Ever feel like you’re just dialing it in? That you’re just going through the motions of your ministry like a checklist you can’t wait to finish?

Sometimes it’s not even burnout, you know? You’re just tired. You’ve been doing the same thing over and over again for years. While you want to “come back to the heart of worship” sometimes you just want to wrap it up and watch football. You want to disconnect. You can’t wait for the weekend except for the fact that the weekend is game time and it has become work for you.

But we all know we can’t live in this realm. Worship is too important to dial it in. The Kingdom of God is too important for us to sleepwalk through Sunday. We need to be on the edge of our seat. We need to gaze in wide eyed wonder. The Kingdom of God doesn’t slow down.

Should we?

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If there’s one tool worship leaders use more than any other, it’s songs.

Songs are our currency. We listen to songs, rehearse songs, lead songs, study songs, write songs, and oftentimes have entire conversations using song lyrics. Songs are what we do.

I’m not here to bash worship songs. I’m not here to say worship isn’t about songs. Actually, it is. Of course, worship isn’t only songs. That’s like saying water alone keeps us alive. Actually, we need more than that. We need breath. We need food. The definition of worship isn’t songs, per se, but it’s a massive part of worship, particularly corporate worship.

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Let your imagination wander for a moment.

What if this Sunday morning, rather than singing worship songs as a church, you showed a painting of the Mona Lisa? Or some impressionist art from Monet? Or what we filled the stage with painters and sculptors creating for the glory of God?

It’s a beautiful expression, but is it helpful for corporate worship? Probably not.

Or what if instead of sung worship we showed a series of short films and encouraged people to give spoken words to each other? A beautiful expression, but quite chaotic for corporate worship.

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There’s nothing more scary than parenting.

Well, except maybe public speaking in your underwear. But seriously. More than anyone else on the earth, you as a parent have the most influence on the lives of your kids.

I’ve only been a parent for four years, but I’ve found parenting is mostly about getting out of the way. I can screw things up more often than not.

I’ve seen both extremes. Some parents are completely unavailable and distanced. They don’t seem to care. They leave parenting up to daycare, nanny’s, the nursery, or even kids ministry. The other extreme is being so hard on your kids that you crush every ounce of pure, innocent life they have.

And let me tell you, kids are amazing. The longer I live, the more I want to be more like my kids. I want to get rid of the hardness of heart, jaded attitudes, hidden sins, and just jump into life with every ounce of passion I possess.

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Planned worship. Prophetic worship. Structure or Spontaneity? Beyond the wars of modern or traditional, rock band or liturgical, is another worship war. Do we allow the band to flow in the moment or do we create a tight plan?

If you lead worship, I’m sure you’ve wrestled with this before.

For some, corporate worship is nothing more than executing a plan. It’s like hitting play on a worship album. No room to breathe, no seeming space for the Holy Spirit to move.

But for others, prophetic worship is often an excuse for lazy music, lazy production, and lazy planning. It’s just not done well.

Spontaneous worship done well is the result of disciplined practice, relational connection, and intimacy with God. But so often it translates into something so poorly done it doesn’t connect with anyone.

But if you want to do spontaneous well, let’s define what it is.

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