I’m excited to share a brand new, six-week Sermon Series resource with you – just released today…

UNSTUCK: Moving Beyond Mediocrity

There are people sitting in your service every Sunday who feel STUCK – overwhelmed by the problems and situations they face in their finances, friendships, job, etc.

I know I hear from people like this every week at The Journey and I’m sure you do too.

We taught this sermon series a few months ago to address that “stuck” feeling and give people clear steps to move past “just getting by” to living the transformed life described in Romans 12:1-2.

The stories and results were tremendous: new believers each week, families experiencing healing, people getting out of debt, and more!

I highly recommend this series to any church leader who is concerned with helping your people grow beyond the mediocre existence to the fullness of life in Christ!

Plus, Download Your Copy THIS WEEK and Receive Over $113.00 in Bonus Resources (see the P.S. below for details)

Give your people the teaching and the tools they need to ”move beyond mediocrity” and experience the abundant life with this brand new, six-part sermon series.

Are your people feeling overwhelmed and stuck in the various areas of their lives?

UNstuck is a proven six-week sermon series that will help you teach your people God’s plan for getting “unstuck” and the Biblical principles to experience the transformed life that God promises us in Christ!

This series specifically addresses the areas of faith, finances, family, career, friendships and future – but also teaches the sound Biblical principles that will free people up, no matter what they face.

Messages Include:

• Getting UNstuck In My Faith
• Getting UNstuck In My Finances
• Getting UNstuck In My Family
• Getting UNstuck In My Field
• Getting UNstuck In My Friends
• Getting UNstuck In My Future

You Will Receive: 

• 6 Message Audio Files
• 6 Sets of Message Notes
• 6 Message Transcripts
• More than 45 Graphics/Documents
• Everything you need to teach this series to the people of your church!

Your Church Resources Include: 

• Photoshop and JPEG Graphics
• Presentation Backgrounds
• Sermon Notes
• Sermon Transcripts
• Connection Cards
• Memory Verse Cards
• Programs/Bulletins

P.S. Download your Unstuck Sermon Series before Monday, September 19, and Receive:

OVER $113.00 IN BONUS RESOURCES!

• Double the Effectiveness of Your Preaching E-Book (A $23.95 Value)
• The Thursday Midnight Rule (A $19.95 Value)
• What Every Pastor Wants from their Worship Leader (A $19.95 Value)
• What Every Worship Leader Wants from their Pastor (A $19.95 Value)
• Debt Free Pastor (A $29.95 Value)

I’ve asked Jason Hatley, my Pastor of Worship Arts at The Journey and founder of WorshipLeaderInsights.com, to share some insights today on a topic that affects every pastor AND worship leader:

“We’re just not on the same page.”

Ever said that about your relationship with your Pastor or Worship Pastor?  I hear Pastors and Worship Pastors say this most often when it comes to Worship Planning.  “We want to work together to plan the worship service, but we’re just not on the same page.”

You know the problem with this statement right?  You guessed it:

The problem is the page doesn’t exist!

Most Pastors and Worship Pastors who struggle to “get on the same page”  do so because they have never had a conversation about two important things:

#1 – How they view worship planning.
#2 – How the other person views worship planning.

They aren’t clear on what they think the process should look like.  They aren’t clear on their responsibility.  And most of all, they aren’t clear about what the other person’s responsibility looks like.

Let me give you a quick exercise to try and explain:

Of the four choices below, which set of words best describes your current Pastor / Worship Pastor relationship when it comes to worship planning?

1. You do your thing and I’ll do mine.  I’ll see you on Sunday morning.
2. We’re not against planning life-transforming worship services together, we just don’t have the structure, system, time and/or resources to do it.
3. We are working together to implement some creative elements, but it’s not always consistent and it’s not as smooth as we want.
4. We are working together in a structured way to plan in advance and create relevant, God-honoring, life-transforming worship services every week.

Ok – so what number did you choose?

I’ve found that most pastors and worship pastors THINK they are doing better in the area of worship planning than they really are.  But when asked to answer the question above they gain some new clarity about both where they are and where they want to go.

Believe it or not, getting honest on the answer to that question is the starting point for maximizing the Pastor / Worship Pastor relationship.

As you might imagine, #4 is the goal, and what I refer to as an Actively Engaged Pastor / Worship Pastor relationship.

In this scenario the pastor and worship pastor are hands on in creating the worship service from start to finish (not just their respective parts).  They are both giving and receiving ideas and feedback on the service.  There is a true synergy to the worship planning process.

So, if the Actively Engaged Relationship is the goal, how do you get there?  Honestly – it’s far too much to type here.  But that is exactly what I would like to teach your worship pastor in my upcoming Worship Pastor Tele-Coaching Network.

Over the last 5 years of doing these coaching networks for worship leaders I have had pastors email and call me to tell me what a difference the network has made in their worship pastor AND in their working relationship together.  And while the Pastor / Worship Pastor relationship is a BIG part of the network, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Over the course of 12 months I want to come alongside your worship leader and personally coach him/her on how to systemically and strategically overcome the 7 BIGGEST challenges that every worship leader faces like how to develop a plan for personal growth, how to double your worship team AND your effectiveness in leading the team, how to create a worship planning system to help you break the week-to-week grind, how to ensure every element for Sunday is ready days before the service, and much more.

Apply before September 15 and receive over $373.00 in FREE Bonus resources.  Get all the details here: www.WorshipLeaderInsights.com/Coaching.

I’ve asked Jason Hatley, my Pastor of Worship Arts at The Journey and founder of WorshipLeaderInsights.com, to share some thoughts today on a topic that affects many pastors AND worship leaders every day:

What are your Pressure Points?

Jason Hatley here . . .  Pastor of Worship Arts at The Journey Church.

“Pressure Points” is a phrase I use in my Worship Pastor Tele-Coaching Networks to describe any area of your ministry that is putting extra pressure on you right now.

It could be the pressure of adding a new service, dealing with a difficult team member, needing to add new volunteers to your team, implementing a new system in your team, or a rift in your relationship with your pastor.

(If you have all five of the above I would say you have more than a Pressure Point . . . you have a Pressure Cooker in the works).

Pressure Points can be new initiatives, current challenges, or old problems that won’t go away.

We will always have Pressure Points in ministry. And some are better than others. Let me explain.

For many pastors and worship leaders their greatest pressure points come from old issues that haven’t been dealt with. For instance, the member of your team who is wrecking your sanity, your leadership and your team culture that you just haven’t had the hard conversation with yet. It creates undue amounts of pressure on you and your team and left unchecked will blow up on you.

Not to be overly obvious, but that’s the kind of pressure point you don’t want.

However, some Pressure Points are good. They are new ideas that you are trying out. It’s causing some extra stress, but you know when you get through it your team and your ministry will be better for it.

You will never eliminate Pressure Points from your ministry. Like the human body, you must have some good ‘stress’ in your life because that’s what allows your muscles to work and literally hold you upright. This good stress is called “eustress”.

However, what we want to try to do in leading our teams is eliminate the bad stress, or what we call “distress”. (Just saying the word adds stress to your life).

So – here are 3 ways to overcome your Pressure Points.

#1 – Confront Your Pressure Points.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but some people in ministry deal with Pressure Points by running away from them. It could be avoiding a difficult conversation with a staff or team member. Or putting off finding a solution to a difficult challenge indefinitely. Some even try to escape the pressures of ministry through wasting time on less important matters.

As those in my coaching networks have heard me say many times before, we have to “Run to Conflict” and deal with our Pressure Points head on. The longer you ignore a Pressure Point the more difficult it will be to solve.
#2 – Grow Through Your Pressure Points

The reason your current Pressure Points exist in your life right now is because God wants you to grow through them.  As Rick Warren said in The Purpose Driven Life, “God is more interested in your character than your comfort.” So look at your current Pressure Point as an opportunity for spiritual, personal, and ministry growth.

These leadership and growth challenges are areas that the professors in my Sacred Music program didn’t prepare me for in college.

But they are at the very heart of leading thriving worship teams in our churches.
#3 – Get advice from someone who has been where you are . . . and succeeded through it.

One of the best ways to grow through a Pressure Point is to talk to someone who has “been there, done that.”

This is something I find myself doing regularly. After all learning from the mistakes and successes of others is far less painful than learning the same lessons on my own.

And then be ready to return what you’ve learned to others who may find themselves in the same place down the road. That’s the kingdom mindset that I have used for the past 5 years as I have personally coached nearly 200 Worship Leaders through my Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Networks.

You see, every year I personally coach a select group of worship leaders and for 12 months we work through how to implement proven systems to help you overcome the major Pressure Points and challenges in ministry that we face. Challenges like:

- Personal Growth and Leadership Development

- The Pastor / Worship Pastor Relationship

- Systems for planning God-honoring, life-transformational worship services

- How to double your worship team and lead them at the next level

- And many others.

It’s a fast-paced and fun learning environment with a great group of growing leaders. It’s not right for everyone, so you will have to decide, but if you are interested in learning how you can join the next network starting on Friday, October 14 the complete details can be found here – www.worshipleaderinsights.com/coaching.

Your partner in ministry,

Jason

P.S. Now is the time to apply for my new Worship Pastor Tele-Coaching Network – for all the details and to apply now, visit:

www.worshipleaderinsights.com/coaching

With the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, I’ve gotten quite a few questions about whether or not you should try to make it a “Big Day” and I wanted to address that today.

I don’t like making it a Big Day for a few reasons:

1)     It’s not the best time to kick off a new series for most people. 

Make your fall Big Day September 18 or October 2 and you’ll be able to create more energy and harness the natural rhythms of your people better.

2)     It doesn’t feel right as the day to launch a series.

Let’s face it, 9/11 remains a very painful memory in our country. I don’t think that pain is the right springboard to kick off a new series and get people engaged.

3)     It’s not likely to be a great day to reach lost people.

There’s no “natural” draw for those who are far from God to attend on 9/11.  It would be a shame to put in the effort and investment for a Big Day without reaching those in need of Christ.

Don’t get me wrong – I do think that this is a powerful opportunity and you should:

• Include a special element in your service to acknowledge the day
• Take some time to specifically pray for our nation
• Continue the sermon series that you’re already in

At The Journey, we’re doing all three on September 11 and it will definitely be a meaningful day (especially having had our first monthly service the week after 9/11).

We all have limited time and resources, and that means there are only so many Big Day opportunities and there are more strategic dates on your calendar.

P.S. Ready to harness the power of a Big Day at your church?

I’m giving away a FREE Copy of my resource “The Big Day” to the first 10 Senior Pastors to email me requesting it at nelson@churchleaderinsights.com.

Help your people get fit for life with this brand new sermon series, “Bod 4 God.”

We taught this series at the beginning of 2011 with great results – our church is becoming healthier than ever, and more importantly, recognizing the importance of being good stewards of their physical bodies!

And now I’m excited to let you know that the full, four-week series (and everything you need to teach it at your church) is available in the Church Leader Insights Store.

Teach every person in your church to “Honor God with their Body” with this brand new, four-part sermon series from Nelson Searcy.   Are you ready to help the people of your church become healthier physically, even as you encourage them spiritually? Bod 4 God is a four-week ATTRACTIONAL sermon series that will help you teach your people to honor God with their bodies – and understand how physical health is connected to spiritual health! This Sermon Series includes these messages: Honoring God With My Body: Dedication Motivating Myself For Change: Inspiration Managing My Lifestyle Habits: Eating And Exercise Making My Bod 4 God Stick: Building My Team

Click Here to Download Now & Save $30.00! or Click Here to Secure Your 5-CD Set

This series specifically addresses the importance of dedication, inspiration, eating, exercise and teamwork – but also teaches the sound Biblical principles that will help your people get fit, and stay fit for life!  You Will Receive:  4 Message Audio Files (MP3 or CD) 4 Sets of Message Notes 4 Message Transcripts More than 35 Graphics/Documents Everything you need to teach this series to the people of your church! Your Church Resources Include:   Photoshop and JPEG Graphics Presentation Backgrounds Sermon Notes Sermon Transcripts Connection Cards Memory Verse Cards Programs/Bulletins OVER $175.00 IN BONUS RESOURCES WHEN YOU DOWNLOAD BEFORE THIS FRIDAY, JUNE 10! Download Today to Secure These Additional BONUS RESOURCES (Over $125.00 Value): Interview with Bod4God author, Steve Reynolds ($19.95 Value) Nelson Searcy’s Top 10 Weight Loss Tips ($29.95 Value) Bonus Message – Eating Healthy MP3 ($9.95 Value) Bonus Message – Overcoming Lust MP3 ($9.95 Value) Special Coaching Session with Nelson Searcy about The Importance of a Pastor’s Health ($49.95 Value) Plus, Receive these Resources: Managing the Stress of Ministry ($29.95 Value) Planning a One Year Preaching Calendar ($29.95 Value) Don’t Delay – Click Here to Download Now with Over $175.00 in BONUSES! P.S. This four-part attractional series would be a great fit on your preaching calendar in August, September, January, Easter or Summer!  Download your copy today and receive these additional bonuses… but hurry, the bonuses disappear THIS FRIDAY, June 10! Click here to Download Now.

It’s Jason Hatley again, Pastor of Worship Arts at The Journey Church and Founder of Worship Leader Insights.

Last week we started a quick 2-week series on the Pastor / Worship Pastor Relationship by talking about what every Pastor needs from their Worship Pastor.

This week we turn the tables and I want to talk to Pastors about what your Worship Pastor needs from you. If you’re a worship pastor, feel free to print this out and “accidentally” leave a copy on your Pastor’s desk .

As I have always said, the most important relationship inside the church is the relationship between the Pastor and Worship Pastor. But it’s also a relationship that can hold a lot of tension. That tension MOST LIKELY comes from one specific thing:

Lack of clarity about the expectations of the other person.

The worship pastor says, “If my pastor would only do _____, then I would be able to get ahead,” while the pastor says, “If my worship pastor were only planned further in advance, we would be able to do _______ with our Sunday service.”

The remedy – clear expectations on the role of both the Pastor and Worship Pastor.

So now that we have opened the conversation on expectations, let’s talk about what the Worship Pastor needs from the Pastor:

#1 – Clear direction. The #1 frustration I hear from worship leaders in my live events and coaching networks is that they feel the Pastor is just not clear on what he wants. Now, this is not fully the pastors fault… after all we always listen through our own filters (right or wrong).

But Pastor your worship pastor wants to serve you and give you exactly what you want. If you want to see the productivity, engagement, and overall effectiveness of your worship pastor go to record levels, the best way to do that is to give clear direction, expectations and dealines for what you want. Remember, if it is unclear in your mind, it is a dense fog in your Worship Pastor’s mind.

#2 – Help. Worship Pastors don’t always ask for it (they should), but one of the most beneficial things that your worship pastor receives from you is your help. They need to know that they can bounce an idea off of you, be honest with you when something isn’t going well, or ask for advice on how to deal with a problem or a person. Too many times Worship Pastors don’t ask. But many times Pastors don’t listen or engage this area either.

Don’t be afraid to pry into your Worship Pastors work and ask questions that will help reveal areas where they need some coaching.

And when your worship pastor comes to you for help, do your best to fully engage the question. As the pastor you have the amazing ability either to add or remove pressure from the Worship Pastor’s ministry. Remember to do both!

Pastor – Do you know an area where your worship pastor needs help right now? If not, you don’t know your worship pastor well enough.

Worship Pastor – Are you asking your Pastor for help when you need it? If not, you’re missing out on one of the best resources available to you.

#3 – Ongoing Training. Too many worship pastors are exactly the same today as they were a year ago. They are struggling with the same challenges and frustrations that have plagued them for months. The team is the same size. The quality of the worship service is the same. The weekly frustrations are the same. That’s terrible place to be in ministry.

As the Pastor you can help ensure that your worship pastor is constantly growing to meet the new challenges that come with each season of ministry. Create a learning culture by reading books together as a staff. Have your worship leader look for monthly training opportunities. A seminar, webinar, free worship leader training podcasts. It’s out there, it’s easy, and cheap! (Go to http://www.worshipleaderinsights.com for more).

And most importantly, ensure your worship pastor finds a coach. As a Worship Pastor, our church would have benefited GREATLY in the early days if I had a coach. Almost everything I learned in the early days I learned the hard way – through my own successes and (mostly) failures!

But I learned to capture what worked and build systems around it so that I wouldn’t fail at it again.

That’s how our team grew from 2 to 200 people. How I developed my personal leadership abilities. How our worship services are planned months in advance. How we’ve built a healthy and thriving team. We’ve done it, but it was much harder than it had to be – if I had only had a coach!

Now, I’m a coach. I give those systems back to other worship leaders through the Tele-Coaching Network. In these networks, the average worship team doubles. The worship leader develops a one-year personal growth plan and doubles his effectiveness. The pastor emails me and says what a difference the network is making in their worship leader.

The Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Network is a way for you to invest in your worship leader’s growth through a 12-month training experience. Nearly 150 pastors have already have already experienced the benefits of having their worship pastor learn and develop these systems, and you can, too.

My next network begins in just 2 weeks. Learn more and apply online at http://www.worshipleaderinsights.com/coaching.

Whether I am the coach to your worship pastor, or you find a mentor elsewhere, your worship pastor will accelerate their leadership by learning from another Worship Pastor.

P.S. My new Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Network starts in just 2 weeks. Apply for the network today and receive a 90-Day 100% Money Back Guarantee. If you or your worship pastor are not fully satisfied with the network, let me know and I will refund every nickel you invested in the network – PLUS, you will be able to keep all of the resources that I had given out so far.

For a full list of what you receive in the network, how it all works, and how you can secure one of the final spots before they are gone, go to http://www.worshipleaderinsights.com/coaching.

P.P.S. Sign your Worship Leader up to  receive these weekly Worship Leader Insights blog posts by visiting:

http://www.worshipleaderinsights.com/newsletter

I just found out that Jason Hatley (Pastor of Worship Arts at The Journey and Founder of WorshipLeaderInsights.com) is hosting a FREE Webinar designed for BOTH Pastors and Worship Leaders in just a few days (next Tuesday and Thursday).

You’re invited to Register Now for the The Top 3 Worship Planning Mistakes Webinar.

Two Dates to Choose from:
Tuesday, May 3 OR Thursday, May 5

• 2:00pm – 3:15pm Eastern
• 1:00pm – 2:15pm Central
• 12:00pm – 1:15pm Mountain
• 11:00am – 12:15pm Pacific

And it’s FREE!

This is an ideal training experience for both Pastors and Worship Pastors to attend together.

• Do you feel stress in planning your services?
• Do you struggle to plan your service more than one week in advance?
• Do you feel underprepared for Sunday because the service came together too last minute?

You will discover how to overcome the Top 3 Mistakes that are keeping you from making your worship services the very best they can be in this new 75-minute webinar with Jason Hatley!

Here’s what you and your Worship Pastor can expect to learn:

• How to identify the TOP 3 OBSTACLES that are keeping you from planning the worship services you want to have in your church.
• How to work together with your Pastor / Worship Leader to create powerful worship experiences.
• How to break the week-to-week mindset and begin creating “WOW” moments in worship
• The Paradigm Shift that will TRANSFORM how you plan worship services.
• How to overcome procrastination and eliminate the stress of last minute planning!
• And much more!

And Pastor, even if you can’t make it, be sure to forward this to your Worship Pastor (it will be worth their time!).

Space is limited so Register Now.

Jason Hatley here – Pastor of Worship Arts at The Journey and Founder of WorshipLeaderInsights.com – Nelson asked me to share some thoughts on the Pastor – Worship Pastor Relationship. Here’s the first of a two-part series of posts – this one is directed to the Worship Pastors:

If you have been around Worship Leader Insights for awhile you’ve heard me say that the most important relationship inside the church is the relationship between the Pastor and Worship Pastor. (Pick up the FREE REPORT if you want to hear more on that).

There’s good reason for this . . . the pastor and worship pastor have the most influence on the worship service, you are the two most visible leaders in the church, and you both provide leadership to key people in the church.

So the health of the Pastor / Worship Pastor relationship really speaks to the health of the worship service itself.

This relationship is vitally important, but there is a catch… a paradox in fact. You see, it is the most important relationship in the church, but is also the relationship that tends to have the most tension. In fact, one of the major factors keeping many churches from reaching their full redemptive potential is that the relationship between the Pastor and Worship Pastor isn’t working.

Now you may both like each other and get along well, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about how you “work together”. There is a lot of misunderstanding about exactly what each person in the relationship is responsible to the other person for. So over the next two weeks, we’re going to take a look at what the Pastor needs from the Worship Pastor and vice versa.

Let’s start with 3 Things that YOUR Pastor Needs from You (the Worship Pastor).

#1 – Support Your Pastor’s Vision – The #1 thing your pastor needs from you as a worship pastor is support of his vision for leading the church. God gave the responsibility of the overall leadership of the church to the Pastor. Our role as worship pastors is to carry the flag for our pastors. To pray for them, to speak well of them, to publicly support them. You may have disagreements behind closed doors (that’s natural), but when the door opens you 100% support the leadership, vision and decision of your Pastor.

This is an area where I have honestly heard from many worship pastors that they struggle with. They feel their pastor isn’t clear in his vision (we’ll talk about that more next week). They feel stuck because they can’t get ahead in their current structure.

Let me lay a challenge at your feet: Things may not be perfect (they never will), but don’t just put this on your pastor. Remember there are two people in the relationship. Do everything that you can to succeed in your role, and go to work on the relationship.

#2 – Excel in Your Area – The best gift you can give your pastor is the peace of mind that you are leading your area well. When things are going well in your area you free him up to keep his eyes on other important leadership matters in the church. The Pastor should never take his eyes off your area because it is so important to the health of your services, but when you are leading with excellence he won’t have to give undue energy to
fixing things that aren’t quite working.

#3 – Evaluate and Improve Constantly - The #1 way to make your services better week-to-week AND make yourself completely irreplaceable is to develop the skill of evaluating and constantly improving yourself, your team, and your services.

On Sunday keep a list of things that are working and things that aren’t working. Make evaluation part of your weekly worship planning meeting. Assign responsibility to fix whatever is wrong and try to do it as quickly as possible.

By simply “reviewing the tapes” of Sunday, you can improve your service 1%-2% this week. Over the course of the next 6-12 months, you will have increased your service effectiveness by 100%!

So how are you doing? Rate yourself 1 – 5 (1 being not very well, 5 being very well) on how you are doing in each of these 3 areas. Take some time this week to discuss with your pastor what you can do to improve and continue to provide what he needs.

And next week, we’ll talk about 3 Things Worship Pastors need from the Pastor.

PS: These are just 3 of the 10 Responsibilities that Every Worship Pastor has to the Pastor. I teach all 10 of these (PLUS MUCH MORE) in the Worship Pastor Tele-Coaching Network.

The next coaching network begins in just 3 weeks on Friday, May 13. There are still a few slots available and you can have one if you apply today.

I want you to join with me and 25 other Worship Leaders from around the country for a 12-month hands-on coaching program where you will learn the EXACT systems that we have developed at The Journey for you can:

• Develop a personal growth plan that will help you lead at an optimum level
• Work with the Lead Pastor to fulfill your calling, and give him everything he needs
• Plan months (even a year) in advance and create more impactful services than ever before, all while reducing your weekly stress
• DOUBLE the number of people serving on your worship team
• Invest wisely in the Sunday service (including deciding whether to pay) and teach good stewardship to your Worship Team
• Create a culture of excellence for yourself and your volunteers
• Ensure that every Sunday service is successfully planned for and executed
• And much more!

There’s no travel expense or time away from the office. Just a proven training experience that has helped over 150 Worship Pastors lead their teams at the next level.

Is the network right for you?  You will have to decide for yourself.  But don’t wait . . . The network begins in less than 3 weeks!

Learn more and Apply Today to ensure you receive a spot.

If you read the blog regularly, you may already know that I’m a big fan of doing a weekly message run-through.

In other words, set aside some time each week to deliver your entire Sunday message to a small, trusted group of people who can provide helpful feedback before Sunday morning.

This one change in your weekly worship planning routine will drastically improve your preaching and increase your confidence as you step up on Sunday.

It will help you embrace the goal of excellence in your worship services – or doing the absolute best you can with what you have available.

In addition – one advanced technique is to apply the same concept to other important “non-message” elements - like testimonies, special announcements, etc. – all to make sure that we’re bringing our best effort come Sunday.

When any of these other elements are planned, I will ask the person speaking to send me their notes no later than Tuesday, we’ll work on edits on Wednesday, and then I like to include them in the live run-through on Thursday.

If the person involved can’t participate in the live run-through in the office during the week, we do a run-through over the phone and then a live run-through before the service on Sunday morning.

With Easter Sunday upon us, what can you do between now and then to make sure that every element involved in your Easter worship service is the best you can possibly present?

P.S. To learn more about implementing a proven message run-through strategy, starting this week, download your FREE copy of my brand new “Double the Effectiveness of Your Preaching” E-Book by clicking here.

It’s Jason Hatley, Pastor of Worship Arts at The Journey.

We are in the middle of audition season here at The Journey and Nelson asked me to share with you a very simple, but powerful idea that we have used for years to involve new people serving on our worship team.

It will help you grow your team as well – this Sunday (seriously . . . take a look!).

Last Sunday I had the privilege to host a Worship Arts Overview Reception at our newest Journey campus in South Florida.

If you are familiar with the “How to Double Your Worship Team in a Day” resource, you know that the Worship Arts Reception is one of the KEY STRATEGIES that I use to involve new people in ministry on our Worship Arts Team.

It’s basically a short, 30-minute party that I host twice a year after the service and invite people who are interested in serving on the Worship Arts Team to attend.

Sounds easy, right . . . that’s because it is

But it’s also powerful!

In fact I’ve found that nearly 50% of the people who sign up for our big day of auditions do so at a Worship Arts Overview Reception.

Now – I’ve hosted these types of receptions many times before at our New York City campuses. But this one was special . . .

You see our new campus in Boca Raton, FL is only one month old, and this was the very first Worship Arts Reception that we’ve held.

Being so young, our Worship Arts Team here in Boca is only has about 20 people serving on the team right now (compared to the over 200 who serve on the teams that we’ve built in our New York City campuses).

But yesterday something powerful happened.

Fifteen people who are NOT currently serving on our Worship Arts Team attended this reception. Twelve of them signed up for an audition and will be auditioning to join our Worship Team in just a couple weeks.

Through one easy-to-lead event, our Worship Arts Team will involve a dozen new people in life-changing ministry and our team will grow by at least 50%.

And it all happened simply because I did something this week to help my team grow.

So – here’s my question for you . . . what are you doing this week to empower talented people in your church to get off the sidelines and get involved with your Worship Arts ministry?

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Put a Worship Team interest checkbox on your connection card
• Host a Worship Arts Reception
• Actively try to meet people after the service (that’s right – this is one of the EASIEST ways to get new people involved).
• Put a flyer in the program or an announcement slide on the screen
• Decide to hold a BIG day of auditions next month
• Call that person that you heard was a Graphic Designer but haven’t followed up with yet
• Email your team and ask them who they know that should be serving on the team

Whatever you decide, DO SOMETHING THIS WEEK to involve people in life-changing ministry on your Worship Arts Team.

When you do, you help people not only use their gifts but also grow in their faith and live out part of their life-mission in your church.

Your partner in ministry,

Jason

PS: To have your worship leader receive leadership lessons like this every week, subscribe them to the FREE Worship Leader Insights newsletter at http://www.worshipleaderinsights.com/newsletter

PPS: If this one simple idea can help you experience immediate growth on your worship team, imagine what it would be like for your worship leader to receive hands-on, in-depth training from me in the Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Network.

Typically in my networks . . .

• The average worship team doubles.
• The worship leader develops a one-year personal growth plan and doubles his/her effectiveness.
• The worship leader builds a worship planning system that keeps your services weeks, months, even a year planned in advance
• The pastor emails me and says what a difference the network is making in their worship leader.
• And much more!

The Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Network is a way for you to invest in your worship leader’s growth through a 12-month training experience. Nearly 150 worship leaders have already experienced the benefits of these systems, and your worship leader can to.

I have a new network beginning in just a few weeks on Friday, April 8. The deadline for applying is fast approaching.

Apply online, learn more about the network (and the over $1419 in free resources your worship leader will receive if accepted) at http://www.worshipleaderinsights.com/coaching.