The other night our youth director Russ Bowlin, led a discussion based on the song “Instead of a Show” by Jon Foreman. He has promised me he is going to write a post on it for FITR so I will not share reflections on that right now. During the course of the discussion, the conversation kept going to how we so often read the words, say the words, sing the songs and go through the motions without even thinking about what we are doing in church. Immediately this song called “Breathe Your Love in Me” came to mind. It is basically a song of confession and a prayer that God will revive us. I wanted to share it with you. Maybe you can use it in a worship service, maybe it is something you can play or listen to as part of your own prayer time. I am including a link to the song and to the chord sheet.

Breathe Your Love in Me mp3
Breathe Your Love in Me PDF

(You have permission to use this song for corporate or personal use. Just don’t record it and tell people it’s your own. I’d love to hear how it is being used so send me an email.)

If you have resources you would like to share please email them to me. If I post them I will give you a link back to your site and a huge thanks.

I know there are many churches that use a “sermon series” format for their worship services. This makes it real easy on the worship leader when choosing songs because they have a general theme to go off of for several weeks. This is how I had done things for several years before moving to my current church. Here we use the lectionary. The lectionary is basically a three year cycle of scripture that follows the church liturgical calendar and takes you through most of the scriptures in the bible in three years. Each week there are readings from the Old Testament, Psalms, New Testament and Letters, or something close to that. At first I thought this would be more difficult when chosing worship songs but really it just takes a little more work and study. One thing that helps tremendously is the United Methodist Music and Worship Planner, which already is filled with suggestions of hymns and worship songs for a particular Sunday. One of the benefits of this system is that I can tell you the scripture will be one of four passages as far ahead as you would like. As long as we are choosing music along those themes we should be inline with what will be brought in the message.

With knowing that far in advance what is coming it allows us to come up with tentative songlists well in advance. We sat down yesterday and planned basic lists from August 3rd to September 28th. Now this does not mean they are set. Songlists change all the time because we find a song that fits better, or we have people out a particular sunday and the instrumentation is not right for a particular song, or the pastor takes a different focus than we were expecting, but they work as a base to go off of.

Because I know there are some others of you who use the liturgical calendar and preach from the lectionary I am going to provide you the link to our songist. Please use these as suggestions or as a jumping point for your own lists. Also remember that your pastor may not choose the same passage to focus on for a particular week, but these should still be helpful for you.

Songlists August 3 thru September 28

Ok.. so everything is free on this site. That’s kind of the whole idea but I wanted to be able to have a place to share resources that come my way or that I create. The first one is fairly simple. It is a background I made using a picture taken at College UM ARMY of an angel statue.

Right click the link and save as.

If you have resources you would like to share please email them to me. If I post them I will give you a link back to your site and a huge thanks. Thanks.

One of my goals and passions is to help young worship leaders develop and help to give them the tools and opportunities to do so. With that in mind I thought what would I tell someone who is starting to lead worship? So I am starting this post of “3 Things”.

Three things to keep in mind when leading worship.

1. Have more than you need- You never know when a worship service might run quicker than you expect, or someone who was supposed to sing a song gets sick, or any number of other things happen where you need an extra song. If you think you’ll need 5 songs for a set, plan and rehearse 6 or 7. This way when something unexpected happens you are ready. We always have a few songs that we know we can do with little or no rehearsal to help when unexpected things happen.

2. Timing is Everything-Know how to read the congregation and to feel how the service is flowing. Maybe everything is going well and you can sense that you can keep going with a worship set. Maybe this may not be the best time for a long contemplative repetitive solo chorus. Also in your set know when to do a faster more upbeat song, and when to slow it down and move into the more contemplative song.

3.Know more than songs- Your role as a worship leader is more than just singing songs or leading the band. Therefore you should have more in your repertoire than music and lyrics. You should be able to lead the congregation in prayer, have stories or illustrations to use as a transition between songs, or between worship elements.

Here are the three things I would mention right now. But what would you say? Share three things you would want to tell new worship leaders.

Last year I began a Tuesday night guitar class for some kids in my youth group who wanted to learn to play. Due to sheer time constraints, I had to discontinue my class. Some of the kids kept practicing while others lost the motivation they got from our weekly sessions. I recently began entertaining the idea of using video recording technology to create short guitar lessons for kids in my youth group. So, I tried it. This format will hopefully be good for those kids like me who hate reading tablature and books. This is approximately a 5-minute video that shows a 4-chord pattern in the key of E that can be played with the same finger pattern in several different positions on the neck of the guitar. This makes it an easy pattern to learn for a young guitar player. It is a perfect pattern for songs in E that use the E, A, B, and C#m chords. I use these chords in playing “Hungry”, “In the Secret”, “Better is One Day”, “Open the Eyes of My Heart”, “Let Everything that Has Breath”, and “Alle”, just to name a few. I hope this will be the first of several short lesson videos your young guitar players can play, pause, and rewind until they get it right. Here is the link:

In true Fork in the Road fashion, what online resources do you use in teaching the students in your youth band?

We keep our songs on a Google spreadsheet to keep track of how many times we use them etc. I was just reading though and thought I would share our list of our top used songs.

In 2007 they were:
God of Wonders
Forever
He Reigns
Let it Rise
Meet With me
Grace Like Rain
Trading My Sorrows
Lord I Lift Your Name on High
You Never Let Go
Better Than Life
It’s My Joy
Stir In Me
Bread of Life
Breathe
Communion
Crossfire
O Praise Him
People Get Ready
Christmas Eve Sarajevo
How Great is Our God
Oh Come All Ye Faithful
Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us
Your Love is Amazing
Your Love Oh Lord
Here I Am to Worship

So Far in 2008 the top songs are:
Trading My Sorrows
Meet With Me
Here I Am to Worship
Open The Eyes of my Heart
Cry Out Your Name
Every Day
God of WOnders
Forever
He Reigns
Let it Rise
Lord I Lift Your Name on High
Stir in Me
Amazing Grace/My Chains are Gone
Awesome God
Jesus Paid it All
Alive Forever Amen
Audience of One
Days of Elijah
I Just Want to Celebrate
Nothing Without You
Proverbs 3:5-6
Worship You

So here is my question. What songs do you use in your worship services?

I remember 10 years ago going to a mid winter camp for our conference and the worship leader was leading music and the words were on transparencies being “projected” onto a sheet. A few years later I was at the same event where the white words were projected onto a black background. It seems today though that a slide isn’t a slide without countless number of background graphics. While I sometimes wonder if we may have gone overboard, putting a different picture with every slide, not staying with a theme etc, I do realize the value of a well chosen graphic to go behind the words that we are singing, or for a sermon, announcements and other uses.
There are several websites where you can go to find free graphics for you to use. Here are some of my favorites:

Stock Exchange- http://www.sxc.hu/ – This is a photo exchange where thousands of photos exist for your use. All the photos are huge, big enough to print, but can be easily compressed down for use on screens. Most of them are covered under the normal licenses which allows you to use the photo for free unless you are using it to make money by selling it in a design set or something like that. Some photos require you to notify the artist when you use the photo in public.

Creative MYK- http://www.creativemyk.com/ Creative MYK adds a different twist on the traditional photo site. It allows people to upload not only photos but also Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator Files. Most of them upload in layers so if you see something you like you can edit it for your uses. I actually have a gallery here with a few photos.

There are a ton of other sites out there. These are the ones I use the most.
Where do you find your graphics?

With modern worship music being very rhythm-based, drums are almost an essential part of any youth praise team. The problem with a regular drum set is that it incorporates the feet as well as the hands. So if talent and ability is not an issue, coordination will be an issue for a young musician. If a young drummer is not very experienced or gifted, having that student play the same two or three beat patterns on a drum set may not be the best solution—it could cause the rest of your group to play around his limited arsenal of rhythm patterns and he will never expand his repertoire because the band has conformed to him. Another issue is that many students who learn percussion in a school setting are never taught to use their feet on drum set, and so even very talented players have a difficult time making the transition to the set. A few years ago, djembe drums became very popular and still are because they have a diverse range of low and high tones that can mimic a bass drum or snare without incorporating the feet. They are the perfect compliment to the acoustic guitar and can give worship sets that “unplugged” feel. Several years ago, though, at a Caedmon’s Call concert, during a more intimate set, I noticed their drummer sitting on this wooden box and playing it between his legs. It had the most amazing sound—a distinctively lower bass tone than a djembe and a more crisp higher “snare” sound as well. I asked him after the show what he was playing. He said it was a cajon (pronounced “ka HONE”).

Cajons are made several ways. Some are tubular and upright like a conga, others are more trapezoid shaped, but the square box style cajons have the nice low end sound that is perfect for acoustic worship. The distinguishing trait for a cajon is that it has a wooden head. Yes a wood head instead of a skin or synthetic skin head like other hand drums. Don’t let that fool you, though. You’ll be amazed at the tone you can get from that wooden head. They are available with adjustability options that allow you to tighten strings to modify the sound. One of the options they are available with or without a snare. The snare gives the drum a sound very similar to a snare drum when played near the top. A new cajon is available from Meinl that has an output jack where it can be plugged directly into a sound system. This link is to a nice, short instructional video on how to use the cajon. Small computer speakers don’t really do the low end of the recording justice, but you’ll get the idea.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v-IMARby9gA&feature=related

You probably won’t find a cajon at your local mom & pop music store, but they are available from the large music retailers (Guitar Center, MusiciansFriend, etc.) from $150 up to about $300. They are covered with nice wood finishes, some in very nice burlwood or siam oak, so I think they are easier on the eyes than a djembe and when not in use, you can use them like a little table.

Jason Huffman is the Director of Youth Ministries at First United Methodist Church in Palestine, TX. For more information visit the youth website www.reachyouthministries.org Or the church website www.fumcpalestine.com

One of the most difficult challenges in working with youth bands is dealing with students who are in the beginning phases of learning an instrument, particularly guitar or bass players. This can be frustrating for a youth worker/band leader who is an experienced player because you don’t want to spend a large portion of band rehearsal giving guitar lessons. Also, with a busy ministry schedule and family time, it’s difficult to start giving music lessons on a regular basis as part of your ministry program. So, I am entertaining the idea of using modern technology for teaching purposes.

I don’t know if this will work, but it sounds like it would. These days you can buy a webcam for about $30 or so. Would it be possible to buy a webcam and record one’s self playing various songs? With a webcam a person can see on his computer screen what he is recording. In theory could I record a fair resolution recording particularly with close-ups of chord fingerings of several guitar songs and burn them to a DVD using Windows Movie Maker? I know there are thousands of guitar instruction videos posted on youtube, so I know it can be done. I’m just not sure how.

Do you have any suggestions if I want to proceed with this? Also, will I need to buy a microphone in addition to the webcam, or does a USB webcam have audio capability? Also, would I be violating any copyright laws by recording a few chord progressions on a webcam?

If this works, in an hour or two, you could give an instructional guitar lesson on several worship songs that your students could rewind and play over again. What do you guys think? What advice can you give? Will it be more trouble than its worth?

Jason Huffman is the Director of Youth Ministries at First United Methodist Church in Palestine, TX. For more information visit the youth website www.reachyouthministries.org Or the church website www.fumcpalestine.com

This Fork In the Road blog was started as a way to encourage and share ideas, thoughts, advice and tips about worship leading in various settings from camps and retreats, to church services, to youth praise teams. I can write and share many things but I know that there are many more of you who have your own experiences, thoughts, and tips to share. So I am looking for some contributors. I am looking for people who work with worship teams in churches and youth groups, I am looking for pastors, and youth leaders, I am looking for musicians, and worship leaders who travel, leading worship in various situations. I would like to hear from songwriters, bands and individuals. It would even be nice if there were those who work with recording, graphic design, media, video etc…

So you might ask what do you get out of it. Each submission will include a link back to your website. Regular contributors interested in joining the Blog will get a blog profile page including a picture, contact information and a link on the front page.

The second goal of this website is to create a place for those who are looking for worship leaders, musicians etc.. a place to connect.

If you are interested in either writing an occasional entry, or joining Fork In the Road as a regular contributor please let me know. You can email me at russellmartinmusic@gmail.com

Here is a list of possible topics I am looking for:

Working with youth bands?
What to do when a youth band member graduates?
Songs We Use for Christmas?
Devotionals for Worship Leaders?
How to build a website for your ministry?
Top Ten lessons learned?
Worship leading without an instrument?
Recording a Worship CD?
How to Write worship songs?

It would also be cool to have people submit original songs with a link to chords and audio file for something like a weekly free song.