Here is a powerful dramatic and responsive reading that works great for a Fourth of July Celebration Service. It is excerpted from the House of Representatives Resolution 397 (111TH CONGRESS, 1ST SESSION). It highlights in chronological order many evidences of how the United States of America was founded on God and why therefore it should continue to be a Christian nation.
This Dramatic Reading needs 4 people and takes 9 minutes to read. We encourage you to play a building rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic or a similar patriotic song to accompany the reading.
Click on the words, Read more (in blue), for an excerpt from the Reading and to download the FREE complete script : Read more…
As a part of my Online Worship Leadership Training Course, I teach on Planning Effective Corporate Worship that Flows. Below is part of the content from that session. I draw important parallels between baking a cake and planning worship. Love to hear your thoughts. Thanks! – Dwayne
1. Choose the right ingredients. The ingredients depend on the kind of cake we plan to bake. For example, if we want to bake a chocolate cake, we will obviously need some cocoa or other chocolate ingredients. And if we want a coconut cake, our recipe probably wouldn’t call for carrots - at least I would hope not! Likewise, as we sit down to plan a worship service, we need to carefully consider what ingredients or elements are actually needed in that service. What is the theme of that particular service? Is there a special emphasis that day? Is the gathering targeted toward lost and unchurched people? Also, what creative elements might we utilize to enhance the service, such as videos, testimonies, prayer stations, or choir “specials”?
2 Sift and whip. The ingredients used for baking often need to be sifted or whipped before they can be added. Our responsibility as worship planners is to “sift out” unnecessary – and potentially distracting – moments within a service. For instance, do we really need to introduce the person or group doing the “special music”? Is it absolutely necessary to explain or “set-up” a particular song before we sing it? (See Freedom NOT to Announce Every Song) Could the praise band exit the stage during a prayer or meditative acapella song (while people’s eyes are closed) to keep down distractions? Read more…
5 Essentials for Planning Effective Worship Gatherings
taught by Dwayne Moore
Monday, April 13, 2009
11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, 1:00 p.m. Central (duration 1 hour)
There are many elements that go into making a service. However, there are five that need to be present any time the body of Christ gathers to worship. This class will take the student through each of these five elements necessary for a corporate worship service to be the most effective.
These five elements are all drawn from the story of Jehoshaphat and the Children of Judah in 2 Chronicles 20 as they gathered to pray and worship. They are: 1) Prayer, 2) Planned Spontaneity, 3) Pliableness, 4) Power of the Spirit, and 5) Pastoral Direction. A practical and methodical approach to considering and including these five elements is given to help worship leaders and teams as they sit down to plan worship events. Read more…
The following article was written by John Martin, who is the Vice President of Development for Next Level Worship, LLC. This article was featured in Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox. We have received tons of positive feedback from this article. Once you’ve read it, we believe you’ll understand why! Enjoy!
As senior pastors, if we are fortunate enough to have a music minister who really wants to do a quality job, we often breathe a sigh of relief and say, “I’m glad that is taken care of. It’s one less thing for me to worry about!” Then, each week, we faithfully e-mail our sermon notes to be printed, and we review and approve the orders of the services. During the worship services we watch to see how well everything is working. We ask ourselves questions like, “Are these songs setting the mood for the sermon? Are all the PowerPoint slides in the correct order and are all the words spelled correctly? Are the tech guys turning on the correct microphones and are the lights being dimmed and brightened at the right times?” In our Monday morning staff meetings we are quick to debrief our praise and worship leader and offer him or her some constructive criticisms on how the service can be improved. This is how we pastors tend to view our role as the church’s “chief worship leader.” Read more…
Imagine your church leaders saying you don’t need a traditional series of meetings because your church is already IN revival! That’s exactly what happened this past Sunday to a pastor friend of mine. Listen to what he wrote me:
Revival Already Happening!
We had a great service with many 
responding to the altar this morning and one profession of faith! I asked the deacons this morning in deacon’s meeting about their thoughts on a fall revival and all of them agreed that they felt the church was already in revival and that we did not need a series of meetings!
Still Feeling the Effects of 30 Days!
Some exciting things are beginning to happen and I feel that we are on the verge of a breakthrough. I still think that we are seeing some things taking place that are a result of our journey through 30 Days of Praise back in the spring! We are starting the class “Share Jesus Without Fear” this afternoon and I had almost 20 to sign-up for it!
Thanks!
John
Please let us know if you have any questions about 30 Days of Praise, our church-wide teaching emphasis on worship. You can call our toll-free number at 1-877-261-4303. You can also go to www.30DaysofPraise.com for more information on how your church can experience this amazing, revitalizing ministry resource!
In Him,
Dwayne
John Martin, our VP of Development at Next Level Worship, discovered this incredible dramatic sketch online yesterday. What a powerful way to illustrate the change Christ makes in people’s lives! This is a compelling tool for presenting the Gospel–and a great way to easily involve several people in your church!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvDDc5RB6FQ
Recently, we put together an effective and rousing “responsive reading” that supported our pastor’s message theme that day about the place and importance of God’s Church. Our entire congregation was on their feet clapping by the end of this stirring experience! Click here to download the PDF of the recitation.
We adapted this reading/recitation from an old Bill Gaither recitation. We added in the bolded phrases for the congregation. I recommend that your pastor or main worship leader do the bulk of the recitation–the part that is in the normal type. Your praise team reads with the congregation all of the bolded type. Read more…
This morning, our church experienced an amazing and unusual worship time. Today’s order was different than anything we’ve ever done before. (In fact, in my 30+ years of planning and leading worship, I have never seen or heard of this approach.) But I can testify that this simple but deliberately planned time of spontenaity helped teach our people a valuable lesson about personal worship and praise.
Our pastor, Randy Norris, and the worship planning team at our church were brain-storming the other day about how to flow the service with his message theme about the importance of having a quiet time with God.
Here was our Order of Worship for this morning:
The praise team and band did not play to start the service. Instead all the musicians took a seat with the congregation….
Opener – While seated near the front right side, a soloist sang ”Word of God Speak” acapella. Interspersed within the song were Scriptures read by pre-assigned and pre-instructed quality readers. (Download the song and scripture script by clicking here.)
Pastor – Then our pastor came up and briefly explained, “There will be no band and singers up front to lead us at first today. As when we have personal quiet times at home, today we must lead ourselves and let the true worship leader, Jesus, lead us during these next few moments.” Read more…
My good friend, Charles Billingsley, has written a strong and insightful article that I want to pass on to you. It’s called Worship: Four American Philosophies. Below is an excerpt. Go here to read the entire article. Blessings! ~Dwayne
Excerpt from article by Charles Billingsley:
I am certainly not an expert, but I hope to bring to light a few current philosophies of worship that I believe are prevelant in today’s American culture.
Philosophy 1 – performance based churches – Mind’s attention begets hearts affection
Philosophy 2 – passion based worship – hearts affection begets mind’s attention
Philosophy 3 – culturally based worship – relevance begets mind’s attention begets heart’s affection
Phlilosophy 4 – service based worship – service begets relevance begets mind’s attention begets hearts’s affection
Of course, most churches in America are a sort of mixed bag of each of these, but for the sake of argument I will just discuss each philosophy in its purest form and example… (Read the entire article)
My pastor, Randy Norris, has been preaching a series he has entitled, “Why-fi.” I wrote a 3-minute dramatic sketch to support each of the messages. Because of the broad ideas they are presenting, these humorous but thought-provoking skits can be used to enhance any number of sermon topics and services.
These are simple to do and require very few props. The total number of cast needed for all four is eight people. However, only two of the cast members are in all four skits. The setting is a coffee shop. For props, we simply made a small counter and placed a 4×8 board behind it with the name of the coffee shop–The Connections Coffee Shop. Then we had two draped card tables with chairs.
Here are all four sketches. Please feel free to download and use these if they can help you. Simply adopt them to work for you. Blessings! ~Dwayne
Week 1: Why Live?
Week 2: Why Pray?
Week 3: Why Give?
Week 4: Why (need to) Die?
Hey everyone, I have got to report to you what a pastor from Michigan just called me tonight to tell me! His church in Michigan just started their 30 Days of Praise campaign this morning. They had an amazing first service! They experienced a powerful breakthrough in their worship. This pastor’s exact words to me were, “I think that for several of my people this was their first time to ever really experience true worship during a worship service.”
Pastor Ed Emmerling is the pastor of Westside Baptist Church, a strong conservative Southern Baptist Church in Flushing, MI. As Ed shared it with me:
When we as leaders sat down to plan our 30 Days of Praise emphasis, we wanted to present worship as something we should always do, that worship is not about our circumstances or comforts. We prayed that our people would see that worship is about God who never changes.
So, for our first service, we decided to have a worship service with no worship leaders leading the service. Last week I explained it carefully to my deacons and church leaders; then I announced to our members that our worship service next week (today) would be “members-led.” Read more…
Send Me is a simple-to-teach chorus that can be used during a time of commitment to missions and witnessing or to challenge Believers to share their faith. This song also works well in missions conferences. Please feel free to download the chord chart below and use this song in your church. The demo I recorded in Botswana with 100 Botswanan student missionaries is also below. (To read more about the recording and how the song was written, go here.) Enjoy! - Dwayne
Send Me
Send me, I will share Your precious story, Lord, send me. Send me, I will tell of all Your glory, Lord, send me.
I cannot go without Your power on me. I do not know unless Your Spirit show me. Help me to see all the fields around me. It’s not about me, but it’s for Your glory.
- Words & Music by Dwayne Moore (c) 2007 Next Level Worship, llc
To download the chord chart and demo… Read more…
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Last night my praise team and I visited a church of several thousand in Birmingham, AL. We opted not to have our own rehearsal in order to go and observe what this larger, more developed ministry is doing. Their music style (praise band based) fits our approach, so we felt it would be a good choice to get ideas from. It is always a healthy practice to expose our people to other effective ministries. We were not there to critique, but rather to learn and to be led in worship (which we were!).
Below are some of the things we observed from that service. Because we are a new church plant, we do not have the financial resources, facilities or manpower to do everything the people at this much larger church do. Nonetheless, we were encouraged to find that we are doing several things similarly – despite our size and newness. I have place astericks beside *some things below that we are not yet doing but can/should apply or that we can improve on now. – Dwayne
Observations:
- They used a video countdown and *started 3 seconds before it was done! The band and singers were in place well before countdown finished.
- Their set was exactly 25 minutes long with very little talking and *smooth continuous music segues between songs. They played one upbeat and different tune to close the service.
- They did not appear to use any screens or stands (except for the bass player) for music. *The singers had the lyrics memorized and everyone knew the arrangements well. That allowed for greater freedom, expression and connection with the congregation. Read more…
Holidays and traveling are an integral part of our lives. For we Americans, this upcoming “Labor Day” will be anything but laborious as we take to the highways and waterways to celebrate a reprieve from our labors.
Unfortunately, far too many otherwise church-going Christians likewise take a hiatus from church while they are on vacation. While apparently they (OK, we) assume we have earned some sort of right to vacation from God’s house, the fact is we cannot vacate from God’s presence (see Psalm 139!). Thus as believers, we should never, never, excuse our hearts from worshiping and honoring God.
My good friend, Michael Moore, has put together some powerful and creative messages on this very topic. The sermon titles include:
- Williamsburg: Worship God who Designed History
- The Outer Banks: Worship God who Offers Peace
- Busch Gardens: Worship God who Provides Joy
- Water Country USA: Worship God who Gives Living Water
- Camping: Worship God who Created All
- Road Trip: Worship God who is Everywhere
Click here to download the PDF of these messages. Enjoy! – Dwayne
Hey everybody! Heads up on some great ideas and tips for leading worship that I just ran across. Go to http://www.kuesterlaw.com/worship/tips.htm and check them out. Well worth your time to read! Thanks to Kelly Sparks for his work on gathering these thoughts into one location! - Dwayne
