Tag: music

7 New Albums That Will Make You Want to Worship Jesus This Advent

You might not enjoy hearing Christmas music, say, every time you go out shopping. But if you’re like many of us, you probably still have some favorite Christmas albums you’ll listen to while decorating your house. Maybe those even include some of our recommendations from 2017! Or perhaps you enjoy the opportunity to worship God with songs you don’t get to sing during any other time of the year.

Even if you have a set of favorite Christmas tunes, it’s fun to find something fresh now and then.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled a short list of Christmas albums released this year that we think you might enjoy.

Lauren Daigle, Behold (Deluxe)

Daigle has been in the news quite a bit lately and has re-released her 2016 Christmas album in a deluxe version. It contains a mix of traditional songs done in a soulful, jazzy style.

Featuring: Jingle Bells, Silent Night, O Holy Night, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Listen to Lauren perform “Away in a Manger

Hillsong Worship, Christmas: The Peace Project (Deluxe)

Another deluxe version re-release comes from Hillsong Worship. The album includes two new live recordings, as well as instrumental versions of the songs.

Featuring: Joy to the World, Hark, Prince of Heaven, When I Think Upon Christmas

Hark Lyric Video

Darlene Zschech & HopeUC, The Table: A Christmas Worship Gathering

Speaking of which, Darlene Zschech, whom you might recognize as formerly being with Hillsong, has released a new Christmas album with Hope Unlimited Church.

Featuring: The Mystery (feat. Luke Taylor), Do You Hear What I Hear (feat. Katie Smith), Away in a Manger (He Is Here) (feat. Coco Gleeson & Piper Rorke), Emmanuel (Glory to God) (feat. Laura Robertson)

Away in a Manger (He Is Here) (Official Audio)

Caleb and Kelsey, Christmas Together  

Another artist we recommend is husband and wife duo Caleb and Kelsey. Their Christmas album is distinguished by its beautiful piano music and the couple’s harmonies.

Featuring: Christmas Hallelujah, Snow Medley, What Child Is This? / O Come Emmanuel, This Christmas / Last Christmas

What Child Is This? / O Come Emmanuel

Matt Maher, The Advent of Christmas

Grammy nominee and Dove Award winner Matt Maher anticipates the coming of Christ with a creative album focused on Advent.

Featuring: Gabriel’s Message, He Shall Reign Forevermore, The First Noel, When I Think of Christmas

Gabriel’s Message (Official Audio)

116, The Gift: A Christmas Compilation

Are you looking for hip hop music to jam to while you’re making Christmas cookies? If so, this is the album for you!

Featuring: O’ Come (feat. Tedashii, CASS, nobigdyl.), Joy (feat. Trip Lee, Lecrae, Abe Parker), Noel (feat. Trip Lee, Dave James), We Three Kings (feat. Paul Russell, Lecrae, Abe Parker)

“Joy” (feat. Trip Lee, Lecrae, Abe Parker)

David Phelps, It Must Be Christmas

David Phelps used to sing with the Gaithers and is now a solo artist. Here are some of the tracks we enjoyed most from his new Christmas album.

Featuring: Go Tell It on the Mountain, Fall on Your Knees (feat. Charlotte Ritchie), Catching Santa, In the Bleak Midwinter

Watch David perform “Go Tell It on the Mountain” live!

 

Written by: Jessica Mouser – Jessica Mouser is a writer for ChurchLeaders.com.

Roll Out The Red Carpet This Christmas

For some people, Christmas is the only time they go to church. That is why it is critical for churches to have a strategic plan for welcoming guests, especially during holiday services. If you haven’t started, now is the time to begin planning your events to reach the first time guest who will come to your church this time of year. There’s just too much at stake! Here are some practical things you can do during your service to make an eternal difference in the lives of your guests:

Pay attention to your website and social media

Give extra attention to your website and social media leading up to your Christmas services. Is it clear and easy to find the times and locations of your Christmas services? Are all of your campuses open, or will you have one large gathering at the main campus? Will childcare be provided? Make sure every detail is covered online.

Train your holiday greeters

This seems obvious, but if you don’t usually have greeters at the entrances of the church, be sure they are present at your Christmas services. If you already have them, add more for your Christmas services, and make sure they are your most hospitable and helpful greeters. Place friendly faces at all of your entrances to the church and main worship areas so that that each guest gets a “Hello and Merry Christmas!” Encourage your greeters to offer more than a smiling face. At the very least, challenge them to remember people—because nobody likes to feel forgotten. Make a special effort to greet people you do not already know.

Greeting begins in the parking lot

The first few minutes of a guest’s experience are critical to the overall visit. Their experience starts when they pull into your church parking lot. Why not add a few extra volunteers this year to help direct and greet visitors as they find parking. Seeing a friendly face before you’re even in the door can make a big impact.

Add additional helpers

Think through the highest trafficked hallways or confusing areas of your church. These would be great spots to add additional greeters to help guide visitors to the right spot. Make it obvious who your volunteers are, using name tags, signs, or shirts so that guests know who to go to for help.

Have an overflow seating plan

Your Christmas Eve or Christmas services are usually the biggest one of the year, so have a solid plan in place for overflow seating. This includes volunteers assigned to grab more seating or direct people to a different area to watch the service. It also includes the tech team or extra tech volunteers to broadcast the service in the overflow room and attend to any potential sound issues.

Get Visitor Contact Information

Get your guests to share their contact information by offering something in return. My church gives $5 to the local food bank for each connect card that’s completely filled out and put into the offering bucket. Find what works for you and your church and do what you can to collect your guest’s information.

Engage in Meaningful Follow-Up

Follow-up on Christmas Eve immediately following the worship service. Yes, we realize that there are other things to do Christmas Eve! It’s inconvenient and everyone’s tired and wants to go home. We get that! Churches that are growing have leaders who are willing to work their tail off to get and maintain momentum to build the Kingdom

Make Your Christmas Eve Service Remarkable

Take your creativity to such a level that the service and your guests experience is talked about for weeks to come. We want your guests to be telling their friends and family about their experience so that their friends and family will want to come and experience your services for themselves.

Give Visitors a Reason to Return

Several times during the Christmas Eve service, make a big deal about your new sermon series that starts the following week or the first week of January. Use popular movies and community concerns to develop impactful sermon series. Whatever you do, be sure that you invite your guests back!

Poor hospitality is the #1 reason first-time visitors don’t return. Express this to your staff and volunteers. You have an opportunity this Christmas to share the message of Christ and draw people into your church. It’s time for all hands on deck!

What special things do you do at your church to retain your Christmas guests?

Written by Meggan Jacobus. Meggan is the staffing manager at Froot Group, a worship staffing and consulting company.

A Bigger Picture Of Worship

I’m going to jump right into things this week.  I’m discussing worship…a topic that’s near to my heart.  But before we get started, I have a few questions:

What drives you to worship?  Not just on Sunday, but throughout the rest of the week?  

What keeps you in a frame of mind that is set upon worship?

What is worship, anyway?

If I am honest with myself, I struggle with answering these questions.  I’ve found there’s no easy answer even with many years of practice.  For some backstory, I’ve been involved with some level of “worship” (the part you see and hear on stage) since I was in my high school and college years.  I remember leading a youth group praise band with my electric guitar; my Epiphone Les Paul (oh yeah!).  And then in college, I led worship at my school’s Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship chapter.  I helped lead while attending North Dakota State and our worship team actually included the gal who is now my wife.  (Just fair-warning:  your future spouse might be someone who’s on your team!)

With all that experience and many more years under my belt in ministry, you’d think I’d start to have a grasp of what worship is.  That maybe I’m at some expert or mastery level.  But in reality, I know I have as much to learn now as I did all those years ago.  Worship is so much deeper than what I think it is.

I think those initial questions are hard to define because we speak of worship in somewhat ambiguous terms.  We talk about worship as a church service.  It can also be a song itself.  Or maybe even a style of music.  Worship as a music style has grown so much over the past 20 years that it has gained its own genre and subgenre within Christian music.  

But is worship solely limited to those things?  Just a song or style of music?  Or just the 20 minutes of time that lasts between the announcements and the sermon?  I surely hope not.  

Through my own study of this topic through books and the Bible, through hearing sermons, and by just being around other Christians, I’ve come to this conclusion:  worship is SO MUCH BIGGER than the box we put it in.  In fact, it’s really not about music at all.  It’s an attitude of the heart.  Music is one way to express our worship to God and it’s a great way to do it.  But I’ve come to embrace the fact that worship is all-encompassing.  Therefore, everything I do becomes an act of worship to God.

That means how I serve my wife and kids is worship.  

How I spend my time and money is worship. 

How I treat my coworkers is worship.

What words I allow to come out of my mouth is worship.  

Who I am when no one else is around is worship.

In each of these things, I am allowing myself to ascribe worth and value to something:  hopefully in each case, to the Lord.  

I think if we come before the Lord each day seeking Him and pursuing a lifestyle of worship, it becomes that much easier to enter into worship and praise on Sunday.  When we’ve been living it in the trenches Monday-Saturday, we realize Sunday is just the capstone; the culmination of all we’ve already been doing throughout the week.  Through that, we praise and we thank God.  It’s as important to worship corporately (i.e. on Sunday) as it is individually (outside of church).  

This summer, I’m urging you to find space and margins in your day and week to reevaluate what worship looks like for you.  I find it especially important with the busyness of fall soon approaching.  Consider this a gentle reminder that we need to constantly and consistently pursue Christ and set aside time to seek Him and His will for our lives.  It just won’t happen by accident.  If you are struggling to find rest, to unplug and listen to the Lord, here’s a blog I wrote earlier this year that might give some guidance:  Learning To Rest .  

If I point a finger at anyone in all of this, it’s at myself to ask “How well am I worshipping today?  Am I giving God my best?”  He deserves our best but until we understand a bigger picture of worship, we run the risk of giving Him less than He deserves.  I don’t want to give God my leftovers.  I want Him to have the first fruits.  Worship is how we do that and it’s happening all the time…24/7.

God bless you!  Much love to you and please know I’m praying for you!

I can be reached at info@derekcharlesjohnson.com 

God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.  John 4:24

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness. Psalm 29:2

Written By: Derek Charles Johnson. Derek is a friend of the Froot Group family and is a church worship leader residing in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Check out Derek’s website to find out more about who he is, listen to his songs or read more of his blogs. We think he’s a swell guy and you will too!