Category: church culture

I’d Like To Play More

On By adamdolhanykIn church band, church culture, thoughts, worship2 Comments

Recently, the question was put to me: I’d like to play more at church but the worship leader seems to always be picking others over me, what can I do about this?

The truth is that this is a complex issue. I know a lot of worship leaders who really like someone personally but they aren’t a good fit for whatever reason and the WL doesn’t like conflict so they just use them as little as possible. Sometimes another person is being picked over someone for valid reasons. That other person is being raised up for long term leadership, or the worship leader has figured out that out of three players one really only has the availability because of work or school to do worship so they get a shot more than people who have the ability or time to serve elsewhere. Is that right or wrong? I don’t know, but it is a reality in many churches.

If you’re feeling overlooked or passed over or simply just want to play a little more, what should you do? Here’s some thoughts that will hopefully be helpful.

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4 Ways To Make Your Worship Team Better

On By adamdolhanykIn band practice, church band, church culture, leadership, thoughts, worshipLeave a comment

My friends over at The Church Collective have a new post up by Rob Carona that I think it worth your time called “4 Ways To Release The Potential Of Your Worship Team”.

I highly recommend this article to you.

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On Gungor, Doubt & Belief

On By adamdolhanykIn church culture, culture, thoughts, worship2 Comments

If you’re on any sort of social media, then it’s possible that this last week you saw 1 (or 20) posts, comments, links, and/or articles relating to Michael and Lisa Gungor, their band, and how they’ve denied the faith or something. This is a funny subject because it’s not strictly about worship. Most of Gungor’s songs don’t translate to the average church (you try doing Beautiful Things and see how that works out for ‘ya 😉 ). But I think it’s worth talking about for a few reasons.

First and foremost, I’ve been annoyed about the whole thing and it’ll be cathartic to get this off my chest. Secondly, because there’s just been a lot of silliness written about it in the last few weeks and I’d like to write something that gets past the rhetoric. Lastly, as worship leaders, we should know where our songs come from, who writes them, and how we should interact with churches who don’t line up with the style and shape of our own.

(See the article that kind of kicked every thing off HERE and Gungor’s response HERE)

NOTE: Michael Gungor (MG) really is representative of his family, band and church. So there may be parts of this post where I’m not just talking about him specifically, but you’ll just have to let the context tell you when that is.

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Hymnals and Looking Backwards

On By adamdolhanykIn blogs, church culture, thoughts, worship6 Comments

Should Churches Go Back To Using Hymnals?

This post from the Ponder Anew blog has been floating around the interwebs recently. It’s technically well written (good grammar choices, punctuation, etc) but it falls flat on the lack of strength in it’s own arguments.

I’m sure the author is a nice guy, good husband, and a brother to me in Jesus. But he’s also holding the flag for a past tradition. According to his argument, it’s not enough just to sing hymns. We have to sing them using traditional (old outdated) technology in church buildings with traditional (old outdated) architectural styles. Why? Because that’s the way the author likes it.

The authors post is summed up with three foundational principles:

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Can A Non-Christian Worship God?

On By adamdolhanykIn church culture, culture, leadership, thoughts, worship1 Comment

Recently, I noticed a google search that lead someone to this blog: Can a non-christian worship God? I’m assuming that google lead them to either THIS POST about whether or not a non-Christian can be on the worship team, or THIS POST about the arguments over sacred vs secular in church music. While I hope that either of those articles was helpful to the person’s Google search, I realized that both flirted with the question, but never answered it directly: Can a non-Christian worship God? Yes or no.

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“The Problem With Worship Leaders”

On By adamdolhanykIn church culture, culture, leadership, thoughts, worship1 Comment

I recently stumbled across a post on the Reforming Baptist blog from a couple of years back called “What Bothers Me About Worship Leaders”. I’m sure the guy who writes the blog is a super nice guy and if we were having lunch we’d probably have a good conversation. This is not me finding a blog another Christian brother wrote and ripping on him or his position on my blog. The concerns he raises are one’s I’ve heard other places and I think they’re worth addressing. The truth is that, aside from his 1st point, all of his concerns have some validity, and he’s expressed them better than most. I think they’re points worth addressing. You can read the original post HERE

1. THE POSISTION OF WORSHIP LEADER IS A MODERN INVENTION

This isn’t on his list but it is found in his opening paragraph and it’s something you hear every so often from certain corners of the Church. The concept of a worship leader isn’t a new thing, no matter what anyone says. There have always been people who God has called and gifted with talents in writing and creating art and song for the purpose of delclaring the praise of God. It has looked different over the years, but the intent has generally been the same. Anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant of history or is just basing their statement on the relatively recent history of their tribe of churches. WorshipLeader has a quick run down of the “History of Worship Leading” HERE.

That being said, even if the position of Worship Leaders were a modern invention, that doesn’t mean that they are wrong or evil. A “missions pastor” is a new invention, but a church being orgainized and intetional about missions isn’t bad right? What about an “Outreach Pastor” or a church IT guy? Let’s not forget my current position of College and Youth Pastor. Those are all new positions that have been created out of cultural need or an attempt to have better or more effective organization. All are new, none of them, on their own, are bad.

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Sermon-Centric Planning?

On By adamdolhanykIn church culture, leadership, thoughts, vision, worship1 Comment

Neil over at the Blue Collar Worship Blog has written a great post about the problems with planning your set list around the pastor’s sermon.

There are a lot of folks who think it’s vital to plan your message around the sermon, and a lot of good tools and software available to accomplish this. I think that no matter what you do, you need to have a good line of communication with the leadership of your church, and a clear understanding of what’s expected of you. The reverse is that the leadership needs to have an understanding that if they ask for certain things it will require other things.  You can read Neil’s prespective on not planning your set list thematically to match the sermon HERE. Here’s my thoughts on why I don’t plan thematically.

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Easter Is Coming

On By adamdolhanykIn band practice, church band, church culture, leadership, vision, worship3 Comments

It’s Easter Week!

For the Christian, this is the best of all holidays. While Christmas and the coming of Christ is wonderful, and Thanksgiving and taking time for to give thanks, and spend time with family is terrific, none of it matters without Easter. Even Good Friday, and Jesus’ death on the cross are meaningless if didn’t rise from the dead. Easter has historically also been a time when people are more likely than any other time to attend church, so churches tend to plan and schedule accordingly.

With all that in mind, here’s a few random thoughts on leading worship Easter weekend from RealWorldWorship.Org:

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LENT

On By adamdolhanykIn church culture, culture, thoughts, worshipLeave a comment

Lent is here… Or at least thats what Facebook told me.

Lent is an old church tradition of Fasting from something in the 40 days leading up to Easter. Eating, drinking, media consumption, social media, etc.

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Finding Maturity In Worship Ministry

On By adamdolhanykIn church culture, culture, leadership, thoughts, visionLeave a comment

My Pastor, Bill Walden, wrote a great post this week on his own blog that is worth sharing. Many of us deal with raising up new worship players and we struggle sometimes with people who have such great and genuine hearts to serve, but it seems like they can’t help but trip over themselves and others.

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