Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Hymns or Choruses?

• Hymns and choruses are complementary--determine the appropriate blend.
• Hymns and choruses edify differently.
• Think of tradition as an ongoing, ever-renewing process.
• Roots down! Walls down!
• The words, rhythms, and tunes of established hymns have and will continue to undergo revision.
• Worship forms should not be confused with spirituality.

Chapter 2 Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs?

• Let Christ dwell richly (Col. 3:16). Emphasis on rich.
• Dwelling in Christ is linked to a richness of expression and form.
• The terms "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" may indicate collectively the total range of style or reflect three different styles.
• "Spiritual songs" probably involved improvisation.
• The Psalms demonstrate variety. The Hebrews preserved old songs, sang contemporary songs, called for new songs.

Chapter 3 Flowing Praise

• The five-phase model: invitation, engagement, exaltation, adoration, intimacy.
• Faithfully image the character of God (both transcendence & intimacy)
• Sing not only "about" but "to" the Lord.
• Praise normally precedes adoration.
• Not repetition, but accumulation.
• Jerking about distracts. Use common words, common keys where possible. Employ smooth tempo changes: invitation/engagement (running), exaltation (jogging), adoration (walking), intimacy (stopping, gazing).

Chapter 4 Journey into the Holy of Holies

• Worship mirrors the Journey into the Holy of Holies at every point.
• Enter his gates with thanksgiving.
• Exuberant praise turns to solemn adoration.
• Silence is golden to worshipers. Just worship!
• The mind jumps faster than the spirit.
• The 5 Phase and Holy of Holies models are similar.
• The Wimber, Cornwall, Webber Synthesis includes repentance.

Chapter 5 Service Design: Liturgical, Thematic, or Free-Flowing

• Scripture contains no prescribed order of service.
• There should be a full revelation and a full response.
• Keep congregational singing, praying, and Scripture reading central.
• Liturgical, thematic, and open worship forms predominate today.
• Innovation between and within the three forms is where the action is.
• The lectionary drives the liturgical service.
• The sermon drives the thematic service.
• Flowing praise resists a thematically conceived service.
• Thematic planners need the sermon outline.
• Historic liturgies allow for response after the sermon.
• Pauline worship reveals astonishing variety.

Chapter 6 Creating Drama: Bulletins, Readings, Slides

• Headings provide direction and orientation.
• Don't overwhelm guests with detail.
• Employ repetition of 3's.
• Divide the congregation into sectors occasionally.
• When there is punctuation, take a breath.
• Bold face fonts enhance creative interaction.
• Nature backgrounds aesthetically enhance slides

Chapter 7 Inspiring the People's Song

• Treat the congregation as your primary choir.
• Stand for praise, sit for adoration.
• Nest new hymns and choruses.
• Paraphrase abstruse hymn texts.
• Eliminate wordy hymn/chorus announcements.
• Pitch songs lower in early morning services.
• Introduce no more than one new song in a given service.
• Introduce new songs at the beginning of a set.
• Exert your personality during praise and relinquish it during adoration
• Perfectionism characterizes both pastors and musicians.
• Pastors and musicians--protect each other!

Chapter 8 Is Worship a Performance? The Concept

• Yes!...but people distrust, musicians value, and pastor deny "performance." Let's reload the word.
• To perform is to minister and to serve.
• To perform is to do something complicated with skill in public with a view toward serving or ministering.
• Kierkegaard: God is the audience; pastors and musicians are prompters; the people are performers.
• Prompters must not distract from worship.
• Prompters serve two audiences (God & the people).
• Private worship should precede public performance.

Chapter 9 Is Worship a Performance? The Implications

• TV culture has imposed professional standards on worship.
• As your church grows, specialize.
• The larger the church, the higher the performance standards required.
• Practice! People appreciate quality. Offer costly worship.
• Exercise your technique but don't put your trust in it.
• Good technique means being "response-able."
• Restraining your technique may be wisdom.
• Pastors and musicians share a performance temperment.
• Find someone emotionally secure to work with.
• Pray that others around you will be more praised, more used by God than yourself.
• Service in small things helps discipline ego urges.

Chapter 10 The Danger of Cosmetic Change

• Danger of "worshiping worship."
• Church music should be determined by the nature of the Church.
• Model: kerygma (to proclaim), koinonia (to fellowship), leitourgia (to worship).
• Leitourgia includes and subsumes kerygma and kiononia.
• No Kerygma--No Kiononia--No Leitourgia.
• One definition of worship will never suffice.
• The Hebrew conception of worship is primarily gestural, not propositional.
• Invite a total response: let every knee bow and every tongue confess.

Chapter 11 The Look of Music in: Evangelism, Fellowship, and Worship.

• Kerygma confronts, koinonia comforts, leitourgia integrates.
• The churche's mission: to incarnate all three modes.
• Kerygma music accentuates specialized performance.
• Kerygma provides the best context for choirs.
• Koinonia resembles a TV talk show.
• Koinonia music brings performers closer to the audience.
• New Orleans Jazz exemplifies koinonia music.
• Leitourgia music is Godwardly directed, participant oriented.

Chapter 12 Resolving Tensions over Music Style: Peter

• Music is relative: there is no one universal style.
• Music tracks language.
• Acts two ultimately leads to a Pentecost not only of languages but music styles.
• If language dialects are not despised, then music dialects (folk music) should not be despised.
• No melody, scale, chord, texture, rhythm, instrument, or timbre is theoretically off-limits. Peter was commanded to eat all the foods.
• The issue of style involves the broader issue of accepting people.

Chapter 13 Resolving Tensions over Music Style: Paul

• Music style is a disputable matter: let each be "fully convinced in his own mind" (Rom. 14:5).
• Teach everyone to be "strong."
• Listen to any style without raising questions of conscience.
• If a style ministers, don't ask where it came from.
• Beware of elevating any one style as intrinsically "sacred."
• Some worship styles may be permissable but not appropriate.
• If someone regards a style as unclean, for him/her it is unclean.
• If a style causes spiritual harm, do not wound.
• Listeners derive different meanings from the same music.
• Abuse of a form does not disqualify it's use by others.
• Lyrics are easier to evaluate than music style.
• Church music should be functional, richly intelligble.
• Those within the culture (who know it) are best suited to critique it.

Chapter 14 Volunteer & Staff Relations

• Dignify the music ministry.
• Minister not only "through" but "to" musicians.
• The more we strategize the better we harmonize.
• The ideal music director is a musician, administrator, educator, and pastor.
• The heart of "ad ministr ation" is ministry. To administer is to minister.
• Musicians crave inspiration, repertoire, methodological suggestions, and technical review.
• Musicians often feel like music grinders, underpaid and overworked, and feel thought of as triflers or distant cousins to the "real" ministry.
• The creative-artistic world differs from the business-organizational world.
• Musicians resist the Boss-Subordinate Leadership style.

Chapter 15 Identifying, Attracting Church Musicians

• First, do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
• Be able to articulate your worship philosophy
• Consider the Spiritual Gifts (Eph 4) when determining qualifications for music directors.
• One good musician attracts another.
• Look in large churches for prospective candidates.
• Seek both a reading and an improvising musician.
• Compensate adaquately those professionally equipped.
• Obtain a clear idea of your candidate's stylistic comfort zone--you may have to live with that.
• Your stylistic comfort zone was formed during adolescence. Ask your candidate, "What was your favorite music in your adolesence?"
• View electronic and acoustic instruments as complementary.
• Even one live violin combined with synth strings greatly enhances the sound.
• Improvising musicians take better advantage of new technologies.

Chapte 16 Why Seminaries Should Teach Music and Worship

• Music & worship is central to the Evangelical Church.
• Contemporary worship demands a more equal peer relationship between pastors and worship leaders.
• Pastors are woefully inadequate in worship, whereas musicians are woefully inadequate in theology and ministry.
• Worship requires interdisciplinary study and spiritual formation.
• Prospective pastors and church musicians should have opportunity to dialogue during classes and practicums before entering ministry.

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