FredMcKinnon.Com

Hey Friends,

Checkout this fantastic song led by the band, Deluge.   A fitting song for Good Friday and Easter Weekend – a reminder that though he was crucified and killed, Jesus ROSE.

This song is from the upcoming album “Swell” to be released on 4/17/12.  However, we’re partnering with Integrity Music to give away a FREE pre-release CD!  So if you’d like to win, simply leave a comment below about what the resurrection means to you!

Hey Gang,

I posted a blog a couple of weeks ago called “5 Reasons You Should Not Lead Worship This Sunday“.  It has been well-received on the internet and I wanted to share that I practice what I preach.

This past Sunday, March 18th, I scheduled myself off the stage and allowed other leaders in our great church to take the lead.  The original worship leader for the church, a founding member, blessed the congregation with a set of of tunes that although were a good bit older for our congregation, still loved by so many.  I’ll post those songs below for your convenience.

Walk-In : We Shall Wear A Crown
Opening Set:  I See The Lord, Love the Lord Your God
Communion Set:  Come to the Table, You Are My King, Because He Lives

How I Spent My Sunday Off-Stage

#1:  I participated in parts of the worship service and was able to get a feel for how our congregation was responding
#2:  I engaged with people in our congregation before the service and greeted people as they came in.  Something I’m usually unable to do since I’m up on stage, or backstage in our pre-service prayer and walk-through time.
#3:  I visited Tiny Town, our Infant-K room and witnessed our faithful volunteers blessing our kids (including my own) through story time and songs of worship.
#4:  I visited the Club House to see one of our regular worship leaders and singers leading praise and worship with our 1st-5th grade elementary students.  It touched my heart to see Kim leading from guitar and the kids singing along.  My daughter, Rebekah, was singing the praise song ALL DAY LONG.
#5:  I visited the Roof Top, our student venue to see our youth praise team going for it with the Rush Hour/Middle School service.
#6:  I hung out in the sound booth a bit and observed the craziness that goes on back there and what they have to manage in monitor mixing, house mixing, and all of the tech cues.

I actually snapped a couple of photos of the Kid’s service and the Middle School service and thought of this:
“One generation will praise Thy works to another”. (Psalm 145)

A picture is worth 1,000 words!

Hey Gang,

As a guy who is admittedly online way too much, I’m connected to my friends, co-workers, family, and business contacts through a number of social media tools.

Although I frequently use Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, I still have a great contact list on the old instant messaging network from AOL, known as “AIM”.   My first internet account was with AOL and I’ve had the screenname “HPProd” for as long as I can remember.

Over the past 24 hours there has been a huge issue with AIM users attempting to connect through IM clients.  I use Adium or iChat on the Mac for example.  When attempting to connect to my AIM account I keep getting the following error:

“AOL does not allow your screen name to authenticate here”

Yikes.  What a mess.  I thought it had something to do with the most recent Adium update so I dove into Google to find my answers.  Thankfully I hit this post at Gizmodo and they helped save the day.

If you’re an AIM user who seems to have been locked out of your account, follow these quick steps:

1.  Logon to AIM.Com with your current ID and password.
2.  Go through the verification process.  (I had to add my name, verify my email address, and create a security question)
3.  Change your password to a NEW password.

I’d think you would not have to do Step #3 but I was still unable to connect after doing steps 1-2 only.  After changing my password and updating this in my Adium settings I was back in business.

Oh, I forgot the most important step, #4:  Add “HPProd” and say “hello!”.

Good luck!
Fred

Hello everyone!

This is a recap of the setlist for our worship services at SSCC yesterday.  I’m posting this recap as a part of the weekly “Sunday Setlists” event that takes place over at  TheWorshipCommunity.Com.  I was the primary worship leader and chose to take some time to teach a new song.

Walk-In:  “Washed by the Water” (NeedtoBreathe)
One of our team members led this and always does a fantastic job.  It’s not really a praise or worship song specifically but carries a good message and is a fun song to sing along with.  It’s a nice way to warm up while people are entering the room.

Opening Song:  “No Other Name” (Todd Fields/NorthPoint)
This has been a staple for us for many years.  It’s one of those mid tempo, shorter songs around 3:30.  Our congregation has been singing it for years to it’s super familiar and carries a great message.

Teaching Song:
As I said in the opening paragraph I chose to take some time this morning and teach our congregation a new song, “10,000 Reasons” from Matt Redman’s album last year.  It has this extremely singable chorus but I wanted to accomplish a couple of things before we just sang it.

#1 – read and speak out of Psalm 103, the Scriptural foundation for this song.  I read highlights from this chapter and talked about how the song will refer to 10,000 reasons why we can sing . Forget not his benefits.  My goal was to give a Biblical foundation for the song and hope that the lines of Scripture scattered throughout the song would come alive to the congregation.

#2 – teach the parts.
This Chorus is so beautiful with all of the harmonies so we actually taught the congregation the 3 main parts, choir practice style!  In doing this they were able to feel prepared and when the Chorus came around, they were ready to sing.

This took a good bit of time to accomplish so we only did this one song in the space we’d normally do 2-3 but I felt it was worth the sacrifice.  Next time we do this song it will resonate with the congregation even more.

Sermon:
We are in a series about Nehemiah and this week was Chapter 4, dealing with discouragement.  What better Sunday to start the sermon with a 2:00 minute parody of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”.  I think we pulled it off exceptionally well.  We modified the lyrics as follows:

We don’t need no big distractions
We won’t hear your insults thrown
No dark sarcasm from the nobles
We’re working so leave us alone.
Hey Sanballat, LEAVE US JEWS ALONE
All in all we’ll put another brick in the wall.
All in all we’ll put another brick in the wall.

Closing Song:
For our closing we did an arrangement of the hymn “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”.

It was a fun Sunday and as always, an honor and privilege to be a part of leading the people.

It’s Monday morning.   If you’re like most ministry leaders you wake up feeling completely drained from the day of ministry before.  Turn on the coffee pot because as we all know … “Sunday is coming”.

Have you ever thought about what would happen if you didn’t show up to lead on a Sunday?

Would worship still occur?
Would your leadership team be able to adjust?
Would your congregation adapt?

I’d like to suggest five reasons why you should not lead worship this Sunday.  OK, maybe not THIS Sunday in a literal sense.  But let’s entertain some valid reasons why you should be prepared to not lead and remove yourself from the platform every now and then.

1.  Regain the Congregant’s Perspective

When was the last time that you participated in a worship service as a congregant?   This perspective can be very enlightening to a worship leader.   By joining in with the congregation you can get a first hand feel for what your sound is like, how your team’s stage presence is represented, how transitions flow, and what may be helping or hurting the overall environment that is being created.   Can you hear one another sing?  Is the lighting sufficient?  Are people around you engaged in corporate singing or are they just watching the performance?   All of these can be more easily discerned from the vantage point of a worshiper in the congregation.

2.  Empower Other Leaders

One of the biggest reasons that you need to get off the stage every now and then is for the empowerment of other leaders.  Any worship leader should be intentionally mentoring and raising up additional worship leaders.   You may have to start from scratch or you may share in the huge blessing that I have where you’re already surrounded with a plethora of strong worship leaders.   Either way, stepping aside and giving them the opportunity to minister will build depth in your team, empower others, and bring a fresh approach to worship for your congregation.

3.  Bring More Stylistic Diversity

Let’s face it.  We may try our hardest to diversify our setlists but we’re still prone to sing songs that we’re most comfortable leading.  By getting off the stage and allowing someone else to lead we open the door for stylistic diversity for our congregation.   If you typically lead worship with a guitar it may be refreshing to have a service that is more keyboard-led, and vice-versa.   Perhaps you have someone else who brings a different sound and style altogether which can be a refreshing change of wind in your musical selections and delivery.

4.  Take Time to Worship without Leading

We should always be living our lives in such a way that we’re constantly engaged in direct, personal worship.   If Sunday morning is our only time to worship we’re already in trouble.  However, there is something wonderful when we can step off the stage and worship freely without the concerns of leadership.  By taking some time off the stage we accomplish so many other positive things for others and it can give us a wonderful time to worship freely.  I truly believe that when a congregation notices their worship leader standing with their family engaged in authentic worship, it deepens the trust and connection that would exist between the leader and the people he or she is leading.

5.  Lead in a Different Ministry Within your Church

Can you imagine how your children’s director would respond if you said “hey, next Sunday I’ve asked one of our other worship leaders to lead and I’d be honored if I could come in and lead the young kids in a few simple praise songs”.   C’mon.  That would be amazing and you would be immensely blessed as you are being a blessing.

I truly believe it’s a mistake to force a worship leader to always lead, every week.   There is so much to be gained from a plurality of leadership and from giving a leader the chance to remove themselves from the spotlight, even if the only thing accomplished was a day of rest.

Doing this is not easy and assumes that you have a leadership structure in place where you can hand off the worship leading responsibilities as well.  We’ll tackle that in a future post.

What are your thoughts?  Do you have other reasons why it’s advantageous to get off the stage?