FredMcKinnon.Com

It’s Spring Break here in Glynn County to I’ve taken a few days off of work so we can be together as a family.  We were hanging out on the beach yesterday and I read a great article from LeadershipJournal.Net called “The X Factor“.

“Most of the highly celebrated, experimental worship services launched in the 90′s to reach ‘Gen-X’ are now gone.  What have we learned from the rise, decline, and renewal of next generation ministries?” … that’s the headline.  It was a great read.

I suppose reading this article and Skye Jethani’s “The Divine Commodity” at the same time is creating a firebox where the slightest spark can ignite the inferno inside of me, that, for a bunch of reasons, sometimes thinks we’re “doing church” all wrong these days.

I’m constantly living in this tension … how to be relevant and attractive to those who need (and yes, even to those who have) Jesus Christ … and how to live the life that Jesus has for us, with authenticity and holiness.   How to take relate to this culture without being tainted by it’s filthy influence.

One quote in this article really pulled a verbal “Amen” from me … right out loud, there on the pool deck.

I feel that if we can see church as the people, and not just define church by the worship gathering, a lot would be solved in bridging generations,” Kimball said. “We could focus more on the older mentoring the younger, the older opening their homes and being sages and guides to the younger. Instead we focus so much on getting the twenty-somethings into the main worship gathering. But just sitting in a room for an hour and half looking at the backs of everyone’s heads does not make something intergenerational.

Wow.  You see, I have this desire that we all come together.  There is a time and place for “age-focused and preference-driven” gatherings, but I don’t think they should become the all-in-all for people.  Seems like God has something for us all to learn from one another.  But we don’t really accomplish that through our Sunday morning gatherings in most churches.  Like the quote above says, we come and look at the back of people’s heads and go home.

This needs to change.  How do we go beyond the corporate worship and lecture and become family?

1.  I feel that entertainment-driven corporate gatherings are creating weak Christians who constantly focus on what is “in it” for them.
2.  I feel that by constantly appealing to “preference” we feed the self-fulfillment monster and isolate those who don’t share the same preference.
3.  I think that we miss the building of true community when our church activities revolve around the big events where someone on stage performs for us.

Ouch.  There.  I said it.

Let the debate begin.

Hey Everybody!

Another great day of worship at SSCC yesterday.  One of the songs that Russ Hutto has been telling us about is “Say So” by Israel Houghton and Michael Gungor.  We introduced it as our walk-in yesterday … complete w/ the full Ableton Live tracks offered by Interactive Worship Live.  Since we already had drums, bass, acoustic, piano, and electric guitar, I muted those tracks in Ableton, but we still benefited from the loops, synths, the THREE extra electric guitar tracks and other fillers …

Earlier this week I “tweeted” about my frustrations in scheduling a worship setlist that didn’t “flow” as well as it should simply because we knew people would come to church late.  This was one of those weeks.  Because we needed to make some major announcements about our upcoming Easter services … specifically, the parking issues … we needed to make sure more people were “in the building”.  As a result, I put “Hosanna” (Paul Baloche/Brenton Brown) at the top of the hour to give an extra 5-minutes for people to come in … LATE.

I know we shouldn’t schedule to reward and enable late attendance, but in this case – all of those late-comers missing the announcement about parking for Easter would have been a bigger problem.

After announcements we entered the middle “set” … this is where I wish we could’ve had “Hosanna” for a 3-song flow.  Instead, we jumped right into “Revelation Song”.

After that, we were thrilled to have a blog/twitter friend, Gary Durbin, share one of his original songs.  Gary was in town for Spring Break and knowing he’s a great worship leader and songwriter from Melbourne, FL … I asked him to share a song.  He did better that that … he WROTE a song based on the sermon text I gave him only a few days ago.  And it was AMAZING!  Thanks, Gary!

We closed with “Take My Life” (the Tomlin/Passion version) as a song of dedication and consecration.

Overall it was a great Sunday, though the flow of worship seemed a bit disjointed because of the way I had to break things up.  Travis, our Tech Director, helped smooth things over with some great transitional elements via video.

I’m posting my worship recap as a part of the bigger “Sunday Setlists” event that happens over at TheWorshipCommunity.Com every single week.  Go check it out!

Yep.  12 years go tonight.  About right now, actually.

We were in the prayer chapel at Epworth By the Sea.  I was as nervous as I’d been in my entire life.

Will you marry me?

Happy Engagement Anniversary, Joy.

Wow.  I’m so glad she said yes.

(photo by Chris Moncus Photography)

Prophetic.

What does this word mean to you in modern days.  What does it look like?  What makes someTHING “prophetic”.  What makes someONE “prophetic”.

You know what to do … click that comment link below and add your thoughts.  C’mon … you can do it!

It happens almost every Sunday.  You greet people and hear various comments of how they liked (or disliked) the music in church.

This Sunday, it was at lunch afterwards.  This nice couple is standing there waiting on me to finish lunch and they catch me as I’m leaving Shane’s Rib Shack.

“We really love what you’re doing with the music at church …. but ….”

Oh, the power of that word.  It puts you on edge … you linger in a state of suspense … “but … what”??

“We’re from a good ole’ Baptist background, and our Music Minister would always tell us when to sing.  So, we’re not quite sure when we’re supposed to sing”.

Setup:

On two of the songs we did at SSCC that morning, the opening verse was led by only one of the vocalists on the stage.  Not so much because I wanted them to have a “solo” to “showcase their talent” … I just felt it was a nice arrangement and it was soothing to hear the one voice.

But to some folks in our congregation … they are wondering … “should I be singing”.

I LOVE THIS KIND OF FEEDBACK from our congregation.  It’s so eye-opening.

Discussion:

So, as Worship Leaders, we have to walk the line between instructing our congregation, and becoming an over-talkative cheerleader or drill sergeant.

Let’s kick off a conversation today … how do you instruct your congregation?