John Pape Online Blog

Worship Devotionals
Daily Devotionals – These daily devotionals are brought to you by Experiencing Worship Contributor Terri Pettyjohn

Articles on Worship
Worshiplinks.com collection of articles on worship and the arts.

Articles on Worship
A collection of articles by Ron Man on worship

Women in Worship
Articles for Women In Worship with Debbi Barnett on Experiencing Worship website

10 Ways To Worship Without Music
Article by Tobin Perry on Pastors.com shares ten habits that will build worship into your life on a daily basis

Worship and Rebuilding
Article by by William Mikler

Worship Intercession
Worship and intercession preceded Jesus on His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. So too, they will be important ingredients preparing the way for His return. article by Don Potter

Worship Styles
Article by Gregory C. Cochran examines the question: “Which way do you like to worship, spicy or mild?”

The Role of the Band in Worship
Article Daniel Fermaint looks a the role of the band in worship

Worship Leader Articles
A collection of article by Sally Morgenthaler on Sacramentis.com (“Re-imagining Worship for a New Millennium)” Morgenthaler’s vision is to move worship beyond presentation (information, performed music and preaching) to an interactive, sacred experience involving all the arts.

Acappella Worship Leader Articles 3 Song Stories
3 Song Stories by various from songs4worship.com  Here are the stories behind three popular worship songs: Don Moen’s Worthy, You Are Worthy, Darrell Evans’s Trading My Sorrows and Mercy Me’s Word of God Speak

Song Stories
What inspired the songwriter? The stories behind many contemporary worship classics

Songs of David Articles
Collection of article dedicated to the worship ministry

Worship Articles
Colin Owen has been involved in Christian music since 1988. He has an itinerant ministry, leading, and teaching on praise and worship, and preaching God’s Word. Here are some of his articles

A Servant’s Call To Worship
Donna Renay Patrick is a worship leader, musician, praise and worship conference instructor and the founder of WORDshop Ministries, a Christian, Word-based ministry focused on teaching your congregation the true meanings of praise and worship, and their significance to our lives as believers.

Genuine Worship: Articles
A web magazine centered around the topic of worship. Collection of articles on worship

Hebrew Words for Praise
A bible study that looks at 10 different Hebrew words for praise by Paul Vickers at eattheword.com

Love Song
The Song of Songs is a series of love poems, for the most part in the form of songs addressed by a man to a woman, and by the woman to the man. These songs have often been interpreted as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church.

Praise and Worship
Bible study outline at hisloveministries.org examines the Biblical basis of worship.  Include Hebrew word study.

Worshiping God in Spirit and in Truth
Bible study outline on the topic of worship

The Practice of the Presence of God
Classic transcript written by Father Lawrence.  In communion with Rome, a lay brother among the Carmelites, for several years a soldier, in an irreligious age, amid a sceptical people, yet in him the practice of the presence of GOD was as much a reality as the “watch” of the early Friends, and the “holy seed” in him and others was the “stock” (Isa. vi. 16) from which grew the household and evangelistic piety of the eighteenth century, of Epworth and of Moorfields.

Heart of Worship
By Rick Warren – Surrendering to God is not passive resignation, fatalism, or an excuse for laziness. It is not accepting the status quo. It may mean the exact opposite: sacrificing your life in resistance to evil and injustice, or suffering in order to change what needs to be changed.

Worship is More Than a List
Article by Jack D. Kinneer.  The author, an OP minister, is the founder and scholar in residence at Echo Hills Christian Study Center.

Worship God’s Glory
True worship is God-centered worship. People tend to get caught up in where they should worship, what music they should sing in worship, and how the worship looks to other people. Focusing on these things completely misses the point. Jesus tells us that true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in
truth (John 4:24). This means we worship from a pure heart!

Worship God in Dance
Article by Lucinda Coleman, a high school teacher, has been a dance co-ordinator at Gateway Baptist Church in Brisbane and now lives in Port Hedland, Western Australia. This article is adapted from her research on ‘Dance in the Church’, written as part of her studies at the Queensland University of
Technology. It briefly traces the history of dance in worship.

Beyond Self-Centered Worship
Written by Geoff Bullock who served as music pastor at Hills Christian Life Centre, Sydney.

Healing Through Worship
By Pastor Robert Colman the worship director at Blackburn Baptist Church, Melbourne. The work of Christ in redemption has one great end – it is to save humanity and restore us to the joy of knowing true worship.

A Heart for Worship
Author: Dr. Wayne Poplin of Carmel Baptist Church.  Worship involves seeing what God is worth and then giving Him what’s He’s worth.

Worship: Intimacy with God
by John and Carol Wimber Pastor John Wimber and his wife Carol are founding leaders of the Vineyard Christian Fellowships around the world.  We learned that what happens when we are alone with the Lord determines how intimate and deep the worship will be when we come together

The Spiritual Song
by Bob Johnson. Biblical Foundation and Practical Application.  One of the signs of renewal evidenced in congregational worship is the occurrence of some type of extemporaneous congregational song.

Prophetic Worship
This article is a sample chapter from Pastor Loren Sandford’s book, Prophetic Worship.

First Love-Prophetic Worship
We are prepared and called to minister the Word with regard to Davidical worship as well as the Christian walk. We have and are continuing to study the Word extensively in the area of Davidical worship and can impart to your worship team in this area as well as help to give vision and understanding to your congregation of the role they can play in prophetic worship and the song of the Lord.

Prophetic Worship
by John Paul Jackson.  Worship, by its very nature, is prophetic. Worship engages an omnipresent God who spans the dimension of time. Inherent in worship is a prophetic declaration of what has happened, what is happening now, and what is to come.

Developing the Prophetic in Worship
These are notes taken from a worship leaders conference meeting where Matt Redman was teaching.

Worship in the Spirit
by Andrew Murray

The Secret Place
by Smith Wigglesworth

The Moving Breath of the Spirit
by Smith Wigglesworth

The Secret Place
Find that cozy refuge for yourself, His comfort and healing presence. A commentary by Constance Vanides

The Secret Place of Prayer
Sermon Outline based on Matthew 6:1-8

Dwelling
in the Secret Place
Sermon by Pastor Donald Sheley

Into the Holy of Holies
Are you looking for a place to rest? Longing for peace in the midst of a hectic life? You can find both in the same place — the Holy of Holies.

The Holy Place and the Holy of Holies
The World Wide Ramifications Of The Tabernacle

Weeping Between the Porch and the Altar
Taken from a message of Leonard Ravenhill

The Worshiping Bride
Author: David Orton of Life Messenger.  Worship is how we are intimate with God. And to the degree our worship, whether in song, on instruments, or even in silence, issues from a pure heart of passion for God to that degree it will ascend as a sweet smelling aroma to him

I recently updated the look and feel of the Silent Voices website.  Here is a brief description of the organization:

Silent Voices is a ministry that provides services to women struggling with pregnancy and abortion related issues. Silent Voices provides care to pregnant women, single mothers and their children, as well as to women who had already had an abortion.  They offer pregnancy tests, abortion/pregnancy education, emotional, physical and spiritual support and post abortion support groups. While Silent Voices firmly believes in and advocates the sanctity of human life, all of our clients know that they are loved and accepted no matter what their situations, backgrounds or choices.

Here is a screen shot of the website before.

Silent Voices Web Layout Before

Sharon, the director of Silent Voices contacted me and wanted to get a fresh new look.  The layout was created several years ago she wanted to move away from the pink and blue theme.  As we we discussed the changes, she indicated that she would like to have brighter colors, more of a springtime feel to the site.  She felt that it would be more inviting.  It was at this point that I put my creative juices to work.  One thing that did help was she did provide me with examples of websites that she liked.  This is always helpful as a starting point.  I proceeded with creating three mockups in Photoshop for her and the board members to view.  Once we nailed down a design, I was able to further refine the design with additional revisions.  Finally, we had a new layout design had here is a screen shot of the final version.

Silent Voices Website Layout After

The conversion

For this project, my job was to create a new look to the website.  The existing content is the same.  I did add a couple of additional pages but nothing major. The old site also had a “splash page” and that was eliminated.   The previous site was built on a table style layout.  The new layout would be based on a tableless CSS design.  For many of my projects lately I’ve been using the Blueprint CSS framework as a starting point for my designs.  It is a good idea to have this in mind when creating the layout.  Blueprint does have a PSD with the Grids to help with the design layout.  The Silent Voices layout is 950px wide with 2 columns based on the 1/3 divisions.  The left column is 1/3 and main content is 2/3.  Blueprint makes it simple to make these divisions in the CSS.

The website is hosted on a Windows based server.  And all of the existing pages are static html.  The orginal site was created in Dreamweaver using the Template function.  Using Templates in Dreamweaver made the conversion of each of the html files very easy.  I don’t use this very often, but when I started maintaining the site I needed to learn how to use the templates.  What I did for this site was update the main.dwt file to the new layout and then convert the files.  It was quick and easy.

I’ve also started using  jQuery recently.  This is a javascript framework that is used to create some amazing effects.   There is a slide show that uses this technology and was easy to implement.

When the site was approved, I backed up all of the old files.  It is always a smart thing to backup when making a conversion.  Just in case there is a problem and you need to revert back to the old design.  Of course this was not the case.  The conversion when quite smoothly.  I only had to make a few very minor adjustments.

You can view the site at http://www.silentvoices.org/ And finally, if you have an idea for a website that you want designed and developed please contact me.  I am available to help you with your online presence.

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by Chrysty

Invariably, every praise and worship team member is a leader in some way or another. The worship leader then is a leader of leaders. People tend to put those in the limelight at a pedestal, having an expectation that they should be able to perform to their expectations.

What then are the qualities that a leader should aspire to possess to enable them function effectively.

1. Be a Prayerful Person

   This is one of the most challenging areas of any christian. The Devil who knows the power of prayer often puts many people in the place of non-prayer. The power of prayer cannot be overemphasised, sufficient to say the prayer life of any worship leader directly affects his ministry. The scriptures encourage us to pray without ceasing. Jesus himself who was the son of God, spend many nights in prayer. How much more should we pray?

2. Be Bold

   A worship and praise leader must be bold and courageous. Bold to encourage the congregation to embrace God and seek for new ways to praise him. Bold to encourage non traditional methods of worship like the use of dance in praise and worship, use of flags, introduce new songs,

3. Be creative

   Be creative in your worship. Let not words become words but mean them from your heart or spirit. many times after leading for a long period you may find that some words become pat words, words that you say without meaning, and you say them repeatedly, e.g “come & lift your hands“, “worship him” or “this is the day that the lord has made let us rejoice and be glad” yet your mind and heart are far from what you are saying. Ask the lord for a creative way of bringing the people to him.

4. Possess leadership attributes from Titus 1.6-9

   Have one spouse
   Be a man/woman of integrity
   Be hospitable
   Do not be a drunkard
   Not greedy for money
   Manage your family well
   Be just
   Have self control

5. Be a worshiper

   Worship God in private and in public. If you are not a worshipper you cannot lead people into the presence of God, you have not been there!. A worshiper is not necessarily a musician, but a person who loves to worship God and stay in his presence. God loves those who worship him in spirit and in truth( john 4:) He is seeking for them.

6. Have a basic understanding of music

   To lead in worship and praise songs or lyrics, one has to have a basic understanding of music or have an ear for music. It can be quite challenging to lead worship when tone deaf!

7. Pay attention to details

   This often is what separates mediocracy from excellence. Pay attention to details of your music, the notes, the way you arrange the lyrics, the song lists, the flow of the songs, the way different keys work either together or not, the way different musicians( your musicians) play the songs.  If you will talk between the songs, what will you say, how will you say it, when will you say it,your backup singers, how they move on stage, the dress code for the group.The difference this will bring to your leadership is simply amazing!

8. Listening to the Holy Spirit

   Many times in the services the praise and worship leader may stay long on a song but he already has lost the people. The annointing is not in the song, and he does not seem to sense or know it. He just goes on for another 5 mins singing the same song, while the congregation’s mind wander away and only come back when another song is sung. A good worship leader should pray and ask the Holy Spirit to let him know when the anointing is on a song, when to stay on a song, and when to move away from a song when to allow the people to lavish their worship on God without a song. The key here is being senistive to God

9. Ability to inspire

   Inspire your worship team and the congregation you are serving. In other words have an annointing. Where, when you lead, the glory and the presence of God comes down. When the anointing of God is upon you your words inspire both your team and the listeners. The ability to draw the presence of God into a service is the annointing.

About the Author
A worship Minister for the last 10 years, in Africa.
I write worship music. Love God so much! blogs at
http://prayer-praise-worship.blogspot.com/,
and http://chrystyk.wordpress.com/

The inspiration for this article comes from an Old Testament story. In this story there is a special building project undertaken by Solomon. The four stages explained in this article are the exact same steps illustrated in this story. You will find that these four concepts will dramatically help you in your music ministry. You need to take this information and start creating an overwhelming positive worship experience in your church’s worship service.

This is where we begin – One day as I was reading the Bible I came across and amazing scripture. Solomon’s temple was completed and the priests were ministering and then God’s glory filled the temple. The awe and reverence caused everyone to stop and let God inhabit the worship. (more…)

by Mike and Denise Hartmann-Echterling and Hart To Heart Ministries

Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As the hart [male red deer] panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” (KJV)

My mind was flooded with this scripture when I saw a deer drinking from a river in Montana, where Denise and I were ministering in a conference. I was reminded how few saints ever really experience this kind of intimacy and closeness with God. For too many, the price is too high to pay in order to obtain it. It is obtainable. Prayer is just one of the many ways to “draw near” to experience the glorious presence of God.

Close communion with God is found only in the depths of your heart. You can step into a deeper awareness of God’s presence. To do this, you must have a desire, passion, hunger, and thirst that will run like a deer for the water brook. You must ask, seek, and knock until you are at the River of Life.

In Psalm 63:1-2 David wrote, “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. (KVJ)

As you pray you can open the depth of your heart to a place in God few obtain, you will find the deep places of God’s presence. It is the place you will find the anointing, power, authority, glory presence, and deep communion with God that you so long for. It is where “deep calleth unto deep”. It is a place that is a sanctuary, a place of hope, a place of love, a place of rest, a place of power. Once you labored to enter into the rest of “deep calleth unto deep” (Psalm 42:7) you can drink deeply from the River of Life. You can feast on the Living Bread. You will experience the victory that you long for. You will be the overcomer you always dreamed of being. You will do the “mighty exploits for God” once you step into that deep place in your spirit.

Mike and Denise Hartmann-Echterling with passion of holy fire preach the full glories found in the salvation bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus. You can read more about them at: http://www.h2hm.org

About the Author

Mike and Denise Hartmann-Echterling founders of Hart To Heart Ministries preach in seminars, conferences and churches around the world. Denise sings, teaches and with a heart of love allows the power of God to touch the hearts and lives of people. Mike has a passion to see people walk in the authority that has been given to them through the cross of Christ. You can visit their web site at: http://www.h2hm.org