Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 0027 – Communication
In this week’s episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, David & Kevin talk about the art of communication (or the lack thereof). It’s a delicate thing, how much should we communicate, and in how much detail, how often, what should we say, etc. We share some of our personal successes and failures in communicating and talk about some of the goals we have to improve our communication. We hope this episode will...
Sing Your Praise – Kevin Kruse Original Song
I wrote this song for our church to have an upbeat corporate worship song. There aren’t a lot of deep theological ideas in this song… it’s simply a song to praise our King! The verse is a call to worship (who God is). The pre-chorus is our approach (why we’re here). And the chorus is our response (what we do). It’s real simple and straight forward… and our church really seems to worship and...
Your Word is Alive – Kevin Kruse Original Song
I wrote this song in response to a sermon series we’re going through on the book of Hebrews. As I was reflecting on Hebrews 4, I was struck with the imagery in verse 12 about how the Word of God is active, and living, and powerful. I couldn’t shake that idea of His Word changing us and our response to that truth. Out of that idea I started pulling images, ideas, and verses from the book of Hebrews to create a song that I...
Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 0026 – Introducing new Songs
Today, David and Kevin tackle a topic that has been a point of contention for many worship leaders for many years – what are the guidelines for introducing a new song? How many new songs can you do throughout the course of a year? When you introduce it, how should you teach it to your congregation? We truly hope that you’ll find this episode of the WMC podcast encouraging and insightful in your pursuit to continually...
Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 0025 – Year End Review (Part 3)
In this weeks episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast, David and Kevin do a follow up to the interview of Jodan Fowler from www.worshiptrench.com. It was such a great episode we just had to continue talking about it this week. If you missed last weeks episode, you really should check it out. We talk about some of our thoughts from the interview, as well as give you some of the details for the Reviews we’re doing with...
Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 0024 – Interview with Jordan Fowler of Worship Trench.com
What a great episode we have for you this week. We talked with Jordan Fowler of www.worshiptrench.com about doing a Year End Review. It is a very uplifting and encouraging conversation for us and I’m sure it will be for you too. Jordan not only shares with us some very helpful insight in how to do a Year End Review, but many other little helpful bits of information along the way. If you’re doing a year end review and have...
Creativity Takes Patience, Silence, Time, and …
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Creativity lately. I know that many of you are a part of creative teams at your churches and you all have your own process for how come to your end result. I’ve been wanting to write what I know about how to utilize creativity in the local church, and have had trouble narrowing down the ideas, so I just decided to start writing and work it out along the way. First, let’s start...
5 Elements of a great song – Chris from Canada
I just found a great article over on Chris’s page. Here’s the link: http://www.chrisfromcanada.com/?p=1033 Here are some of the highlights from the article: 12:37 Chris – 5 Elements of a Great Song – #1 Define Your Purpose 12:38 Chris – ‘Songs that have universal appeal fall in to that trap. They have no specific purpose and no specific meaning.’ 12:40 Chris – Lots of worship songs are filled with...
Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 0023 – Using non-Christian Musicians in the worship band
Break out the Heresy hat because we’re bringing on the controversy this week on the Worship Ministry Catalyst podcast. In this week’s episode David & Kevin talk about using Non-Christian Musicians in the Worship Band. For too many of us, we just answer “no” without ever thinking about it. But could it be possible that we’re missing out on an opportunity by not keeping an open mind? Listen in to find...
Worship songs every church should sing
I don’t know about you, but one of the biggest challenges I face being a worship leader is finding new music. Of course, if new was the only criterion there wouldn’t be any problem, but we have stylistic, theological, song quality, singability, and technichal ability criteria to work into the equation as well. I’ve done a lot of research to see how other worship leaders find new songs, and haven’t really found...
Weekend Review – 01-31–02-01-09
All the stars aligned and worship was awesome. So, I don’t actually believe in the stars aligning or whatever, but in a sense they did. We did almost everything this week that prepared us as wholly as we could for the worship this weekend. I don’t know about you, but for me, it seems like I feel quite regularly (as a worship leader) there is always more I could have done to help us get ready. And it usually shows in some...
Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 0022 – Crash & burn
A bit over dramatic…but…sometimes things happen. Sometimes plans fail and sometimes not because of anything we did or didn’t do. That’s what David & Kevin talk about in this episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast. What do you do when things Crash & burn? We would love to hear from you about this topic. Maybe you found yourself in the same situation this last Christmas. If you did, we’d...
Weekend Review – 01-2425-09
It’s been awhile. The last time I did this was Dec 13 & 14, over a month. I took a break from blogging and what not during the busy time of getting ready for Christmas and then on vacation, so now I’m finally getting back into the swing of things. This weekend we had one of our volunteer worship leaders lead and she did a great job. I’m happy to have her leading and starting to do it more often. I’m really...
Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 0018 – It’s beginning to look at lot like Christmas
In this weeks’ episode David & Kevin talk about what we’re doing for Christmas. We thought it would be good to talk about Christmas while there’s still time to help those who listen to this podcast in their planning. As opposed to simply evaluating the podcast after we’ve finished the season. So, we talk about Christmas, what we’re planning on doing, as well as some other stuff that has been going on...
Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast – Episode 0015 – Premier Week and finding new worship songs
In this weeks’ episode Kevin & I talk about some of the shows that we are excited about being back on TV, and then we dive right into our topic of the day, which is the process we use for finding new worship songs. One of the best ways we have found to come across new songs, is by hearing from you. I know that one of the best ways I’ve come across new songs lately (which we talk about in more detail in the podcast) is...
The Leadership Challenge
I came across this quote in a book I’m reading, The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes, Posner. In some ways, leaders live their lives backward. They see pictures in their minds eye of what the results will look like even before they’ve started their project, much as an architect draws a blueprint or an engineer builds a model. Their clear image of the future pulls them forward. Yet visions seen only by leaders are...