Hello Everyone and thanks for visiting the new worship blog.    

 

 

Come back often as we will be doing a series of blogs on Psalms 23

What's Blogging?
"Blog" is the result of combining "web-log." In 2008 there are literally millions of blogs in existence,  more varieties than you can imagine. Some are strictly about politics; others are more like peoples  diaries. Some focus on music or sports. A few blogs attract thousands of people every day; most get only a few.  Our goal for the New Hope Worship blog spot it to regularly update with new material. We plan for this material to include words, images, some video, and maybe some songs from time to time.  We also want to encourage you the reader to add your own comments and questions, almost like a conversation.

Why I'm Blogging?
Blogging gives me a great channel for communication with New Hope and maybe a few from the wider world. My target audience is, indeed, the folks at New Hope Christian. If this blog builds a larger readership that will be cool with me as the truth we will share here will be useful to many.  I pray that Blogging will provide an effective tool for drawing our people to higher levels of experience in worship. Before the worship blog, my only way to communicate was a few spoken words blended into our worship time on Sunday mornings. This limited me to around 100 words each week, and to topics that are appropriate for a worship setting. Help me with comments and suggestions for topics, this might allow me to sometimes address your ideas and to make thoughts available to others who might have similar ideas.

• Teaching about Worship

The main goal of this blog will be to teach about worship. Pastor Nathan has done some great series on worship in the past. But how are the new people going to know what he said? So doing this blogging on worship will allow this material to easily be made available to anyone who joins our congregation in the future.

• Building Relationship

The best worship leaders are closely connected to the heart of their congregation, but this can be hard to sustain, especially in a church that is growing at the rate we are seeing at New Hope church. I feel compelled to start the tear down process right after we finish the service which means I never get to speak with most of the people in the congregation.  Blogging will allow me to share more with those who choose to visit. If you will use the comment feature, we will also allow for more personal give and take.

• New Songs

We may also use this Blog spot to "demo" new songs, to explain what they mean and why I think they're worth singing.

This blog will sometimes draw your attention to fantastic new worship music? This blog gives me a place to review the album and to explain why it's worth purchasing.

It's hard to get balanced feedback on worship leadership. Usually, those who love us are too positive, and those who don't are too negative. This blog will allow us to open a discussion about some particular aspect of worship, such as: Did my recent use of a wireless mic in the service help you to worship, or  was it a distraction because it was so low in volume that worship was less than effective? Also watch for short surveys as well as general conversations.

I have sometimes come up with some hot idea for worship, only to get burned when it fizzled. Some of this might be avoided by blogging on my brainstorms in advance. Hopefully I will dodge the big mistakes altogether, or tweak things in advance so they work more effectively.

In addition to my primary blogging on worship, I will sometime throw in teaching to help you grow in the Lord.  I completed a study of Psalms 23 over this past summer.  Yes, it took me all summer because Psalms 23 is so rich in truth.  I will be playing back some of what God taught me over this period in some of the blogs posted here. 

 

Thanks again for visiting and please, please give me feedback. 

 

Travis