Erik Cooper, pastor at City Community Church recently shared this on his post “Why We’re Quitting Worship“:

But right there. In that moment. For those people. At that time. I had no answer. At least no good one. We had forced creative, passionate, worshipers into a very narrow channel. And I couldn’t seem to find the remote control.

Sometimes you have to stop doing something to remember why you were doing it in the first place.

So for the time being, we’re not going to open each service with the standard 22 minutes of music. We’re taking a break. A breath. A step back. A Selah if you like.

Are we stuck in the, “…because that’s the way we’ve always done it” mentality?

I’m not sure how I feel, I understand that worship can mean many different things to many different people and can be expressed in many different ways.

Adjust. Change. Morph. Adapt. But I don’t think you just stop. Can you?

As Matt Redman experienced, have we just drifted away from the heart of worship again?

It reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw recently, “If it’s not broke. Don’t fix it”

Is the City Community church really experiencing broken worship? Or is there something else that’s not working? I know that many times church staff, volunteers, musicians, vocalists and tech team people can get buried in doing the production of worship for multiple services multiple times a week. That needs to be addressed for sure if it’s happening, but is the worship itself really broken and in need of fixing?

What do you think?

Just got to reading an article from Collide that I had saved about using Secular Music In Sacred Settings. Our church uses both sacred and secular music selections for a variety of uses and I believe it’s a useful mechanism. As were shared in the comments of the post, we’ve seen and heard from people who were un-churched or uncomfortable with their “foreignness” to church and a familiar song helped them to relax and focus on the message that may have been shared in that song, in others and in the messages shared by our pastors.

There are a number of great points and clarifications of ideas shared by Kyle Baker in the article as well as those commenters after the post. Kyle’s four main points were:

1. All truth is God’s truth, regardless of the source
2. Not every action during a service or assembly is intended for corporate worship
3. Music is part of how we participate in our culture
4. There is no clear boundary between the sacred and the secular

I’d love for you to read the article and then share your own thoughts and comments on the Collide site as well as here. What does your church do? When you hear a sacred song in church, what is the first thought that goes through your mind? Is it similar to the first thought that goes through my mind when I hear a “Christian” song in a location I didn’t expect it?

This Saturday night, October 30th, Jeremy Camp will bring The Conversations from the Red Chair and Worship Tour to the Eagle Center (Home of Eagle Church) in Whitestown, IN (just north of Indianapolis off of I-65). Jeremy won’t be coming alone though, also performing will be Carlos Whittaker, John Mark McMillan and Three Union.

I’m excited because Jeremy Camp is one of my favorite singers and songwriters and I’ve never seen him in concert. I’m also really excited to see Carlos Whittaker (or as I know him more accurately as @loswhit on Twitter). I’m not familiar with John Mark MicMillan and Three Union, so getting some exposure to some new music is always a good thing too.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to meet all the acts and get some good photos to share with everyone after the concert.

1:23 Conversations From the Red Chair w/Jeremy Camp, John Mark McMillan & Carlos Whittaker from Integrity Live on Vimeo.

I’m also excited that this will be the first of hopefully quite a few concerts and promotions I’ll be helping with in the future with Chris Linhart and The Upper Room. Chris has an amazing heart for ministry to use Christian music to reach kids and anyone else that may never step foot in a church or attend some other Christian event.

For more information and to purchase tickets visit Edan Concerts and iTickets.com

(Nashville, TN) March 13, 2009—Word Entertainment is slated to release two Women of Faith albums on March 17, including A Grand New Day from the Women of Faith Worship Team, and New Every Morning, a compilation featuring songs centered around the theme of God’s mercy being new every day, with songs by Mandisa, Avalon, Francesca Battistelli and Meredith Andrews.

Continuing their unique partnership with the Women of Faith organization, Word’s releases will serve as the official audio/CD for the weekly conferences, which draw thousands of women each year. Garnering Dove award nominations for the past two years, the Worship Team continues to be a successful part of the Women of Faith team.

In addition, Word is set to release two additional female-targeted projects on March 17, including Duets 2, a follow-up to Sandi Patty’s hit Duets album, as well as Women In Worship, a 20-song collection featuring today’s most popular worship songs, sung by women and for women.

For more information, visit www.wordlabelgroup.com.

Word Entertainment, a Warner/Curb company, is comprised of Word Distribution, Word Music and Word Label Group’s Word Records, Fervent Records, Myrrh Records, Canaan Records and Word Music Publishing.  Leading the industry with over 50 years of music making history, Word Entertainment represents some of Christian entertainment’s top brands, including award-winning artists Diamond Rio, Point Of Grace, BarlowGirl, Mark Schultz, Randy Travis, Selah, Natalie Grant, Aaron Shust, Big Daddy Weave and Francesca Battistelli, in addition to Big Idea’s successful VeggieTales video series.

Spent quite a bit of time at the church last night working on the new set for our new sermon series titled “DISCIPLE”. We had originally wanted to project the letters “DISCIPLE” onto the back wall with people’s faces inside the letters like this.

Due to some funding constraints on projectors that would make this work we decided we just couldn’t swing it. We finally landed on Plan C which diverted away from the aesthetics directly related to series title and just a general look, which will be incorporated into worship slides and other graphics.

After 8 hours at the church last night, we got it all done. I created some wiring components to allow us to plug some regular lights into our light battens and control them from the board. We then hung paper lanterns and balls and panels to create a general look of randomness and color. We ended up with this:

UPDATE: Just received this picture from one of the people that was helping. She took it with her phone as we were putting things up. Nothing lit.

That’s me up on the lift. I’m waving at you (not really, but if I knew she was taking a picture I would have been!)

What do you think?

Bart Millard of MercyMe has been working on a new album and you can now order it for when it becomes available on August, 19th, 2008.

The title of the album is “Hymned Again” and as you can imagine is an additional dose of Bart singing some of the favorite hymns of the church.

Bart Millard, the voice of MercyMe, crafts one of the most musically innovated CDs of the year with Hymned Again.

Following in the footsteps of his successful debut release, Hymned No. 1., Bart delivers bold interpretations of familiar hymns with a fun, up-tempo and spirited musical journey showcasing his signature vocals.

Here’s the track listing:

1. Leaning On The Everlasting Arms
2. Down At The Cross
3. What A Friend We Have In Jesus
4. I Saw The Light
5. I Stand Amazed
6. Victory In Jesus
7. Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus
8. Brethren We Have Met To Worship
9. Grace That Is Greater
10. What A Day That Will Be
11. Jesus Cares For Me

How many of your favorites are on there? Which hymns are your favorites that you’d love to hear Bart sing on his next album?

Another album I’ve been listening to is “This Is My Story” by David Frush.

David serves as the minister to junior high students and the student ministry worship leader at The Heights Baptist Church in Richardson, TX.

This album delivers and transports you to an atmosphere or worship, I’m sure he does a fantastic job of leading worship for the students at his church. The album is a collection of songs you’re both familiar with and new ones that will expand your love for our Savior and worship him with your own story.

As I listen to more and more albums, one thing I really appreciate in the production of an album is that the vocals aren’t lost in the music. David’s lyrics and singing of these great messages stand out loud and clear. I’m sure that’s a residual benefit of so much experience leading worship, but it’s very much appreciated in this album.

“This Is My Story” Track Listing

1. Here Is Love
2. Song of Creation
3. All I Know
4. Just As You Are
5. Wait
6. Your Mercy Falls
7. Amazing Grace / Hallelujah
8. Prodigal Son
9. Children of Zion
10. Speak to Me
11. Eye of A Child
12. This Is My Story
13. Bonus Track: Here Am I

Some of my favorite songs I’ve bolded above. This is not necessarily an album you want to listen to get yourself pumped up. But it’s the perfect album to have playing in the background while working or while you’re actively approaching a spirit of prayer and worship.

David’s guitar work is generally good throughout the album, but I specifically enjoy the tone and tempo of it on the title track “This Is My Story”. Also, for anyone that has children, you’ll probably love “Eye of A Child”.

More photos and video after the jump

The video below is of David Frush and Jourdan Burks leading worship at The Heights Baptist Church in Richardson, TX.

Pictures Used with Permission from Leann Callaway

If you’d like to learn more about David Frush you can visit his MySpace site at www.myspace.com/davidfrush and his website at www.davidfrush.com

Many of you have probably seen this video with Fee where a good intentioned cymbal player really wants to join the worship band.

Our Worship Arts ministry at our church decided to make our own spoof of the spoof to encourage people to try out for our own ministry.

Shortly after beginning to attend our church I was cast in a drama that’s sealed my fate forever. I’m now “that guy” that appears frequently in dramas with a very similar character type. Interestingly enough, “that guy” is very close to how I really do act most of the time.

What do you think? Did I scare you off? Did you at least laugh?

Not directly related to Christian music, but since we also cover things related to worship I had to share the artistry of Camron Ware. I’ll let him introduce himself in his own words from his website.

My passion and joy in life is creating worship environments using light and projection. I’ve grown up loving pictures, colors, and the emotions they create. For over five years, I’ve had the blessing of being the Lighting and Projection Designer at Irving Bible Church. I have enjoyed seeing God take the passions and gifts He gave me and use them through me to create entire worship environments.

As someone who’s had personal interest and experience in theater, concert and event lighting, Camron’s work is absolutely beautiful. More importantly it does what should be the goal of anyone when leading or helping deliver a worship experience; transform the user’s experience and transport them to a worship experience that connects them with the One deserving worship.

Visit Camron Ware’s website, client flickr gallery, personal flickr gallery or this article about his work on Collide Magazine.

Chris Clayton’s album “all these things and more” releases today for purchase. He will also be having an album release party on June 13 in Grapevine, TX if you’re in the area here are the details:

CD Release Concert at 121 Community Church

840 Mustang Drive
Grapevine, TX 

June 13, 2008  — 7:30 PM
(Doors open at 7 pm)

Admission is free

For more information on Chris Clayton and to pre-order his CD, check out www.myspace.com/glimpseproductions  and www.chrisclayton.org