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Leadership has been a lifelong study of mine. If I had to make one definitive statement concerning the topic it would be: “Everything in life rises and falls on leadership." When I observe a great leader, I try to get close to them and listen to them. Then I try to absorb their values and emulate their behaviors. There are many factors involved in leadership... vision, ability, opportunity, training, etc.
There have been many discussions on the topic of why our congregations have stopped singing. Many have brought out good points that we should address but in reality each congregation has its own personality. With that in mind, every church is probably going to define “engaged” in a different way. I have lead corporate worship experiences for nearly 48 years and there are some questions that I might suggest you consider to evaluate your congregations singing.
It was ten years ago this week that I got the call from Mom that Dad had gone to Heaven. I was driving home from Lackland Air Force Base where we had set up for a Christmas concert that would be happening the next morning. I called my Mom and told her we would pack and get on the road that evening and she responded … “No Ray, your Dad loved that ministry to the basic trainees and he would be disappointed if you did not go and do it.” So, we decided to go and sing the next morning for nearly 3500 basic trainees. Nearly 400 of those trainees indicated that they surrendered to the call for salvation that morning.
Leadership has been a lifelong study of mine. If I had to make one definitive statement concerning the topic it would be: “Everything in life rises and falls on leadership." When I observe a great leader I try to get close to them and listen to them. Then I try to absorb their values and emulate their behaviors. There are many factors involved in leadership ... vision, ability, opportunity, training, etc. However, every great leader that I have been around talks about 3 keys to leadership that bring you from good to great.
We all have times when we have been desperately hurt by someone, and we find it difficult to move on. The enemy (Satan) wants us to stay offended, and wants to cripple us with anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness. We may find ourselves repetitively playing a recording in our minds of what someone has done to us. We convince ourselves that forgiving is just too hard, (“but you just don’t understand what they did to me!”) and we end up hurting ourselves by disobeying God. How do we get past offenses?
I have been a regular church attender since before I was born. I grew up in the church and I love the church. However for most of my life I was trained in a thought process that urged me to live in performance mode. I was never taught that my works would save me. However, for most of my life I felt that I needed live my life trying to win God’s approval. There was this overriding theme in the teaching I heard that we needed to act right so God would bless us.
In teaching through the Book of Ephesians 6, it has become apparent that Paul wanted the church to be ready for the ensuing spiritual battles that Satan would bring against Christians. All believers in Christ need to be aware that we have a real enemy that is going to put us in the middle of spiritual warfare. You cannot avoid this but you do not have to live in fear.
Several years ago, Andrea came to me with an idea about putting all the Scriptures regarding healing on a tape. We did one unprofessionally at first and it became such a powerful tool that we finally went into the studio and recorded those Scriptures along with some confessions of faith. We then sent that tape to Brian Duncan and he laid a bed of music under the spoken Word. Over the years, we have given out thousands of these tapes and told people to use this tape as a prescription for their health and recovery from sickness, crisis and devastation. God’s Word is very powerful and gives healing to every situation.
Let’s start off by admitting that this generation of worship leaders are split on this issue. But with the resurgence of vocal music in reality TV and the with the Glee generation of students, we are seeing more and more of our congregants that want to participate in the worship ministry. So, many thinking it’s time to reconsider the issue: Is it time to incorporate a choir into the worship leading team?
