David W. Manner's Blog: Worship Evaluation, page 2

12 Post-Pandemic Worship Service Questions

If worship should be participative instead of passive, then how can we encourage and measure both virtual and gathered worship participation?Intergenerational worship occurred spontaneously when we worshiped from home. How do we leverage what happened at home to continue intergenerational worship at church?Since prayer is foundational to worship, how do we keep people from checking out during service prayer times when worshiping virtually.Worship actions that seem natural in gathered worshi...

If, Then Worship Conditions

A conditional statement is one that is put in the form of if A, then B where A is designated as the premise, hypothesis, or antecedent and B the conclusion or consequent.

If…then statements are used extensively in the form of logic referred to as deductive reasoning.

Can we determine if spirit and truth worship is actually conditional using this form of logic? And if it is conditional, couldn’t we then develop a universal recipe for worship success? The short answer is yes but our premises and ...

Worn-Out Pastor…He Is Able

Pastors, many of you over the last two years have gone through or are still going through your hardest season of ministry ever. It wasn’t the unprecedented situation of trying to do ministry in new ways that killed your spirits; instead, it was the selfish responses from faithful church members.

Even though you prayed diligently and continued to seek wise counsel regularly, many of you are still flat worn-out from trying to discern that healthy balance between the sacred and the scared. And sti...

Real Men Don’t Sing: A Lie Some Guys Believe

Forty years ago, author and humorist, Bruce Feirstein wrote the book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche: A Guidebook to All that is Truly Masculine. The author intended the book to be satirical that real men only eat steaks, wear flannel shirts, and never share their feelings. The result was that many men failed to recognize the satire and consequently, quiche consumption fell nationally confirming the stereotype.

Men choosing not to sing in worship services suggests that even Christ following men are s...

Ministry Conflict: Confusing Principles and Practices

 

Church conflict often arises when we confuse ministry principles and practices. Practices, or how we do ministry often changes. Principles, or why we do ministry doesn’t. If our why isn’t certain, then our how will always be conflicted.

Principles are the fundamental and foundational truths as to why we do what we do.

If biblical, theological, and doctrinal principles aren’t the foundational roots of all church ministries, then protecting practices often takes precedence. A principle is true...

Cleaner Restrooms = Better Worship

My ministry responsibilities often require me to regularly drive the same roads around Kansas and Nebraska. So, I’m pretty familiar with the rest stop and convenience store restrooms along those routes. I know the ones I’ll stop at again because of their cleanliness and the ones I’ll never return to again because they’re always filthy, never have the necessary supplies, and have archaic or broken plumbing fixtures.

We don’t usually talk about broken toilets and dirty sinks in most worship conve...

Post-Pandemic Church: Think Leaner Not Smaller

Churches are lamenting the numerical losses they have realized during the last two years of the pandemic. Most are beginning to accept the reality that 2022 numbers are not coming back to 2019 numbers. So, instead of wishing for things to get back to normal, where they are now is normal.

So, with that realization, what if instead of trying to figure out how they can possibly do all their previous ministries while smaller, those leaders and congregations instead moved forward with an attitude of...

Ministry Prayer for 2022: Lord, Deliver Me From Myself

Humility is one of the most difficult qualities for those of us in ministry to embrace and sustain. It is always a challenge to be both up-front and unassuming. In the name of excellence we are often unwilling to take a secondary and supportive role. Jorge Luis Borges wrote, “Arrogance is when the image of the Lord has been replaced by a mirror.” And that kind of arrogance can even suggest that what we lead and how we lead it holds more value than whom we lead. 

So, for 2022, instead of a desir...

The Peasant King Oxymoron

Adding punctuation to our projected worship song text offers road signs and symbols that help frame the rhythm, flow, and phrasing of the story or poem we are singing. Most of us learned and have followed these non-verbal cues since elementary school.

A comma can tell singers where to pause for emphasis, but also indicates when a statement or question is not yet complete. A period shows singers when a verse, chorus, or phrase has ended. Additional punctuation helps singers emphasize or deemphasi...

Why God Deserves Our Worship

God deserves our worship because he formed the foundation, fixed the dimensions, stretched a measuring line across, and laid the cornerstone of the earth while the morning stars sang together.

 

God deserves our worship because he enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst from the womb, determined its boundaries, and declared, “You may come this far, but no farther; your proud waves stop here.”

 

God deserves our worship because he gives orders to the morning and shows dawn its place that it ...