Imagine every week that you include something that instructs or informs your congregation towards a deeper understanding and / or practice of Biblical worship .
Now , any one of these teachings isn ’ t going to change your church . But imagine what six months , a year , or two years of a continual drip , drip , drip of short , scriptural mini-teachings will do for your church ?
And what ’ s fantastic is that these teachings will be more quickly applied than the sermon . Let ’ s face it , the call-to-action of most messages isn ’ t carried out until after someone leaves the church building ( if at all ). But with short worship teachings , those can actually be applied in the moment .
Here ’ s an example …
“ Psalm 63:3 - 4 talks about lifting our hands as we glorify and praise God . 1 Timothy 2:8 talks about lifting our hands in prayer . Think about all the reasons we lift our hands in our culture — celebration , surrender , receiving , longing , etc .
“ Raising our hands is an outward sign of an inward heart attitude . On this next song , if you feel comfortable , raise your hands as a way to express your longing for God .” photo by Terren Hurst on Unsplash
That would literally take you less than a minute to speak . But in that time , you ’ ve given a microteaching that people can apply instantly .
And even if they don ’ t “ apply ” it right away , you ’ ve planted a seed for being expressive in worship . Also , you ’ ve given permission for those who want to raise their hands , but who ’ ve been reluctant to do so .
Now , ‘ teaching ’ doesn ’ t always have to be a word of instruction from you . Let scripture do the heavy lifting of instruction . For example ...
“ Psalm 33:3 says , ‘ Sing to Him a new song ; play skillfully , and shout for joy .’ Our team has been working on this new song . Let ’ s take a few minutes to learn a new song that will give us fresh language to worship him .”
That ’ s it . You don ’ t need to oversell it . The verse did the work of ‘ biblical teaching ’ that singing new songs is a good thing . And , by the way , teaching a new song in a worship set is also part of instructing your congregation . When you intentionally teach your church new songs , it tells them something extremely important : “ We want and expect you to participate — this isn ’ t a concert .”
Sidenote : A lot of worship leaders look at me like I ’ ve spontaneously grown a handlebar mustache made of bean sprouts when I recommend teaching songs during a worship set . But it serves your congregation and builds a culture of participation . It ’ s worth pushing through any awkwardness .
If you want to learn more about how to teach new songs to your congregation , I talk about it in depth in my book , The SongCycle . ( Available on Amazon .) And speaking of The SongCycle , the premise for that book is our next tactic .
2 . ROTATE FEWER The SongCycle model can be summed up in five words — rotate fewer songs more often . When worship leaders have too many songs in their active repertoire , people sing less . They ’ re
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