Archives for February 2011

Feb 28 2011

How To Blog Successfully (for more than a week)

I’ve seen it so many times.

Someone has a passion to start a blog. They get set up on a free account. They post some killer content.

After a week, they lose steam. Weeks, maybe months, go by without a post.

The first week or month of a blog is the honeymoon phase. You have tremendous vision for it only to run out of ideas after a week of sprinting.

Or, you start posting randomness that nobody cares about.

Has this been your story?

1234025_57591358 — Blogger, are you hitting your target?

Maybe it’s not your desire to become a professional blogger or to blog with consistency. That is fine and wonderful if you just like to journal your thoughts and have a few readers.

But if it’s your desire to have a widely read blog, there’s a few things you should do.

With this post I hope to infuse some new life into your blog. Or maybe you’re thinking of starting a blog. This post will get you started with realistic expectations and set you up for long term success.

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Feb 25 2011

The Most Important Question You Might Not Be Asking

[This post is part of a series on Tips For Taking Your Worship Team To The Next Level. Check out the rest here.]

There is a question you should be asking that many worship leaders overlook. It’s a question so important that your ministry will rise and fall on it’s answer.

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Feb 24 2011

5 Tips for Overcoming Songwriter’s Block

On my last post on using Evernote to help you write songs, one of my readers, Brad Lebakken, left a helpful comment on a songwriter’s inspiration. I thought it was so good that I wanted to turn it into a post.

He says:

“I love listening to a lot of bands that are doing innovative things and are on the forefront of creating good art in music. I get inspired by that a lot. Also I love writing songs on my guitar in different locations and times of day. I find I write different when I’m in my house than when I write outside at night on my deck. Sometimes I’ll write in the church sanctuary or in the sun in my yard. I also write by messing around with different instruments like drums, banjo, ukelele, or keyboard. Sometimes just putting a drum loop on and then riffing over that can be productive. Sometimes finding a good song title or lyric first can inspire a song. The best thing is to be constantly writing. Lately for every 5 -10 ok songs I write there might be one good one that makes it to the recording studio. I usually throw out a lot of songs but it’s good songwriting practice.”

Brad has left us with some extraordinary insight into overcoming songwriter’s block:

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Feb 23 2011

What Worship Leaders Can Learn From Rockstars

We all want to be rockstars.

Ever since we were little boys and girls, we had our superheroes.

Whether it was Mr. Rogers, Superman, Blues Clues, Bono, Green Day, or Michael Jordan, we all want to influence a lot of people and have a popular name.

It’s in our nature to crave attention, pursue praise, and love popularity. It’s the very reason we’ve made poor decisions in the past and done stupid things.

coldplay031906 — Chris Martin from Coldplay working his magic

Being a worship leader doesn’t change that. We want to be the Chris Martin of worship.

Contrary to what you may think, there are some attributes we can learn from rockstars to improve our worship leading.

I’m not advocating you begin a lifelong journey into sex, drugs, & rock & roll. If that was the case, this blog would be finished 🙂 Let me explain.

Here are 5 things worship leaders can learn from rockstars:

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Feb 21 2011

Tips For Taking Your Worship Team to the Next Level

I’m super excited about this new blog series for worship leaders. If you lead a worship team, you’re probably always wondering how you can take your team to the next level, but don’t know where to start. Sunday comes too quickly for you to get your head above water and catch a vision.

I’d love to help not just by giving you easy answers but by helping you think through what is best for your worship team and your local congregation. We’re not all called to look the same but we are called to excellence.

rock_Climber_in_the_sunset — Improvement = 1 simple step at a time

There is not a “one-size-fits-all”, worship team mold we all should fit in. God moves in different ways and uses different methods to accomplish His sovereign purposes. My purpose here is to simply “stir the pot”, get you thinking, and help you figure out what would work best for your team.

As always, I love when you leave comments and I promise to read and respond to every one and help in any way I can. That’s the reason I do this!

As for the series, here’s what we covered:

Question: Are there other topics I should have addressed? Let me know in the comments!