Permission to Speak Freely

This website

http://www.permissiontospeakfreely.com/

asks a great question:

"What is the one thing you feel you can't say in church?"

Even though this is geared for laypeople, I believe this is also a great question for Pastors because I believe there are some things I can't say in church either.

I wonder what it would look like to have total openness and authenticity in church. Kinda scary but so freeing too!

The Spirit and the System of Worship

I am big into creating a system that helps to organize worship Sunday in and Sunday out.

But, I shouldn't forget about creating the spirit of worship.

I too easily overlook the envornment I'm creating for worship.

The system that is used to organize worship should create an environment, or spirit, for worship.

One question that a great friend of mine asked that helps me tackle the spirit of worship:

"What lie do we give up at worship?"

Last week in worship, we gave up the lie: we have to earn salvation. This week, the lie we'll give up is: tapping into God as a last resort.

What would the elements of worship look like if we organized them around the "spirit" or environment of worship?

and

What lie did you give up at worship recently?

Are you Communicating to share Information or Inspiration?

When you have the opportunity (or curse) to stand in front of people and talk, do you revert to sharing information or inspiring the group to greatness?  Which one would you rather do?

For 49 weeks in the past 5 years (I get 3 Sundays off), I have had the opportunity to communicate in front of people.  You think it would be an awesome opportunity (which it is) but sometimes it is tough to be inspiring and heart-provoking week-in and week-out.  It's much easier to share an information dump than it is to inspire and paint a picture of a better future.

Andy Stanley's book "Communicating for a Change" outlined a great system for communicating and recently put his thoughts in a Leadership Podcast:

"Effective Communication"  .mp3

A few things strike me:

-Plan out my messages in advance: I've started to do this by planning out worship themes for the whole year.  This has helped chart what sermons looks like from week to week.  It certainly has helped me remember the message since I'm marinating on it for longer than 3 days.  But I still need to work on getting the details of my sermon movement worked out ahead of time (this will certainly give my .ppt person smiles!)

-Tangible item: For every sermon, I think of questions and thoughts for the people to take home with them so the sermon lasts longer than 30 minutes.  I encourage people to talk about these questions over their lunch or later on in the week.  Now my challenge is to give them something tangible to take with them as a visual.

What about you?  What changes do Andy's insights cause you to make when you're faced with a public speaking setting?

Worship Wars

My 4yr old daughter taught me what worship is about (remember, I'm a Pastor and I'm supposed to know all these things). She was in the car with her grandparents and they were listening to an oldies radio station. A song came on by the Beetles and she instantly recognized it and said, "We sing that in church!"
I was beeming! When someone associates a song that is heard on the radio with 'church', that's an awesome thing! We are able to take church into the week ahead. Worship doesn't just happen for 1 hour on a Sunday...worship is 24/7 and when a song on the radio helps worship God, that's a good thing in my book.