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A few years ago, a student in one of my classes — sharp kid, grew up in church, knew his Bible — turned in a paper on the church calendar. He walked through Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter with real care. Then there was a sentence that just said: "And then...
Easter Sunday is the highest-attendance Sunday of the year in almost every church I've ever been part of. Which means it's also the Sunday with the most pressure, the most rehearsal, the most production. I've spent a lot of Easter mornings backstage — or the worship leader equivalent of backstage...
One of my students came to me a few years ago — I'll call her Mia — near the end of February. She sat down in my office and didn't say much for a moment. Then she said: "I've been feeling really off this month. Not sad exactly. Just... heavy....
My neighbor texted me on December 26th.The text said: "That was fast."Two words. That was it. But I knew exactly what she meant, and I think you probably do too. She wasn't talking about the drive to her parents' house or the speed at which her kids opened presents. She...
A friend of mine — I'll call him David — grew up in the same kind of church I did. Contemporary. Energetic. The kind of place where December meant Christmas music from the first Sunday of the month, sometimes earlier. Bright lights, full production, the works. He loved it. So...
He found me after the service and said, "I think I broke something."He was the sound engineer — early thirties, had been running audio at churches for about eight years. Not a musician exactly, though he had the instincts of one. He spent every Sunday in a booth at the...
He pulled me aside before rehearsal and said it quietly, like he was confessing something."I can't stand this song."He was an older man — mid-sixties, had been playing piano in church settings since before I was born. Decades of Sunday mornings. He wasn't complaining exactly. He was telling me because...
She came up to me after the service, and the first thing she said was: "I'm sorry about that."She was a vocalist — mid-forties, had been singing on worship teams at various churches for maybe fifteen years. We had just led together for the first time, and at one point...
His name was Daniel, and he had been singing that lyric for eleven years.He was a guitarist on our worship team — steady, faithful, the kind of player who shows up early and stays late without being asked. At some point during a rehearsal, I asked the team a question...
I have led the same song probably three hundred times.I'm not exaggerating. There's a song we used at the church I served for almost a decade — a simple one, not particularly clever, nothing that would win a songwriting award. We sang it in the opening set. We sang it...
Worship That Makes Sense | Part 5 of 5A woman stopped me after a service a few months ago. She had been attending the same church for years — faithful, consistent, the kind of person you'd never worry about. But she had something she needed to say, and she said...
Worship That Makes Sense | Part 3 of 5She sat across from me with her hands wrapped around a coffee cup she wasn't really drinking.She had been in church her whole life. Raised in it. Stayed in it through the years most people drift. Led worship teams, showed up early...
Worship That Makes Sense | Part 4 of 5A woman in one of my classes — she had grown up in a Pentecostal tradition, lots of open singing, freeform prayer, no printed order of service — came to chapel one morning at the university where I teach. It was liturgical....
Worship That Makes Sense | Part 2 of 5He caught me after the service on a Sunday that had gone pretty well — good crowd, good energy, the room had been responsive.He leaned against the wall and said, almost under his breath: "I don't know what's wrong with me. Everyone...
Worship That Makes Sense | Part 1 of 5Someone asked me once, after a Sunday service: "Was that worship?"She wasn't confused about the sermon. She wasn't questioning the pastor. What she was trying to name was something simpler — and harder to put into words. The singing had felt like...
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