them. So, the question is how do you attract them? So, if you've got this team up there that's not performing at a certain level, that drummer may be totally fine. He's totally within his right and spiritually okay to just choose to sit in the pews every Sunday and not be a part of your team. I think we often put pressure on musicians who are sitting in the congregation, but there's a lot of reasons why they may not be a part of the ministry, but this could be one also is that it's not fun to make bad music. That's a really easy way to put it. It's not fun to make bad music.
Some of that ties in to how you use the musicians you do have. Like you mentioned one of these people was just getting started with their ministry, and one of the things the great Duke Ellington used to do, Duke Ellington was one of the great band leaders of the last century. When you look at a Duke Ellington big band score which is 13 to 18 instruments, it doesn't say first trumpet, second trumpet, third trumpet. Instead it says, “Cat Anderson, Cootie Williams.” It lists the names of the players. The reason is because when he would write music, he would write based on knowing what each of those players could do, and he would write that into the score.
So, if you're arranging your music for the band that you have, and you're expecting a bass player who is very limited or only has been playing a couple years, and you're expecting them to play some heavy duty gospel bass thing, they'll never sound good doing that. If you have an orchestra, and you want to write this great arrangement that has the trumpet going up to high D's and E's and F's, and your trumpet player is a high school kid who can't play above a high A, it's never going to sound good. So, knowing what you have and learning to arrange the music for the players you have so that they sound the best they can sound–that's also a quality issue is to serve up your band in the best light.
- Fun The second factor I would mention is the fun factor which we kind of talked about with the jam session thing, but let's face it. Any adult musician who's playing an instrument, when you're a kid you might be forced to play an instrument by your parents, but anybody who chooses to play an instrument does it for one reason only, and that's because it's fun. That's why any musician that's chosen it for a living, they chose it because it's fun. Not because it's going to make them a ton of money.
So, playing music is supposed to be fun. If being on your team isn't fun and there's a lot of aspects that go with that, and I don't mean throwing a party every weekend, but if it's a drag to be on your team because you're a surly tired leader or you're unorganized or the music is old and never changing or whatever it is that could make it un-fun, and you all know what those things are, those are things that have to change.
You as a leader are responsible for keeping the energy up of your team. That comes from making sure that they're having fun. Things like the jam session. Things like doing special music. All these kinds of things that you can do.
- Leadership The third one is the leadership factor. Great musicians are attracted to great leaders. That's plain and simple. There's a lot of things again that we're just touching on but things that will make you a great leader, and great musicians don't have to be led by somebody who's a better musician than them, but they want to be led by a great leader. So, that's really up on your role. That's all about your role.
Miles Davis was by all accounts a horrible person in a lot of ways. Not a very pleasant person to be around, but every great musician wanted to be in his band and they would drop anything they were doing to be part of his band because he knew how to lead them musically and get them to this level. That's what great musicians want is they want to be taken to the next level. So, that's something you need to be doing as a leader.
Again, seeing a leader who's let's say not as good of a musician as me let's say, and I go into your situation, I recognize he's not at my level yet, or vice versa. If I'm the leader and somebody comes in and they're better than me, just recognizing that that leader is somebody who is committed to growth and committed to improving and sees that as a value, all that kind of thing is really important.
- Creativity The last one is the creative fulfillment factor. So, that idea of turning over an arrangement to a different musician, so you're not the only person calling all the shots. I would say this: If there's more than one person on your team, meaning not just you. If there's two, three, four, 10, 20 people on your team, that means you have that many creative minds. I believe everybody is creative.
What's the very first thing we know God did? We see the act of creation. Then the next thing they tell us is that we're created in his image. That means every single human being is created. So, it's not just the musicians, not just the artists. Everybody is creative because we're created in his image. So, when you have 20 people on your team, whatever the number is, and you're the only one calling all the creative shots, that's a crime to me because there's all this creativity that's going unused.
So, to start giving out that creativity, here's a great quote. It's not from me. It's actually from pastor Rick Warren. He said, and if you want to write this down it's a good one, he said, “When you give authority with responsibility, you'll be amazed at the creativity of your people.” When you give authority with responsibility, you'll be amazed at the creativity of your people.
So, I love that because to give away, as the leader, the creative authority is set in you. That's yours. It's yours to use and it's also yours to give it away. So, to give away creative control to a song, to an arrangement, to something, give away that control. Now, with that comes responsibility. Let's say that bass player is going to do an arrangement of a song. He has a responsibility of knowing your team, knowing your congregation, knowing what will work in there. There's responsibilities that come with that, but when you do that and it becomes a symbiotic relationship that way, you'll be amazed at how much creativity is on your team. To find a way to unleash that.
So, here's a big thing. I said everybody is creative. Musicians, artists, actors are hyper-creative. So, to attract a musician, a musician who has the opportunity to join two different teams, one of them that has creative fulfillment attached to it, they're going to choose that every single time. Make sure that you are allowing for the creativity of your team.
Dwayne Moore: Wow. I really appreciate what Tony shared with us today. I love those simple points that we can use in our ministries to attract or even, as he said, go out and find more musicians. I especially love his emphasis on going out into the highways and byways if you will and being a missionary in to our community with musicians.
Well, thank you for joining us today. If you have a question you want us to answer here on the podcast, please email us at office[at]nextlevelworship.com. We will do our best to get your question answered. Thanks again. Look forward to seeing you next week.
Join our award-winning Coaching Program with Dwayne Moore! Our LEGACY Phase starts in September of 2018! Go HERE for more information. [/kc_column_text][/kc_column][/kc_row][kc_row use_container=”yes” _id=”576531″][kc_column width=”50%” _id=”367884″][/kc_column][kc_column width=”50%” _id=”19201″][/kc_column][/kc_row]
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Tony Guerrero, long-time music director at Saddleback Church in California, is our guest today on the Worship Q&A podcast. This is an excerpt from Dwayne's interview with him during one of Dwayne's recent coaching sessions. Enjoy! [/kc_column_text][/kc_column][kc_column width=”50%” _id=”194535″][kc_single_image image_size=”full” _id=”425876″ image_source=”media_library” image=”8642″][/kc_column][/kc_row][kc_row use_container=”yes” _id=”808102″][kc_column width=”12/12″ video_mute=”no” _id=”654149″][kc_column_text _id=”808105″]
Dwayne Moore: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q & A podcast. I’m Dwayne Moore. We try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking.
Today we have a very special guest with us, Tony Guerrero, in fact we’re gonna take a snippet from and interview that I did with Tony on our coaching call this past week with our coaching students in our worship leader coaching program. He’s going to be challenging us and answering the question of why is excellence important in our worship services. You’re gonna love what he has to say, I believe.
Tony knows what he’s talking about. Tony was the music director at Saddleback Church in California for over eleven years. Tony knows his stuff. He plays with the likes of Dick Van Dyke and John Tesh, actress Jane Lynch. He’s arranged for many, well known artists. He’s been on Billboard’s Top Ten with his music. He’s even performed at the Grammy’s.
Tony Guerrero (TonyGuerrero.com) is a great guy to listen to and get to know, and we are very excited that he joined us for our coaching network session this past week, and we’re gonna bring just a little bit of that conversation to you today.
Before we do though, I want to encourage you to consider our coaching program. We’re gonna begin a new phase of coaching in September. So you don’t want to miss what we call the LEGACY phase of coaching. There will be ten weeks of meeting together. Learning how to grow our group, but also develop those outside our group and prepare them to be in our group in the future. It’s really developing the soil, building into the soil around the plant if you will, preparing for a great harvest in the future for our worship ministry as well as the church and more importantly the kingdom of God. So I hope you can join us for that. It sounds real big picture, but I promise you it’s very practical.
We will again have guests in like we have for this phase, and so please join us for that. You can go to our website, nextlevelworship.com, click on the training tab, and you can learn more about our coaching program.
Also, you don’t wanna miss our worship leader intensive in Louisville, Kentucky this coming October 2018. You definitely don’t want to miss that phenomenal opportunity for five days of personal customized coaching and evaluation, and encouragement and direction, and you’re gonna get all of that plus so much more if you will sign up and be a part of our ReIMAGINE Worship Leader Intensive. So I hope you can come to be a part of that. Again, go to our website, nextlevelworship.com and click on the training tab, and you will see more information you can find out about the intensive.
Well, let’s get on to that session just this past week with Tony as he now answers the question for us, why is quality important in our worship services each week?
Tony Guerrero: You had asked if quality is important and I have a lot … I think the bible has a lot to say about that. One of my favorite verses on the subject is first Corinthians, 14:7 where it says,
“Even in the case of lifeless things that make sound, such as the pipe or the harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? Again if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?”
So I think there is a huge responsibility on us as musicians that we need to sound a clear call and I know for a fact, this coming Sunday a large number of churches are not going to be sounding a very clear call musically and there will be people in that congregation who desperately need to be in church and need to hear that message, who heard better music at the bar last night. You don’t want the music to be bad enough that it’s distracting from the message. I think that’s really obvious, obviously.
Our Best For me it’s not about everybody needs to be as good of a guitar player as say Phil Keaggy, or as good of a drummer as Vinnie Colaiuta, or name who it is, but that we each individually have a responsibility to be our best and the challenge is, every week when you show up to church, are you able to say that not only this Sunday am I giving my best to God, but during the week and the preparation, and in the improving of my skill did I give my best to God.
I think that’s again, where a lot of us, if we honestly look at ourselves, myself included, that’s not something that I can answer yes to every week. I think that’s where a lot of that definition comes for me. It’s not that God expects you to be the best guitar player, he expects you to be your best guitar player for where you are at your life in that moment with all the opportunity he’s given you, the time you’ve had, all of that. That you have used that to improve that skill.
Here’s the great and horrible thing about playing an instrument, and that is that you will never, ever master your instrument. None of us ever will. Yo-yo Ma has not mastered the cello and so for as long as we live, until our very last breath there is always room for improvement on our instrument, in our voice, whatever it is. Always room for improvement.
Always Growing So I always challenge people, especially those who are on staff or in leadership, to ask yourself this question and ask it often, am I better now as a musician than I was when I took the job? Or am I better now than I was six months ago?
When you start really looking at that question, and here’s another way to ask that too. Will the people on my team, would they answer that I’m a better musician now? Even if I’m the best musician on my team, would they have seen a marked improvement in me from the time they met me til now, in terms of my skill, my musical ability, my styles, my whatever it is, reading music.
So I feel that all of us who are in music ministry, in leadership especially, we have a responsibility to continually learn, and grow, and improve on our instruments. We should be setting the example and setting the pace for continuing to take private lessons, continuing to learn new harmony things, new music theory, whatever it is to continue to grow. Who wants to sit under a pastor who stopped growing 20 years ago when he left seminary? None of us want that. It should … It’s the same with us as musicians.
We have a huge responsibility to continue to grow on our instruments, and if you’re in leadership, you’d better be setting the bar high for the rest of your team ’cause that’s the example that they have to look at. Early one of the things I like about that verse earlier that talks about a clear battle cry from the trumpet, is I love the story about Jericho and the priest marching around Jericho and I actually talk about that a lot in different classes and it’s a longer story I like to talk about, but in a nutshell, the fact that the priests with the trumpets were in front of the army and they were the only ones allowed to make a sound.
Battle Cry What an awesome role we have as musicians, that we’re the ones that are sounding the battle cry for this spiritual war and that’s what that verse is talking about when it’s talking about the warfare. That’s us.
Okay, I’m gonna back track and I’m gonna tell a little bit of the story I like to tell.
So I in 1990, I think ’89, in this country of Panama, the United States was trying to overtake Manuel Noriega, this general, this dictator from there and he holed himself up in the Vatican embassy and so we couldn’t just go in and take him, although we had all the firepower, all the personnel to do that. So we camped around, what our army did, is they camped around the Vatican and surrounded it and they put loud speakers on top of the tanks and the humvees and just started blasting rock music towards the Vatican embassy. Just not incessantly, non-stop, rocking the casbah.
I don’t know what music they were playing, but just loud rock and roll, 24 hours a day, constantly, and part of that was to jam the communications, but can you imagine being Noriega inside the Vatican, the embassy, knowing that this army is around surrounding you and you can’t sneak out, but not only that, they’re taunting you with this music.
Can you imagine hour, after hour, how it must have rattled your nerves? Well when I look at that story of Jericho how at Jericho where he was told don’t go in, I’m gonna give you the city, but don’t go into the city, don’t just go in and take it. You’re gonna camp out for seven days, and you’re gonna march around. The only sound I want to hear is those trumpets blowing.
Can you imagine being in the walls of Jericho, knowing you’re surrounded by and army and all you hear is these vultures of trumpets circling you, like how it must have rattled the nerves of the people in Jericho?
Then I apply that to that verse about us getting ready for warfare and getting ready for battle, when we do that, when we make a sound on our instrument in the name of the Lord, we’re rattling the nerves of the enemy. What an incredible responsibility has been given to use when we’re thinking we’re just playing this happy little tune. We’re actually, we have the power to rattle the nerves of the enemy and let him know this city is ours, we get to take this, God’s going to win this. And this is your battle. This is the battle cry for that.
So that’s who we are as musicians, and if we’re not taking that responsibility seriously, like do you think those trumpet players marching around Jericho had never picked up a horn, or haven’t weren’t prepared for that?
Know Your Role So I think that this whole conversation for me starts with recognizing the role we have as musicians and not subjugating it just to some side thing that adds sparkle to a worship service, or to a church morning service, or just welcomes people in, or just is something of them finish their coffee to. What we do is incredibly meaningful in the kingdom. God makes that very clear in scripture in how he uses music, and so we have to embrace that. When we start to embrace that, it becomes a little less easy for us to just show up Sunday without having touched our horn all week.
I do like to set the table with that, because that for me, if I’m working with a worship team, I want that to be that starting point. Non of this matters if you don’t recognize who you are right now in the kingdom. I have mostly harsh words for leaders because I feel like we often let ourselves go being unchallenged, and I think a lot of the issues or the problems that worship teams face stem from leadership. So I love addressing leaders because I think that’s where the change happens.
So when you say to go in and part that role or that type of spiritual significance, that is our job as leaders, is we need to impart that onto our teams. We need to set the bar for improving on our instruments. We need to be the ones showing up on time. We need to be the ones who are organized. We need to be the top of the mark on all of these areas, if we are in leadership, and that’s where I would challenge any leader. It’s like those, you’ve got to be questioning yourself on all of these things constantly.
Dwayne Moore: Well that was a powerful, clarion call from Tony Guerrero, to us as worship leaders, those of us who lead others in worship each week. We will have Tony back again, next week in our podcast to challenge us again as leaders of worship. Thank you for joining us today for the Worship Q & A podcast. If you want us to answer a question that you have, please submit your question at office@nextlevelworship.com. Have a great week. Thanks.
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The following is a transcript from this week’s Worship Q&A Podcast. Please go here to subscribe to our weekly podcast for worship leaders and pastors. Dwayne Moore: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q&A podcast. I’m Dwayne Moore. We try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking. Today our guest is a dear friend of mine and also a part of our staff at Next Level Worship International. His name is Jordan Hutton, and he will be talking to us today about culture change on our worship teams.
Before he joins us I want to put a shameless plug in for an event we have coming up in October of this year. It’s called the ReIMAGINE Worship Intensive. We’ve done these several times in different cities.
This year we will be in Louisville, Kentucky. You want to go to our Web site to nextlevelworship.com/reimagine and check out this five day event that I promise you will impact your ministry perhaps more than anything you’ve ever been a part of has. We say that because that’s what we’ve heard from so many people who have come to these intensives in the past. We don’t sit in a classroom all day. No. We get out and we go to different churches. We talk to different worship leaders. We also walk through a process of evaluation of our own ministries. It’s very customized just for you so you can focus on your team and get alone with God and pull away and hear what the Lord may be saying to you about how you can adjust your ministry for the next months and years to come. So I can’t build this up enough. This is one of the most incredible events that we offer at Next Level Worship. Please go to our Web site and check that out.
Now I want to introduce to you Jordan Hutton. We love Jordan. He is a worship pastor in Scottsburg, Indiana. He’s doing a great job there. He is also our missions director and a lead team member at Next Level Worship. He’s prepping right now for our August mission trip. It’s a big job as we take a whole team of people and we go in for a full week and we train over 100 worship leaders from multiple countries. And so that is what Jordan is working on right now. So he’s a busy guy. Between his church work and this he stays very busy. Jordan not only helps us with missions he’s also an encourager in our coaching program and from time to time he’s a guest in our classes. So Jordan welcome.
Jordan Hutton: Hey Dwayne, it’s great to be here with you today as well. Just looking forward to sharing a little bit today. And it was great to be in the coaching class last week. Really really cool to see so many different people from different places all joining together online and I’ll kind of plug it for you real quick if that’s OK. I would love to invite anyone that’s interested in having some one on one coaching, some group coaching together where we can learn from each other. Definitely check out what an NLW is doing. This coaching network is really neat. And I got to see it last week and I got to see it before as well being a guest speaker before. And it’s just a really really powerful thing and encouraging thing and I know that it will build you up and send you out to go and serve your church as a more equipped leader in a better place to serve with all of your heart, to love God with all of your heart and to love others. So definitely check out that coaching experience. And if you’re interested in that I’m sure Dwayne can hook you up.
Dwayne: Oh thanks man. I appreciate that.
Jordan: So I wanted to take just a snippet of that coaching class. We talked for quite a long time. So one of the things that I thought might be impactful to share and it’s just the thing that I’ve been trying to do in my own ministry and my own church and that’s to build culture change and we talked extensively about it like I said. But I wanted to just highlight three things that I think are important and things that I can do every week to build culture change within my church and really within my worship team and really figure out where we’re going as a team and as a church and how we’re going to accomplish that. And so there are three things that come to mind when I think about how can I build culture change.
Cast Vision to Key Leaders The first is that I’ve got to do is cast vision to individuals and that’s only going to happen as I build relationships with individuals.
Dwayne: That sounds good. Well how do you cast vision among your team?
Jordan: So I cast vision to individuals. That happens lunches, breakfast at Burger King. That happens over meetings where we get to talk. Sometimes it just happens through friendship. As I build a relationship with the team that I’m working with and really get to know them and begin to love them and to serve them and to just realize that we’re all doing this together. As that relationship forms and build and you know that I’ve only been at my church for about six months so that’s a process that I’m trying to do a lot right now, as I build those relationships I can cast vision to individuals. And I think as individuals pick up where we’re going it’s really important to the overall corporate vision and that’s what I’ll say next.
Cast Vision Corporately The second thing is not just talking to individuals but I’ve got to cast vision corporately. And so one of the things I’m doing right now is I try to send out a weekly e-mail, really simple message and I send it to my whole group once a week and it just has some things in it. So maybe it has some prayer requests because I want to build a culture of team members that really genuinely care for one another and support each other and so I can throw out some prayer requests for some people in our team that have some needs. I can throw out some ideas of where we’re going this coming weekend in our Sunday service. I can throw some things to be praying for for our church. But these e-mails once a week just help us have this team unity and help us understand that we’re not just looking 10 years ahead but we’re really weekly daily working this out and what are some things we can do this week. So I try to send an email once a week.
So the second thing that I’m doing this summer as a group corporately with my team is to do a Bible study together. So we’re using the book Pure Praise and it’s a nine week study. It’s going to take us just this summer to get through. And so we just started that this week actually so we’ve been ramping up for that and getting ready for it. This week we start a Pure Praise Bible study and we have small groups that are going to begin next week and they’ll be talking about week one, next week. And so that’s helping build this culture of change because I feel like we have to have a foundation of God’s word before we can really go anywhere. And so we have to really understand what worship even is in the first place. And we have to do that as a team. So there may be individuals that feel really confident in that and there may be individuals that don’t. But as a team we’ve got to come together and really study God’s word and figure out why we do what we do. And so I think corporately it’s important for us to do things together. A couple of ways that I’m doing that are e-mails, Bible studies, and things that we can all do as a team, as a group.
Pray for Your Team The third thing that I have to do every week and really every day to build a culture change in my ministry and my church is to pray. And that sounds kind of like a church word and it is but it’s so important. It’s so important. We have to be praying for our team. We have to be praying for God’s vision. It would be so easy for me to come in–I’ve been here for six months–and try to go my own directions and do what I think would be cool. But I’ve got to really pray for God’s leading and every step’s got to be directed by him. So I’ve got to be praying for my team. I’ve got to be praying for God’s vision. It’s something that I’ve got to do every day.
Those are just some things that I’m doing right now to try to build culture change. And you know depending on where you’re at and what your culture is right now and where you want to go I just encourage you to figure out some steps that you can do with individuals. Figure out some steps that you can take with your entire team as a group and begin praying now for God’s vision, begin praying for individuals on your team daily, asking that God would just bring us together, asking that God would open up hearts, that we’d be receptive and that together we would go where he wants us to go and that we would make the biggest impact we can as a team and as a worship ministry in our church and in our community.
And I believe that God can do that through us, that worship is so important and vital in people’s lives. And we have to understand it and we have to see God with all that we have. And it’s going to lead us to a place where we can love others, serve people with all that we have. And I’m excited about the fruit of that and seeing that in our ministry now and where we’re going, looking forward to that.
Dwayne: Those are some excellent points and things we can all do to help change culture in and on our worship teams. Whether we’ve been in our church for six months like Jordan has or maybe six years, what Jordan has shared with us today especially the part about praying for our team that applies and can make a huge difference in any team going forward. Jordan before we close out our time today I would like you to tell us about an idea you shared with our coaching class a couple of weeks ago. In fact it’s resonated so much that in my coaching calls with our individual students I’ve had a couple of them say I really liked what Jordan said about the mentoring pairs. Would you tell us about that?
Jordan: Yeah I can definitely talk about that. Here at the end of the summer my team will have finished Pure Praise so now in the future moving forward when a person comes and wants to be a part of the worship team Pure Praise is going to be a part of that process. And so I will pair the new person with a person that’s on the current team that’s already been through Pure Praise and I’ll ask them to do that together. And my hope with that is that it will build some great relationship, that it would help this new person feel invested and involved in the ministry and understand some of these basic ideas about what worship is and why we do what we do. And it’s also an awesome opportunity for current team members to invest into somebody else and to have someone that they are actively mentoring and pouring into.
Dwayne: Great, love that idea. So Jordan would you pray now over our listeners? Pray that the Lord will grant them wisdom and encouragement.
Jordan: Yeah I would love to pray for the listeners today and the blog readers. So why don’t we take a moment here and let’s do that together. Father we thank you so much for what we have in you. Thank you for the many ministries that you’ve allowed us to be a part of. Lord for each and every person that may be listening to this today or reading this blog today, Father, we pray a blessing on their lives that you will do something that was said here today to encourage something that was said here today to teach. I know Lord that this process has taught me so much and we just thank you for the way that you lead us as we seek your will, your vision for our ministries and for our churches and we acknowledge that we need you Lord, we acknowledge that without you we have nothing. And that every step’s got to be your step. And so we surrender to you. We want to walk with you. And Lord would you show us the way forward and help us to accomplish it daily and weekly. Thank you Lord for the way that you use us and work in us. We love you so much and we praise you and in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q & A podcast. I’m Dwayne Moore. Each week, we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking. Today we are addressing the question of, “How can our ministry become more productive? How can we move forward in growing and changing as a ministry?” Now, that’s a great question and we’re going to look at a Biblical principle for that that’s going to give us some really clear direction, I think. I promise you it’ll help you.
Before we do that, I want to mention one thing very important that’s coming up. We begin our IMPACT phase of our Worship Leader Coaching in May. May 15th, 2018, we will begin the impact stage of coaching. You say, “Well, what does that mean, Dwayne?” Well, the IMPACT stage is where we focus on helping you grow your group, your worship team, which includes your singers, your band, your tech people, even how to encourage and influence your staff, which is a really tough one. But we’re going to tackle all of that in the IMPACT phase, which is a 10-week course that we want to encourage you to be a part of.
It’s very interactive. We will talk to each other online, and have conversations. We will also help you develop a group growth plan for your group. We will assign you to an encourager who will touch base with you on a monthly basis to just check in and pray for you and see how things are going. Guys, this is a powerful, exciting opportunity for you to grow as a leader with your group. I want to encourage you to go onto our website at NextLevelWorship.com
The other thing I ask that you do is pray for us as we are now in Africa. We are leading conferences in five countries. We ask that you pray for us and encourage us in that way, because we need God’s direction. We need His blessing that we would see great fruit as we train worship leaders and pastors, as we do evangelistic rallies. These are all very important. We pray that God would do awesome things through this and we need your prayers. Let me now jump into this question of, “How can I as a leader move my ministry, my area within the church forward?”
Well, something we do at NLW International that’s really helping us move forward is what we call the principle of sowing and reaping. But it’s more than a principle for us. We take it seriously and we put it into action. The Bible is clear that we must sow if we expect to reap. We must ask God and keep on asking God if we expect to receive. That is why we developed a three-step approach to help us be more intentional with sowing into our ministry and into other people.
I want to give you this plan as a guide for intentional sowing and reaping. We use this approach for sowing into our ministry, for reaching lost people, for making disciples. You can include this sowing and reaping approach for your ministry, as well, and also for your family, your business, your career. It works in every aspect of life because it is a Biblical principle. This is something our team members at NLW have begun doing. We list specific names and give specific answers to the questions listed for each step. I’m going to give you what those questions are and you can also go onto our blog site and you can see the text version of this podcast. You can see these things printed out.
Sometimes we will share our answers with each other so we can pray for and encourage each other. In fact, we try to do it on a monthly basis. Now, this Biblical three-step approach is based on 1 Corinthians 3:6 where Paul said, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.” The other passage that this approach is based on is Matthew 7:7 when Jesus said, “‘Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find and the door will be opened to you.'”
It’s important to keep in mind that these steps do not guarantee results. The results, the increases, if you will, are up to God alone. He determines if results happen, when they happen, and how they happen. We may not even be aware of what God is doing behind the scenes, so don’t lose heart. Just keep sowing, watering, and praying.
The first step in the sowing and reaping process is planting. The questions that we need to ask ourselves is who or what have we sown into this past month? Who or what have we sown into for our ministry, for evangelism, for discipleship? You can go on and make the list longer. For our family? For our business? Whatever the case may be. First you take time to write out three, four, five things. There’s no certain limit on how much you can write. When we give reports to each other and share this with each other, we ask not to inundate us with too many details, just get to the point. Bullet point it. But take enough time to really think through, “Who am I planting into? Who am I sowing into and planting seeds into? What am I doing to help our ministry move forward?”
For example, this past week I wrote 60 cards, handwritten cards. I am not a card-writer. I do not like to write cards and people, frankly, don’t like to read my cards probably because I don’t write very well. But there’s something powerful about writing a card, a handwritten card, that you put in the mail to someone. It feels very personal. It feels like you took extra time and interest in that person and there’s a much higher probability that that person will open that card and read it. I wrote out 60 cards to people that we hope will become prayer partners with us or even perhaps financial partners down the road. In that way, I was planting into these people. Now, I don’t know how many will actually become prayer partners. I don’t know how many might give to us in some financial way in the future to our ministry. That’s not the point. The point is I’m planting seeds, just like a farmer goes out and plants seeds. He can’t guarantee that every seed’s going to come up. But if you never plant the seed, one thing you can be sure of, it will never come up without a seed. You have to start with planting.
You ask yourself on a weekly basis, a monthly basis, “What are we doing to plant into our ministry for things we hope will happen in the future?” That’s the planting phase. Take time to write those out.
Number two is the watering phase. What have we done this week, this month, to help water what’s already been planting in each person, in each item? Who else may need watering what we’ve already sowed? It’s not just about us, thank God. Other people God sends along to water for us, to water the seeds we’ve already planted or vice versa. That’s how the Kingdom of God works. It’s not all up to you and me to do all of it, but we do need to be intentional with what we are watering, who we are watering. That just simply means for me, I wrote down in my report this week of what I was watering, or who I was watering, some requests we’ve made to some people. Just some worship leader influencers out there, to write an endorsement, or a review, of our Pure Praise book.
We are republishing as a new release, revised edition in the fall. We are gathering new, updated endorsements. Well, we’ve already asked them for it once and several have said, “Yes, Dwayne, I’d love to,” but we haven’t heard back from some of them. Guess what. We have to follow up with that. We have to send another email out. “Hey, please don’t forget to write that endorsement for me and don’t forget to write that review.” See, it’s a very simple thing, but you’re watering what you’ve already sowed.
For you, it might be following up on someone you’ve talked to about preparing a solo or helping you with the children’s ministry. Just follow up. Just water into them. Or maybe it’s someone you’re mentoring and you’re encouraging to get more into the Word and deeper into prayer. Just follow up and say, “Hey, how’s that going for you? Hey, letting you know I’m praying for you. Hey, here’s a verse you may want to read this week or a passage you may want to study.” You’re watering in to what you’ve already planted.
Then the third one is praying. This is the part that only God can do. Who or what are we asking God to give the increase to? This is where that “ask and you shall receive” part comes in. At some point, we have to realize all the planting and all the watering does nothing without the sunshine that makes it grow, without the warmth of the Holy Spirit that prompts the hearts of people to cause them to want to do what you are praying needs to be done. You’re not manipulating them, you’re not doing anything beyond what you can do.
One of my favorite illustrations is when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Did you notice in that story that people moved the stone away. Jesus didn’t roll the stone away. People did. What Jesus did is say, “Lazarus, come forth!” I love that line. You and I, we cannot raise the dead. However, we can roll the stone away. We need to do our part. We need to plant, we need to water, but then we need to realize that only God can give the increase. Only God can raise the dead, so to speak. We need to pray and ask Him to do that. “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find.”
But don’t ever leave off the last one. The last part is extremely important to keep us encouraged and keep us appreciative of what’s happening around us. If we don’t take time to celebrate, we’ll miss it.
Number four is reaping. Always take time to think about what signs of results can we celebrate from the sowing, the watering, and the praying. What’s already happening around us that we can say, “Yes, I can see something’s already stirring right there?” It may be something really small and minute. It may be, “Well, they finally actually rehearsed before they showed up for band practice.” Good! Rejoice! That’s a reaping moment. Hey, something you’re working on, something you’re praying toward to change the mentality of your group, to change the practice habits, it’s working. Celebrate that.
Among our team, we include that in our report. We send that as a part of our report. “Hey, we can see that’s something’s changing and stirring over here. We’re getting some response back from what we’ve been sowing into.” Or maybe you see a sign towards salvation. You can see that someone’s beginning to ask questions. Maybe your child that you’re praying for, your grandchild, that they would become a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and you can see them becoming interested. That’s a reaping moment. It hasn’t fully come to fruition yet, maybe, but you can see the little plant peeking out of the dirt. You can see it coming out. Rejoice in those moments.
To close, let me give you a few practical tips to help you with the sowing and reaping updates. Encourage your team, beginning with you, to post once a month on average at least, to take the time to write this out and go through this once a month. This is not an exhaustive list of everything that you have done and are doing. Tell your team that. You’re not trying to say everything. It’s not a to-do list. It’s just highlighting a few things. You may only want to give one or two updates in each category, each step.
It’s okay to only give one or two things, but what we emphasize on our team is to give at least one update in each category, each step, about what they are doing within our ministry, something that has to do with NLW. In your case, something that has to do with your church, your ministry. What are you doing in each of those four areas? But the other update, though, now it can be about their family, it might be something about their personal evangelism or discipleship, someone they’re pouring into, or it may be something about their own growth, how they’re investing in their own personal growth.
I encourage them to include things that they want us to celebrate with them and pray with them about. Then always emphasize this and remind them of this from time to time. The goal of this exercise is to build into our organization and into our team a culture and a mindset of intentional sowing and reaping. Be sure to remind them of that and set the example of doing this on an at least monthly basis and sharing it with your team and letting you team see that you are serious and committed to sowing and reaping.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this podcast today on sowing and reaping. I’d love to get your feedback and comments about how you’re using this and trying this out in your ministry and in your life. Shoot us an email at office@nextlevelworship.com. Hey, while you’re emailing us, send us a question or two that you’d like for us to tackle and try to answer on this podcast. Thanks so much. Blessings.
Have you checked out WORSHIP LEADER COACHING with Dwayne Moore? Don’t miss this amazing opportunity to grow your ministry with personalized development plans from Dwayne and the NLW team.
Hello everyone and welcome to the worship Q and A podcast. I’m Dwayne Moore. Each week we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking. Recently I was speaking at the California Baptist University in Riverside, California, and it was an incredible experience just being with the students there and being a part of what God is doing in California among worship leaders and churches. Getting to know some of the students and hearing their hearts was so encouraging for me. During a Q and A section … I should say portion of my time there one of the students asked this question that I’m going to now pass on to you. The student asked, “Dwayne what do you during your quiet times? How do you keep yourself fresh spiritually?”
Great question. Well first of all, let me say that I am not the expert on this. I am still struggling like the rest of us just to be faithful and consistent with it, but I do try every morning to invest time with God. About two to three times a week I try to actually journal what I believe God is showing me and teaching me. I want to share with you one of the most powerful ways over the years that I have learned or that I have discovered, rather, to connect with God on a personal basis, a personal intimate level. Before we jump into that and I give you a description of what I do that’s helped me so much over the years, let me do a shameless plug for a couple of things we have coming up.
First, you need to know about coaching program. Maybe you’ve already heard about it, maybe you’ve already participated in it, but I am so excited about the many people we’ve got signing up for this coaching program and all that we are learning and discovering together. We begin our next phase of our coaching program in May. This is the Impact Phase where we teach you how and help you to grow your group spiritually, numerically, musically. We’ll touch on all those things. Go to our website at nextlevelworship.com, click on the training tab and then click on the coaching image and you will see how to sign up for this powerful phase, this 10 week phase of coaching. We will meet each week online and we’ll go through some incredible and powerful and effective principles that will help you to grow your group. Not only that, we will give you an encourager that will come along beside you and encourage you as you walk this journey of trying to grow your group.
Also, sign up for our ReIMAGINE Worship Intensive. Apply for it, and you’ll have to be selected. There’s a process, not everyone that signs up gets to come because we keep it as a small select group but it’s not about the size of your church, it’s really about the size of your heart and whether God has called you to do this and put it on your heart to apply. Consider going to our website nextlevelworship.com, click again on the training tab and look for the worship leader intensive, it’s a week-long retreat in October in Louisville. Don’t miss these incredible opportunities for you to grow. As you’re praying this week, please pray for us because we continue with our five country training tour in Africa. We are training hundreds of pastors and worship leaders and worship teams, so please pray for us and our team as we do this and as we share the Gospel wherever we go.
What I want to answer for you in the same way I answered for that young man that asked me at California Baptist University, Dwayne what do you do to keep your quiet times fresh, to keep your spiritual life fresh? Well I discovered in college that one of the most powerful things I could ever do to help connect on a personal level is to go through a very simple outline in my quiet time. Now I love using devotional books, I read other people’s devotionals, I enjoy that. Sometimes I’ll just read from the Bible but when I really want to dig in and get the most out of my quiet time, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll take a piece of paper or I’ll type it out on my laptop, just be sure to turn off your notifications from Facebook and don’t be distracted by social media. You got to focus on this passage before you. Come into your quiet time already knowing what you’re going to study. I go through books of the Bible. Right now I’m going through Hebrews, I’m in chapter nine actually. I meditate on that, sometimes more than one day and I’ll just take a portion at a time, maybe just a paragraph. I’ll focus on that and I’ll write about it.
Write out the text first. Write the word text, colon and then write out whatever you’re writing about, whatever you’re focusing on, whatever you’re studying that day. It may just be a couple verses, it may be a half of a chapter. Don’t do too much but do write down whatever it is you’re focusing on. The second thing to write down is the theme. Make it a sentence. Try to write a sentence that you believe sums up what that passage, that chapter, that paragraph or whatever is about. Try to focus on that to sum up what you believe it’s about. Now listen, if you’re like me and you do it early in the morning you may be sleepy when you approach your quiet time but you’ll begin to wake up. You’ll have no choice but to wake up a little bit as you begin to have to conceptualize and sum up what that passage is talking about. Just the very fact you’re putting it into a sentence, a theme, then that’s going to cause you to have be alert.
The third thing you write down is not only the text, not only the theme but you got to justify what you just said. You said you think the theme is, whatever. Okay now you got to back that up with proof. The third thing is write this down, key verses, colon. What are the key verses? Maybe just the key passages, maybe just the key phrases that sum up or rather support what it is you believe the theme is. For example, if you’re reading Psalm 23 and you say, I believe the theme is the Lord is my shepherd then you got to find every reference and write it down, those references as key verses. You don’t write down every verse, but you do write down those key references that support the idea that you claim that it’s about the Lord is my shepherd. If that’s what you believe you got to support that.
The fourth thing you do, and don’t rush through this but by now you’re probably a good 10, 15 minutes in because you’re going to have read over that passage over and over and meditate on it to really get the theme of it. Then you’re going to have to support it with scriptures in that passage. You’re probably 10 to 15 minutes into your quiet time at this point. Now, ask yourself this question, write this down, what I believe God said to me. It’s not a definite thing, it’s not an infallible statement you’re about to make. You could be wrong and you’re not trying to go out there and teach everybody exactly what you believe God said to you. This is very personal, very intimate. You’re listening for the voice of God and what you believe He’s saying through His written Word. You don’t make up stuff, but within the context of that written word what do you sense God may be saying to you if you believe that this passage you’re reading is about the Lord is my Shepherd then how does that apply to you personally? What could He be saying to you very personally at that moment and it could be something you’ve never really noticed or seen before. Again, within the context of that passage. You’re not trying to make up stuff. You’re trying to see what God is saying within that passage. Write it as though … Here’s what I do at least. I write as though God is speaking to me. I write it like this, “Dwayne, so glad you could join me today for this quiet time. I’ve been missing you.” It could be something that way. I just get real honest with what I believe God may be saying to me. This develops over time and you may feel awkward writing what you think God is saying to you and that’s fine, I respect that. The point is, God is an intimate personal God and He wants to speak to you through His Word so you need to take time to write down what you believe God is saying to you through that passage. That maybe one or two sentences, it may be a whole paragraph, it maybe two or three paragraphs but take the time to write what you sense God is saying. Don’t ever stop, don’t quit your quiet time. You’re not finished yet. You’ve got to do the fifth one.
The fifth step. Not only do you write down the text, not only do you write down the theme and the key verses, what you believe God said to you, but now you’ve got to do one more thing. God won’t speak to us without a response. He always expects and there should always be a response. Here’s the fifth one, what I believe I am saying to God. It’s not only what God is saying to me but it’s what am I saying back to God. That’s the fifth one. That’s the response. Respond now to what you believe God has said to you in that passage. Be honest.
Often I’ll start with just a statement of praise. “Father, thank You so much for meeting with me today. Thank You for being awesome. Thank You for reminding me You are my Shepherd.” Whatever He’s reminded you of, thank Him for it, praise Him for it and then you need to be honest. Say Lord, “I’m sorry that I came into this quiet time not expecting anything.” Maybe that was your case that day then be honest, write it down. “Lord, thank You for forgiving me and cleansing me of known sin. Thank You for doing that Lord, thank You. Now Lord, help me today to trust You as my Shepherd. Help me to follow You in listening.” I’m just going along that line if you were doing Psalm 23. Whatever your passage is, you can always bring a response back. An honest, open, intimate response to your Father, your Heavenly Father, your Shepherd, your God, your Friend.
Oh can you tell I get excited about this stuff? I do. I love it. You can go on to my website, it’s a journaling website and you can read what I write and you see what the way that I do it. My website is quiettimejournal.praisemorepowerful.com. You can see years of journaling that I’ve done in there. There’s journaling from many different books of the Bible. There’s a whole lot of stuff in there, but don’t go by my devotional. This is about you. You get alone with your God and you get into His Word and you listen to what He wants to say to you. Powerful, powerful stuff. I hope this has helped you, I hope this encouraged you. I don’t want to make this legalistic. If you don’t do it like this it doesn’t mean God can’t speak. This is just a powerful way to become a student. A powerful way to become a student of God’s Word. Approach it as a student and God will teach you through His Word.
Thanks so much for joining us today for this podcast. Continue to pray for our Africa trip and we will see you back next week. Thanks.
By Dwayne Moore
Here’s the recording of Send Me that I recorded live with 100 college students in Botswana 12 years ago. This recording captures the raw emotion and power of that week of training in evangelism and theology. These amazing college students were part of a 10-week evangelism program called “Face the Nation.” These same students went on to lead some 10,000 high school students to the Lord as they went out into the public high schools of Botswana.
Face the Nation was led by Open Baptist Church in Gaborone, Botswana. Face the Nation continues to reach high school students in Botswana all these years later. I’m excited to be returning to Botswana to lead a worship conference on the 13th and 14th of April. I will be speaking on Sunday morning, April 15th at Open Baptist Church.
I had written Send Me only a few months earlier than this recording. It became the theme song of Face the Nation. They still sing it these many years later.
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q&A podcast. I’m Dwayne Moore. Each week we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking. Today I’m excited to talk to you about six characteristics of a God-sized vision for your ministry. Or, to put it in the form of a question, what do I do if I sense God has given me an idea or a ministry vision for something in the future? How do I know, and what can I do about it?
Well I hope you had a good Easter and had an amazing time with your church. You’re probably, like many of us, worn out from it. I want to encourage you as we look forward, just thank God for the opportunity he gave you to lead those Easter services. Now get some rest, much-needed rest, if you can at all. But I wanted to bring you this podcast today and this week, so it can help us all look forward to what may be next or what’s out there in the future. And that’s why I want us to talk about your ministry vision and talk about how we can sense, or if we can sense, and if we can know if God is moving us toward a new idea or a new approach to something.
One of my favorite things to do is lead a worship leader intensive. Really, a better word for it, to describe it, is a retreat. We do it each fall in the month of October. This year we will be in Louisville and also in southern Indiana, right in that area. We can only take a few people, so we’re select with that, but I love doing these intensives because we get to talk about how we can be visionaries for our ministry and how to move our ministry forward.
One of the things that we look at are these six characteristics that I wanna talk to you about today. Distinct characteristics for a God-given vision, a God-inspired vision. So whatever he has for you, you can be sure that every vision, so to speak, that he gives us, it will have six distinct characteristics. All of them can be clearly seen when God commissioned Joshua to lead his people into the Promised Land. And this is what I teach about, is one of the things we teach about, in the worship leader intensive.
So the first characteristic is that it’s bigger than you think. God told Joshua he was “giving them all the land I swore to their ancestors that I would give them.” That’s Joshua 1:6. It’s been estimated that the total territory for the Hebrews was upwards of 15 million acres. Imagine that. Well, it would be hard for anyone, including Joshua, to fathom that much land mass. So it’s bigger than Joshua could really think. On an even grander scale, Joshua most likely had no idea that he was a type of Christ, symbolizing through his own obedience and actions how Jesus would later save his people from their sins. God is always working through our lives to do things which are much larger than we can comprehend or see at the moment.
Not only will the vision God’s giving you be bigger than you think, number two, it’s harder than you can do. Joshua had been given a God-sized assignment. Leading a million Israelites across the Jordan to posses a new land certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. Like Joshua, following God’s plan means we’ll be in over our heads. We can roll the stone, but only he can raise the dead. In other words, we should do what he tells us to do, and then watch and anticipate what only he can do. Did you catch that? Let me say that again. In other words, we should do whatever he tells us to do, but then we need to watch and anticipate what only he can do.
Number three, it’s better than they can imagine. Joshua knew something about the Promised Land. He’d spied it out when he was a young man. So he knew what Moses meant when he said it was a land flowing with milk and honey according to Deuteronomy 26:9. Joshua had seen the Promised Land. The Hebrews had not. The story is told that during the dedication ceremony of Disney World, someone turned to Disney and said, “Isn’t it a shame that Walt didn’t live to see this?” Miss Disney replied, “He did see it. That’s why it’s here.” Often God will give one man or one woman a vision of what can be, a glimpse into the future that others around them simply can’t imagine for themselves. And as visionary leaders, we really shouldn’t expect them to.
Number four, it’s more restrictive than you might like. Visionaries usually don’t appreciate boundaries. We enjoy thinking outside the box and being free from limitations. Yet God gave Joshua some clear boundaries. Although the area they were being given was huge, it was nonetheless limited. God said, “Your territory to extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river Euphrates, all the Hittite country, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.” That’s Joshua 1:4. This flies in the face of the “name it and claim it” mentality, as though we can have anything or go anywhere we want. It’s only if the Lord wills James 4:15 says. We love that God said to Joshua in verse three, “I will give you every place where you set your foot.” However, a far-reaching promise like this is often followed by a verse where the Lord begins to show us boundary lines that he has put in place for our vision.
Number five. The fifth distinct characteristic of a God-inspired vision is that it’s impossible without faith. Don’t miss this. Faith can move mountains. Faith can soothe their fears and calm the storms. Just read Matthew 8 to see that. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God, for we must believe that he is God. That’s in Hebrews 11:6. Joshua led the people of Israel by faith. They watched the walls of Jericho fall because of their faith, Hebrews 11:36. Great visions and God-sized plans require great faith, but it’s not faith that we try to conjure up in our minds. It’s not pseudo faith with no basis to stand on. Real faith comes by hearing the Word of God, Romans 10:17 says, and God told Joshua over and over that he would be with them, that they would be successful if they carefully obeyed him. If you know your vision is from the Lord, then go forward in bold faith.
And finally, number six. This is the sixth characteristic, but a vital characteristic for a God-inspired vision. The Promised Land for the Israelites wasn’t heaven. It wasn’t anything like heaven. There were battles still to be fought and won. It would not be comfortable or easy. God’s intention for his people was that they would be a light to the nations, Isaiah 49:6 says. Whatever plans God has for us as children, you can be sure those plans are to ultimately bring glory and honor to his Son. He created us to glorify him. Isaiah 43:67 says, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, who I created for my glory.” He has us here before the nations of the world to show forth the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That’s in 1 Peter 2:9.
So ask yourself: Is your vision in any way motivated by self-glory, self-improvement, or greed? Once all impure and selfish motives are scraped away, does your heart still burn with a vision to only bring glory and honor to your Savior and bring his light to the world? If so, embrace God’s word to Joshua as his word to you. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9.
So here’s what I want you to meditate on, and I need to do the same. Meditate and pray through these powerful verses to help build your faith and hear God’s voice and direction. Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” Jeremiah 10:23, “I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course.” Psalm 139:24, “And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 5:8, “Lead me in the right path, O Lord, or my enemies will conquer me. Make your way plain for me to follow.” Proverbs 4:11, “I will teach you wisdom’s way and lead you in straight paths.” And Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.”
Father, please give us ears to hear and minds to comprehend just a little of all that you want us to do and accomplish on this earth. Help us not to be overwhelmed. Help us to take steps toward the vision you’ve given us. Help us to be bold. Help us to apply these distinct characteristics, to check, to see if the vision is a God-given one. And if so, help us to move forward in faith. Thank you so much. Amen.
Hope you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast. Please consider signing up to be a part of our worship leader intensive. Go to our website, nextlevelworship.com/training, and click on the worship leader intensive image to apply. We would love to have you. Thank you so much.
Have you checked out the ReIMAGINE Worship Intensive with Dwayne Moore? Don’t miss this amazing opportunity to grow and help develop a vision for your ministry.
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q&A podcast. I’m Dwayne Moore. Each week we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking. Today I’m excited to talk to you about six characteristics of a God-sized vision for your ministry. Or, to put it in the form of a question, what do I do if I sense God has given me an idea or a ministry vision for something in the future? How do I know, and what can I do about it?
Well I hope you had a good Easter and had an amazing time with your church. You’re probably, like many of us, worn out from it. I want to encourage you as we look forward, just thank God for the opportunity he gave you to lead those Easter services. Now get some rest, much-needed rest, if you can at all. But I wanted to bring you this podcast today and this week, so it can help us all look forward to what may be next or what’s out there in the future. And that’s why I want us to talk about your ministry vision and talk about how we can sense, or if we can sense, and if we can know if God is moving us toward a new idea or a new approach to something.
One of my favorite things to do is lead a worship leader intensive. Really, a better word for it, to describe it, is a retreat. We do it each fall in the month of October. This year we will be in Louisville and also in southern Indiana, right in that area. We can only take a few people, so we’re select with that, but I love doing these intensives because we get to talk about how we can be visionaries for our ministry and how to move our ministry forward.
One of the things that we look at are these six characteristics that I wanna talk to you about today. Distinct characteristics for a God-given vision, a God-inspired vision. So whatever he has for you, you can be sure that every vision, so to speak, that he gives us, it will have six distinct characteristics. All of them can be clearly seen when God commissioned Joshua to lead his people into the Promised Land. And this is what I teach about, is one of the things we teach about, in the worship leader intensive.
So the first characteristic is that it’s bigger than you think. God told Joshua he was “giving them all the land I swore to their ancestors that I would give them.” That’s Joshua 1:6. It’s been estimated that the total territory for the Hebrews was upwards of 15 million acres. Imagine that. Well, it would be hard for anyone, including Joshua, to fathom that much land mass. So it’s bigger than Joshua could really think. On an even grander scale, Joshua most likely had no idea that he was a type of Christ, symbolizing through his own obedience and actions how Jesus would later save his people from their sins. God is always working through our lives to do things which are much larger than we can comprehend or see at the moment.
Not only will the vision God’s giving you be bigger than you think, number two, it’s harder than you can do. Joshua had been given a God-sized assignment. Leading a million Israelites across the Jordan to posses a new land certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. Like Joshua, following God’s plan means we’ll be in over our heads. We can roll the stone, but only he can raise the dead. In other words, we should do what he tells us to do, and then watch and anticipate what only he can do. Did you catch that? Let me say that again. In other words, we should do whatever he tells us to do, but then we need to watch and anticipate what only he can do.
Number three, it’s better than they can imagine. Joshua knew something about the Promised Land. He’d spied it out when he was a young man. So he knew what Moses meant when he said it was a land flowing with milk and honey according to Deuteronomy 26:9. Joshua had seen the Promised Land. The Hebrews had not. The story is told that during the dedication ceremony of Disney World, someone turned to Disney and said, “Isn’t it a shame that Walt didn’t live to see this?” Miss Disney replied, “He did see it. That’s why it’s here.” Often God will give one man or one woman a vision of what can be, a glimpse into the future that others around them simply can’t imagine for themselves. And as visionary leaders, we really shouldn’t expect them to.
Number four, it’s more restrictive than you might like. Visionaries usually don’t appreciate boundaries. We enjoy thinking outside the box and being free from limitations. Yet God gave Joshua some clear boundaries. Although the area they were being given was huge, it was nonetheless limited. God said, “Your territory to extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river Euphrates, all the Hittite country, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.” That’s Joshua 1:4. This flies in the face of the “name it and claim it” mentality, as though we can have anything or go anywhere we want. It’s only if the Lord wills James 4:15 says. We love that God said to Joshua in verse three, “I will give you every place where you set your foot.” However, a far-reaching promise like this is often followed by a verse where the Lord begins to show us boundary lines that he has put in place for our vision.
Number five. The fifth distinct characteristic of a God-inspired vision is that it’s impossible without faith. Don’t miss this. Faith can move mountains. Faith can soothe their fears and calm the storms. Just read Matthew 8 to see that. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God, for we must believe that he is God. That’s in Hebrews 11:6. Joshua led the people of Israel by faith. They watched the walls of Jericho fall because of their faith, Hebrews 11:36. Great visions and God-sized plans require great faith, but it’s not faith that we try to conjure up in our minds. It’s not pseudo faith with no basis to stand on. Real faith comes by hearing the Word of God, Romans 10:17 says, and God told Joshua over and over that he would be with them, that they would be successful if they carefully obeyed him. If you know your vision is from the Lord, then go forward in bold faith.
And finally, number six. This is the sixth characteristic, but a vital characteristic for a God-inspired vision. The Promised Land for the Israelites wasn’t heaven. It wasn’t anything like heaven. There were battles still to be fought and won. It would not be comfortable or easy. God’s intention for his people was that they would be a light to the nations, Isaiah 49:6 says. Whatever plans God has for us as children, you can be sure those plans are to ultimately bring glory and honor to his Son. He created us to glorify him. Isaiah 43:67 says, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, who I created for my glory.” He has us here before the nations of the world to show forth the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That’s in 1 Peter 2:9.
So ask yourself: Is your vision in any way motivated by self-glory, self-improvement, or greed? Once all impure and selfish motives are scraped away, does your heart still burn with a vision to only bring glory and honor to your Savior and bring his light to the world? If so, embrace God’s word to Joshua as his word to you. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9.
So here’s what I want you to meditate on, and I need to do the same. Meditate and pray through these powerful verses to help build your faith and hear God’s voice and direction. Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” Jeremiah 10:23, “I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course.” Psalm 139:24, “And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 5:8, “Lead me in the right path, O Lord, or my enemies will conquer me. Make your way plain for me to follow.” Proverbs 4:11, “I will teach you wisdom’s way and lead you in straight paths.” And Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.”
Father, please give us ears to hear and minds to comprehend just a little of all that you want us to do and accomplish on this earth. Help us not to be overwhelmed. Help us to take steps toward the vision you’ve given us. Help us to be bold. Help us to apply these distinct characteristics, to check, to see if the vision is a God-given one. And if so, help us to move forward in faith. Thank you so much. Amen.
Hope you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast. Please consider signing up to be a part of our worship leader intensive. Go to our website, nextlevelworship.com/training, and click on the worship leader intensive image to apply. We would love to have you. Thank you so much.
Have you checked out the ReIMAGINE Worship Intensive with Dwayne Moore? Don’t miss this amazing opportunity to grow and help develop a vision for your ministry.
Dwayne Moore: Hello everyone, I’m Dwayne Moore. Welcome to the Worship Q&A podcast. Each week we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking. Today I am sitting in the office of one of my dear friends, Hector Jeminez?
Hector Jeminez: Hector Gabriel Jeminez.
Dwayne Moore: Jeminez, oh see I wrecked his name.
Hector Jeminez: Oh, it’s all good.
Dwayne Moore: Okay, but Hector, I’m going to let you introduce yourself and tell us what your role is here, but we are at California Baptist University. And man, you trusted me and invited me in here, and this Alabama boy among a bunch of Californians. And you know what? I think he actually understood what I said. My southern drawl didn’t mess you up too bad. But we are so honored to have you now with our podcast. Hector, why don’t you tell us again about your family, and tell us what you do here at CBU.
Hector Jeminez: I am a full time faculty here in the school of music, and director of our brand new worship arts in ministry program. I’m also chapel worship leader for our student body. A little bit about my family, I have a wife of six years, her name is Jessica. And twin baby girls who are now two, Sarai and Eden.
Dwayne Moore: Sarai and Eden?
Hector Jeminez: Sarai and Eden, yeah. They’re awesome.
Dwayne Moore: Oh I know, you showed me a picture man, so cool. Unpack that a little bit more about, this is a new program. How new is it?
Hector Jeminez: We just started it in the fall of 2017. So we’re midway through our spring semester. Our first cohort of students started with 35 students, students who are hungry and wanting to go change the world for the kingdom as worship leaders and worship pastors.
Dwayne Moore: Well I have the privilege of meeting some of them today. And just a little bit of time to hang out with them, and I’d agree with you, you got some sharp ones. The question that I want us to put out there for you to help us understand today is, because I think we need to help people understand, why is it important, not just to be able to play a guitar and have that presence on a stage. Why does a leader need to come to a school, or to invest themselves in learning more? That may seem like an obvious question, but unfortunately I’m seeing that that’s not happening as much as I feel like it should, and I’d like to see what you think about that.
Hector Jeminez: Like no other time in history, there is a need for quality worship pastors and worship leaders that understand the complexities that are coming along with the 21st century. Everything that’s integrated with technology. Now we see our country as it’s growing in diversity, we have different cultures represented in our church congregations, that we need to be sharp and aware of what’s going on to be able to shift with the changes and move with that. Like you I’m sure, I graduated college with a general music degree. There were a lot of things I learned on the fly in church ministry, and so the benefit of a program like this is for students to come and learn the mistakes before they get out in the world.
Dwayne Moore: Oh I love that, okay. Now that’s, okay learning before they go out there, because definitely that is a tough place to learn mistakes, because people aren’t as forgiving in the churches as they can be in this environment.
Hector Jeminez: So our degree, we base it on four principles. The first is, we want to produce students with pastoral hearts, and pastoral leadership. It’s more about people, less about music. I know it sounds funny coming from a school of music, but it is, a pastoral heart is about people, not just music. Second of course is technology. With technology changing so quickly, we want to prepare our students with the tools necessary to be successful as far as technology goes, and how to handle that conversation in a corporate setting. Third of course, music degree is music. We want to train our students to be excellent musically, especially as I said before, with the change and it being more diverse, what can we offer our churches as far as music goes? It’s becoming increasingly more complex. There’s genres that we can do to be able to incorporate in our congregations. And lastly is probably the most important is, theology. Every worship arts and ministry student leaves here not just with a bachelors degree in music, but a minor in Christian studies. So it’s also a minor in Christian studies. And aside from that, it’s very practical. We’re teaching our students practical leadership skills, how to manage a budget. All our students are involved in internships as well, so it’s a very practical degree, and we’re looking to send out students who are ready to go.
Dwayne Moore: You said they’re involved with internships. You mean in churches?
Hector Jeminez: That’s right.
Dwayne Moore: Wow.
Hector Jeminez: Local churches. We have 25 of our students right now plugged in, in local churches around southern California every Sunday.
Dwayne Moore: I’d imagine in this population, there’s plenty of churches that need what you offer.
Hector Jeminez: Yes, they’re all over the place.
Dwayne Moore: If you’re in, and I imagine there may be someone listening … by the way, we also put this in a blog article, so it’ll also be in printed form. But imagine that you are talking to somebody whose maybe 18, 19 years old. Or maybe you’re talking to the parents of someone in that place in life. Or maybe they’re 20 or 25, who knows. Maybe they’ve already had some experience under their belt, and maybe they feel like they don’t really need this. But what do you say to a person like that when it comes to, well it’s expensive, it takes up time, I could get on with my life, all the things that people throw up. I’m sure you hear them all. Kind of cutting through that, other than what you said about, this is the place to make those mistakes and learn, why would one prioritize this? Because I’m a big proponent, I would like to hear what you say to that.
Hector Jeminez: It’s just like with any degree, if it’s something that you’re passionate about and you feel called to, immersing yourself in it and going as deep as possible to be able to gain the necessary skills musically, to offer something to your local church deeper than just what you could teach yourself, or just what you could learn on YouTube. But a deep understanding of musical abilities, and how that works theoretically. And then like I said, the theology portion of it, really going deeper in that area to be able to be excellent in the art of being a worship leader.
Dwayne Moore: Oh I love what you said, pastoring, that was the word you started with, technology, musicianship, and theology.
Hector Jeminez: Yes.
Dwayne Moore: Oh my goodness, yeah. I don’t think you can get that. I guess you could, but it would be very difficult to get all of that on your own watching YouTube. So I can understand that’s important.
Hector Jeminez: I think there’s something unique as well. We have a cohort of about 35 students, and there’s something about a cohort coming together, iron sharpening iron day in and day out on campus. Doing life together, and learning from each other. Every week we get together and hash out what went wrong, what was successful in our internships over the week.
Dwayne Moore: There’s something about that learning model. It’s maybe around for many years, but it still works. It still works. One professor that I had in school when I was complaining one day, she was a voice professor of mine, I was complaining I guess too much in front of her about all this work I have to do. And she said, how long did Jesus have public ministry? And I thought oh this is definitely a set up question. And I said, well three years. And she said, and how long did he prepare? Of course, I knew she had me at that point. So the preparation part is very, very important. If you are listening, if I’m a worship leader, pastor of a church listening, which some are right now listening to this podcast. How can they, how do these worship pastors get helped by you, and by this organization, by this wonderful institution?
Hector Jeminez: Well I think there’s online resources if you go to calbaptist.edu/worship all the information there if you want to get plugged in and get more involved. We offer Bachelors of Arts in Music, emphasis in worship arts in ministry right now, so worship arts in ministry program. And we’re launching a Masters in worship arts and ministry that is all online, with the exception of a couple of intensives that you come. It’s a one year program, and you’ll only miss one Sunday out of the year. And it’s an entry level program, so if you have a Bachelors degree, or any other degree, you can get in this program.
Dwayne Moore: That’s awesome. Awesome, all right. Hector, why don’t you close us with a thought of encouragement toward someone who’s trying to learn, but maybe right now they don’t see the financial means. Maybe you could take a moment and even pray over us. But what we need is to not be satisfied. I think what I hear you saying is, don’t be content with where we are, we’ve got to keep growing. But if I don’t feel like right now maybe as I’m in a place in life, that doesn’t mean we just don’t need to be trying, right?
Hector Jeminez: That’s right.
Dwayne Moore: Needs to always be growing. And I’ve been leading worship a long time and I still have so much to learn. And I think we have to maintain that. So I would say just close us with a maybe word of encouragement, and then pray over people listening right now, and pray over the people that are considering, what, Lord, do you want me to do to continue growing?
Hector Jeminez: Well I would say, and I think with having you come to our campus, we’ve had a lot of men and women, worship leader and worship pastors coming and mentoring our students, which has been a huge win for our students. But just that idea of seeing guidance, seeking mentorship, seeking leadership, find those people in your life, ask questions. Buy them a cup of coffee and go out and seek mentorship, seek encouragement. They don’t always find you.
Dwayne Moore: Oh, what good advice. Yes, seek it. I love that. So okay, that’s awesome. That’s what we needed to hear. So pray for us now, and pray over the people that are listening, going okay Lord, I want to seek that.
Hector Jeminez: Lord, I come to you now, and Lord I just come to you now with a heart longing for people to understand what they were created for, which ultimately is to worship you, Lord. And I know that anybody listening to this podcast I’m sure understands that and has that same burning desire in their heart, Lord, to worship you and to see others worship you as well. Lord, I pray that you would encourage each person listening in their ministry. Lord, that you would break the binds of the enemy if he’s trying to bring discouragement, or hurt feelings, or anxiety. Lord, I pray that you would protect them in the name of Jesus. And Lord help them to see your work, Lord, help them to love their people, help them to be encouraged. And Lord, I pray that you would bring leaders in their lives so that they can learn from them, so that they can seek wisdom and knowledge from them, Lord. And that they could link arms with people so that they don’t feel alone, so that they can have that encouragement, Lord. Yes, Lord, would you do that right now in this moment for each person listening. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Dwayne Moore: Amen. Hector, man it’s been great talking to you, and thanks again for joining us. Hey, thanks everybody for listening and as often as we can we’ll try to bring you quality people like this to learn from and be encouraged from. We’ll see you next week, thanks.
The following is an excerpt from NLW’s online coaching course. Take a listen or read below to get a taste of what is offered through coaching with Dwayne. If you’re interested in knowing more about joining a coaching class, let us know! We would love to discuss how it might be helpful to you and your ministry.
Dwayne Moore: How can we know if we’ve worshiped?
Remember, we talked about that and we talked about John 4, one of the places that Jesus talked about worship, one of the few places. Jesus replied, “Believe me dear woman the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about Him for salvation comes through the Jews.”
So he’s talking about worship. “But the time is coming, indeed it’s here now when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit in truth. The father is looking for those who worship Him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.” Remember we zoned in on that passage? “Those who worship must worship Him,” how? In spirit and truth.
Now there’s so much depth in here, one conversation and one class is not going to cover it all. You can read books on this and you’ll get so many different insights. I’m only one guy among and I’m not even an expert like some of them. I’m not a theologian, but I have my two cents to add to this. As I told you about that day at the lake when I was working through this, the qualifications that hit me about it that there are authentic experiences years of worship that every moment of my life can be an expression of worship even in the most mundane of ways. I’m writing about that right now. I’m going back and rewriting about it because I’m rewriting Pure Praise. It’s being re-released this fall. I told you that. Our publishers re-releasing it, which is very cool, and so were going back and re-vamping it a little bit.
We say in there, and I think it’s a Biblical idea hopefully. That everything we do can and should be worship. But the reality is, it isn’t necessarily if we haven’t confessed or sins, amen? If we haven’t committed it fully to God. If we’re not communing freely with God, we’re not worshiping. So everything I do is not necessarily worship unless I have that kind of heart behind it. Now that’s important. So what’s the qualifications that make it authentic? We need to know this. If we’re going to lead other people in worship this is a big, big deal to get, okay? That worship, first of all, has got to be initiated and led by the Spirit.
All the connotations of that, “In spirit in truth,” stuff there’s so much to it is hard to understand it all, but one thing I think it least we can take away is that if it’s going to be inside my spirit where it happens, my spirit needs to bear witness with His spirit and He needs to be the one that initiates the worship. Tell me if you disagree, but I can’t make people worship. Can you relate to that?
Student 1: Yes, very much. Very much.
Dwayne Moore: I mean I want to shake them sometimes and wake them up, but it doesn’t work. Sometimes I want to slap them or yell at them, it don’t matter. They don’t worship because I want them to. Doesn’t work that way.
Student 1: When I went, I’m working in a small church, a small country church, and I got real discouraged after about nine months into being the Music Director and I just said, “Lord, I look out there and these faces are just really like stone!” I said, “I’m just so discouraged.” And the Lord told me, He said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Are you worshiping Me? Are you looking for approval from them?” He said, “You worship me and forget about those that are out there and then they will see worship when you’re heart is truly connected to Me.”
Dwayne Moore: That’s good! Man, that’ll preach.
Student 2: Well, the Lord looks at the heart, he says. That’s what meant. He doesn’t look at the things man looks at.
Student 1: Right, right.
Dwayne Moore: That’ll preach.
Student 1: And so I just … I just worship now. I mean, it’s like, whether you’re going to worship along with me you’re going to see that my heart is towards God always while I’m worshiping.
Dwayne Moore: I wish we all got that, Rose. That’s good. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that.
Student 1: But it was hard, it was hard! It was hard learning that.
Dwayne Moore: It was a hard lesson.
Student 1: Yep.
Dwayne Moore: Yea it is! Well, yeah that’s what we’re saying right here is directly related to that idea that He has to do this and we can’t. So that’s the first thing. We got to worship in spirit so, therefore, it’s got to be by His spirit.
The second thing is that we set another qualification is it’s going to be authentic. He said, if you’re going to worship, you’ve got to worship in spirit and truth, therefore that’s the only way you’re going to truly have an authentic experience of worship, amen? I mean, that’s it! This is how it happens. It’s got to be led by the Spirit. It’s got to be motivated by the truth of God’s Word. It’s got to be truth.
We talked about this a few weeks going, I’m not going to harp on it again, I think I used the illustration then about seeing the sunset over the lake and thinking how beautiful it is and how a lot of people around like probably acknowledged it, but some didn’t do it in the truth of God’s Word, therefore for them it wasn’t worship. “Oh, I had a worship experience!” Not a true, authentic, Godly worship experience! You may worship the sun. You may have worshiped that Budweiser you raised up in the sun, but you don’t worship the one who made the sun unless you understand that He made it!
The truth is the heavens declare the glory of God. That’s the truth. The sun only shines to remind me … well, it’s one of the reasons it shines … is to remind us at that moment that our God is awesome! And the worship comes out of the truth. That’s why we’ve got to cling to the truth, man. We got to be rooted in truth. We got to make sure our worship is clearly supported and motivated by the truth. If you want to lead other people in true worship you got to give the truth. The truth is what will set them free, amen?
Student 1: Amen.
Student 2: Amen.
Dwayne Moore: “For God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,” minus the drama that I got into last time. I like to be dramatic. You’d better be patient with me on that, but I’ll try to skip the drama this time and remind you of what I said. That I walked around with the ducks and the squirrels for a while before I finally figured out that there was a third requirement for authentic worship. That those who worship, not everybody in the room was going to worship, those who worship, though.
Those who worship. Jesus himself acknowledged not everybody will worship. “Those who worship must worship in spirit and in truth.” So, there is a third qualification that’s that is got to be humbly, deliberately, allowed by the individual. I believe this with all my heart and you may not. You may be of the school of thought … and I had a guy on my staff that felt this way, so I respect it if you feel this way … that if you’re in a room of worshiping Christians, somehow you get kind of sucked into that moment and you also are worshiping. Nah, I don’t think so. I just don’t see that.
I believe that there’s something extremely powerful and unique and special about being together with the corporate body. I am a big proponent of gathering together. I’m not a fan of livestream worship on a regular basis. Can we talk? I mean, I love it I think it’s a wonderful tool and thank God for people that are shut ins that can see the service. I’m not putting it down, my point is, if you can gather with the saints, Hebrews 10 says go do it because there’s something powerful about gathering the coals together because they did they just get hotter when they get together. Amen?
Student 2: Yep.
Dwayne Moore: However, we’re not coals, we’ve got a soul! And we’ve got a spirit and we’ve been we’ve got a brain that decides whether I’m going to be there or not and if I’m going to enter into worship.
Worship is a choice. I believe that. I believe it’s part of the theology I understand about worship is that I confess my sins, I commit myself fully, and I commune with God freely. I cannot be made to do that and just because I’m in a room of them … my friend says just because human you were born in a Baskin Robbins does not make you a flavor of the month … doesn’t make you automatically that because just you are there. You can be there and not be a worshiper. I believe that, you may not, but you have to figure out what you believe. This is very important. It will affect the way you lead people in the future. It’s a big deal. Go figure it out.
Below is a transcript from my interview with John Martin. Please leave a comment below to help us welcome him!
Dwayne: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Worship Q&A podcast. I’m Dwayne Moore and every week we try to answer questions that worship leaders are asking. This week we don’t really have a question John, but we do have a celebration moment. I have my friend John Martin here sitting in on this podcast. This is actually his first official day to work on our staff here at NLW International. Very excited John to have you here man.
John: Excited to be here.
Dwayne: Yeah, I can tell you look excited. I think he’s already seen all the work that he has to do and I think he’s already … It’s already settling in on him. This is a big job, it’s an important job. So, we’re going to hear from him in just a few minutes in telling us why he wanted to be a part of this ministry. And also some things he has in mind that he’s hoping to bring to us to help us. Well, help worship leaders and help churches.
Before we get into that John, I just want to mention the importance of some things coming up that we think … We’re really excited about. We have a new coaching phase coming up in a couple months. We have three coaching phases. We are in the influence phase right now. That will go through into March and then we’ll start a new coaching phase. We’ll start one in May. And that one in May will be focusing on the impact we can make with our groups. So, I want to encourage you. John would love to talk to you and just help you know more about that. And so we’ll tell you more about that later but just want to put a bug in your ear to start with today, beginning of our podcast about thinking about joining our coaching community. We have a lot of fun and they’re very interactive. Every week’s … Never know what’s going to come up. We’re going to talk about and pray over and encourage each other about. But we try to take different topics and make it really practical from week to week. We also make it very customized. We actually help you develop growth plans for you and for your group that’s very personalized. Check that out and hopefully be a part of that.
But for now let’s jump back into this with John. We’ve been friends a long, long time. But we’ve also shared, I think, a common desire to disciple. John’s been a pastor for many years, so he’s got a pastor’s heart. And when we saw the opportunity came available for us to work together in this ministry, wow, we jumped on that. So, wherever you want to start from, John. Tell us about yourself.
John: Well, first of all it is great to be here. I am excited about what God is doing and what God has done. You know, I remember … Wow, I think it was 12 years ago or so that you were at a church doing a revival for me that I was pastoring. You know, you told me, “Hey, I got this idea.” And we spent a little bit of time talking about it and praying over it and working out some mission vision statement type stuff. And I think that I bought in that day. You know, I pastored for over 20 years at various sized churches, different styles of worship. I wish that I’d had this type of material. The coaching session just talking about, I wish that that had been available for the worship leaders that I’ve worked with throughout the years, even back then. It’s just so valuable. The relationship between a pastor and a worship leader is so vital, so important. And they’ve gotta be on the same page. You know, we never want any tension or anything within a staff. You know, the pastor and the youth leader or the pastor and the children’s minister, the pastor and the janitor may not always see eye to eye on everything and it doesn’t impact the congregation. But if the pastor and the worship leader are not on that same page then that’s something that’s going to be evident for everyone to see.
Dwayne: I’m glad you mentioned the relationship from the pastor and the worship leader. That’s one of the things, frankly John, I don’t know if I told you this, but I’m really excited about you being a part of this part of our staff because you bring that dynamic that we haven’t had. You know, I’ve never been a pastor. I’ve never been a lead pastor. And so it’s hard for me to help people in that role or to relate to pastors that we got a lot of pastors that come to us for help, for advice, for encouragement. We have a lot of worship leaders that want to know better how to work and communicate better with their pastors. So, you can help us know how to do that. And I think that’s going to be a really great asset to us that you do that.
John: Yeah, I’m real excited about the possibilities of that. But you know, even move beyond the idea of pastor and worship pastor. The impact that the materials that we offer. The impact that can have on the church as a whole. Anyone at any level, you know, Dwayne I’m a firm believer that … And I don’t mean this to sound cliche, but I’m a firm believer that worship is more than music.
Dwayne: Yeah.
John: You know it’s not about what we do on Sunday morning, it’s about how that we live our life. And just helping people to understand that worship is a lifestyle. It’s not something we do … It’s not a life event. But it’s a lifestyle. I feel that if the church as a whole could catch sight of that and just grasp that truth, man the impact that we’d make for the kingdom in this world is just phenomenal what it could do.
Dwayne: You were actually one of the first people that I tried this material out on and when I was writing the Pure Praise book for my own team. I don’t know, maybe I called you up and said, “Hey, I got this thing I’m writing.” You were always nice to me, never said what you probably really thought back then. You probably thought, “He’s writing a book. He’s gotta be crazy.” But you know, you supported me I that. But you also took time to read it. And then you ended up taking some of your people through it. Maybe just take a moment and … Because I remember you had a pretty phenomenal experience with some of the materials even years ago with your own congregation, didn’t you?
John: We did. I have … Ever since you came out with Pure Praise I’ve encouraged each church that I’ve served at for the worship leader to carry the praise team, the choir all those folks through that is phenomenal. But you know, one of the things that a lot of people may not know about. You know, you developed a church-wide campaign that takes some of those same principles, same truths. And I had the joy, the privilege of being able to pilot that in one of my congregations. And I’ll never forget, we ended the whole thing with this emphasis on just that lifestyle of worship. What that looks like. I had a deacon that had been a deacon for several years within the church, very dependable, very strong individual that came up to me and told me. He said, “You know, preacher.” He said, “I want you to understand one thing that I’ve come to realize and see out of all this is that if I’m not leading people to Jesus. If I’m not fishing,” I’ll never forget he said, “If I’m not fishing, I’m not following.”
Dwayne: Wow.
John: He said, “If I’m not actively trying to lead people to Christ.” He said, “I can’t say that I truly worship him.” And just the impact that that made and I’ll never forget, from that day forward that guy, he was at every outreach opportunity that we gave.
Dwayne: Wow, that’s a great story.
John: And really impacted by that. And that’s the truth that comes from understanding the importance of lifestyle worship.
Dwayne: And that’s one of the reasons over the years when we’ve talked, I’ve been praying. My wife and I would pray often, “Lord, if you would just ever give us the opportunity, we would jump on it to have John to be a part of our staff and a part of this ministry.” Because, you worked a full-time job up until just a couple weeks ago where you didn’t have the time to focus on this ministry. But now, now you do. So why don’t you take a minute and walk us through, you know, where you just came from to where you are now and what you’re hoping for in the next few months being a part of this.
John: Well, you know one of the things that I’m excited about, believe that God has brought me to this point for is just to help you get the foundation laid. I truly believe and I’ve always believed, Dwayne, that God had something big in store for NLW. I truly believe that he’s going to use NLW International to impact this world for his kingdom. And just getting some of those tasks done that lays the foundation for not just what we’re doing today, but for what we’re going to be doing two years from now, five years from now, ten years from now.
Dwayne: Yeah.
John: Helping to just bring all that together and hopefully as time progresses, being able to be more hand-on with even the different things that we’re doing ministerially. Maybe opening up some doors to minister to pastors who are struggling with the concept of worship or are needing some help in their own ministry in teaching about worship and teaching lifestyle worship.
Dwayne: I think also in helping us develop even more church-wide materials. I know one of the things we hear a lot of worship leaders say is, we feel like we have a grasp on standing up there and singing and playing, but we don’t know how to communicate that and pull our people into real experiencing, truly experiencing worship. We have developed and we continue to develop materials that can help churches experience, and really understand and then experience true worship.
We haven’t announced your role, but your role is more in the operational area, Chief Operational Officer, Director to Operations, that kind of thing. But, man you just bring so much to the table. So we’re going to try our best to keep you focused on the area that I’m the weakest and that’s administration. I definitely need help on that but, there’s no way we got you around without also glean from your knowledge or wisdom and your experience. And so anyway, I just wanted to introduce you to our guys and folks that are listening by podcast and just real excited, man. That God would give us this opportunity to work with you. And we pray for a long time to come.
John: We are excited. My wife, Dee and I were just so excited about what God is going to do. We can’t wait to see what the future holds.
Dwayne: Amen. John, if they want to schedule us for an event. If they want to know more about our coaching program, they can call our office or they can send an email to us. But, you might very well be one of the guys that reaches out to them. So, you may be talking to John in the future and certainly if you’d like to talk to John, I know he would-
John: Absolutely. I’m always available. Anything that I can do to help, you know, always feel free. You can reach me at JMartin@NLWInternational.com. You know, I’ll be glad to help you in any way that I can. Dwayne has a great heart and Dwayne wants to go out and help anyone and everyone that reaches out. I’m the guy that can help make sure that we’re able to do that. So, you know, feel free to reach out to me with anything. Anything at all that I can discuss or help you in any way, we want to do. We do have some great materials. And I love talking about what impact you can see. You know, Dwayne talked about the coaching networks coming up and it is the impact phase. And guys, I’m telling you, having seen it and experienced it, and as a pastor I don’t know a pastor that would not want his worship leader to be a part of something like that. Because, it does indeed make an impact that truly reaches beyond the praise team.
Dwayne: Right, that’s our prayer. Well, hey guys thank you for joining us today for this podcast. John, welcome man and again thanks so much for being a part of this today and joining us. We are going to let you get back to work and hey guys we’ll look forward to seeing you next week. Don’t forget to send in your questions if you have one to our office, office@NLWInternational.com. And we’ll see you back next week. Thanks so much.