Beyond Sunday Worship

Worship Podcast & Blog

Compliments: How To Respond, How Not To Respond, & How To Really Glorify God

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“Worship was awesome today!”

“No it wasn’t. God is awesome.”

“Man, you did a great job leading us.”

“No I didn’t. Praise Almighty Jehovah on High!”

Compliments. They come and they go. We love to hear them but we don’t know how to respond to them.

If you are in any form of public ministry (which is basically everyone in ministry) you will be complimented. You will be looked up to. You will be someone’s hero.

To some degree, everyone has a fan club. How do you respond to praise without it getting to your head?

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#83: Worship Team Auditions, Multisite Ministry, & Prioritizing Creativity with NCC Worship [Podcast]

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Auditions. It’s one of the most talked about subjects among worship teams.

The team at National Community Church have a great system in place for recruiting, evaluating, and developing musicians numerous times throughout the calendar year. I wanted to sit down and talk with Worship Director Kurtis Parks & Worship Leader Joel Buckner on how they do this.

There’s so much more to glean from this episode too: what worship ministry looks like in a multisite church, making creativity intentional by placing it on the calendar, as well as NCC Worship’s brand new album with Integrity Music.

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What The Best Musicians Do That Most Overlook

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I used to think that great music was about speed – how fast can ones fingers glide across the piano, shred on the guitar, fly on the drum kit?

I used to think that great music was about difficulty – as if greatness was directly related to one’s ability to play Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes.

I used to think that great music could only be played on a great instrument. If you didn’t have something that was at least $1000, what you were playing was total crap.

Believe it or not, I also used to think electronic music was lame. I mean, what skill is really involved?

It’s not that brilliant musicians can’t play fast or difficult music. Or that they refuse to use nice instruments. No, it’s just that their music is deeper than that. It’s more real. It comes from within.

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#82: The Wonder of Worship, The God of the Old Testament, & The Value Of Hymns with Andrew Greer & Ginny Owens

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So honored to have some new friends on the podcast this week. Andrew Greer is a Dove award-nominated singer/songwriter and Ginny Owens is a 3 time Dove award winning artist. What’s interesting about this interview is both of them are first time authors, here to discuss their new book Transcending Mysteries: Who is God and What Does He Want from Us?

I loved the twists and turns in this conversation: songwriting, book writing, knowing God, hymns, leading worship: it’s all here. Enjoy!

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What A Congregation Needs From Their Worship Leader

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Ever been caught in the middle of an awkward conversation?

You don’t know what to say, you feel trapped. You can’t wait for it to end.

Corporate worship can feel like this sometimes, right?

No, I’m not here to make fun of specific worship leaders. I’m not here to label you as awkward. But I do believe there is too much at stake for us to be a hindrance rather than a help to worship.

Your church doesn’t need you to be a rockstar. They don’t need you to be the best in world. They don’t even need you to impress them. They just need you to create a safe place.

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