Practical

1. Submission to the Leader

2. A Lifestyle of Prayer

3. Preparation

4. A Lifestyle of Obedience

Todays Key:

5. Excellence

This is a big one.

I often hear people saying things like “that’s good enough” or “It doesn’t have to be perfect”. We have to be very careful with that attitude. We must always remember we are representing the Kingdom and God always gives us His best. We should offer Him no less than our best.

Excellence does not mean perfection and means something different in every context. What is excellent for your church could be completely different at the church down the road.

It means representing the Kingdom as well as possible with what you have. Offering our best is an act of worship in itself. Everything we do should be well thought out, well prepared, so we will represent the God we serve in the best possible way.

This could go several different ways. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with this idea.

More reading here.

Number six is here.

1. Submission to the Leader

2. Lifestyle of Prayer

Todays key:

3. Preparation

In almost 25 years of leading worship the complaint I hear most is “I hate it when I come to rehearsal and the leader isn’t ready!”.

What they are talking about is being prepared administratively which is huge but not the only preparation I’m talking about.

First administrative.

When our team arrives at rehearsal everything shoul be ready to go. Charts prepared, recordings available, what ever you need to rehearse. We should have already worked through the set and know where were going. What the transitions are who is starting each song, what happens in the song etc. etc.

Second spiritual.

When I started in sales I was told:

Sales is 90% people skills and 10% product knowledge and you have to know 100% of the 10%

The same is true with spiritual preparation It’s 90% spiritual and 10% practical and you have to know 100% of the 10%. Make sure you are prayed up, that you have heard from God about what He wants to do in the service. Pray for your team, the music, the transitions, the scripture, what you should say. Pray for the congregation, the pastor, the MC, MD, don’t leave anything to chance.

If you only have time to do one of these two things prepare spiritually but don’t make it a habit of only leaving time for number two.

Blessings,

Number four is here.

I like checklists.

Looking for lists can be a bad thing. People were always asking Jesus “what must we do?” looking for the list of things to check off so they would be “ok” with God.

However lists can provide an effective way to organize our thoughts and to audit our performance. Over the next 10 days we will look at some keys in no particular order. Practical and Spiritual items will be interspersed.

1. Submission to the leader

People ask all the time; “when is it ok to not submit to the leader in the service?”.

The answer is never. “but what if they’re not hearing the Holy Spirit?”

The leader, whether the Sr. Pastor or the delegated M.C., for the morning will be accountable to God for how they led. You are accountable for how you served and submitted. Chapters 11-14 of Romans talks about order in the church. God cares about order. Psalm 133 says where there is unity God commands a blessing.

This applies outside of the service as well. If the Sr. Pastor wants a particular song and you feel like it doesn’t fit with what “God told you” do what the Sr. Pastor asks (with a joyful heart). God will bless you for keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3

I look forward to your comments and additions to the list.

Number Two is here.