All posts tagged worship

The Wonder of it All…

by Tim Schraeder on 06/17/2009 in Notes, Willow Creek Arts Conference 2009 with No comments

So I blogged all of my notes from the Willow Creek Arts Conference but wanted to share a few take-aways…

The theme of the conference was Wonder… and I think that it could have not been a more fitting idea. It was incredible how all of the speakers, though from all different backgrounds, churches and organizations, all basically said the same thing.
I don’t necessarily consider myself and artist, but I do feel more at home with artsy people. I have some flair, but I’m not necessarily a full-fledged artist per se.
Willow Creek has had its ups and downs, and while I might not necessarily always vibe with everything they do, they never cease to inspire me in their heart and passion for God and for the local church… and to see people find connect with Christ.
I blogged all my notes, so I won’t go quoting everything, but my few personal take-aways were this…
  • I need to push “pause” in life more often… I need to not be so focused on what’s next, but focus on what’s now.
  • I need to learn to re-discover a child-like faith and wonder when it comes to viewing God and the world around me.
  • Everything I do must be an outflow of what God is doing in my life.
  • Joel Houston said something that stuck with me… “The very breath of God is creativity…” in context, he was saying that as we walk with God and draw near to HIm, He will inspire us and empower us to create things to give Him glory.
  • If what we do, in Church, does not go outside of the church walls and touch and impact the community and people around us, it’s not worth doing.
  • When we think of justice… those in need aren’t just people in Africa or other places around the world… our neighbors, co-workers, and friends are in need, too.
  • We have to simplify… communicate one idea, one truth about God and move people to do something.
  • I need to worship God with abandon… not with just my words or my voice, but with everything I’ve got.
  • We need to create art… music, songs, visuals, media,etc… that will cause people to move people from a state of brokenness to a place of recognizing that they are beloved of God.

I was sad to hear they won’t be doing the full-fledged Arts Conference next year… they will be doing a few simulcasts instead… but I’m glad that I was able to be a part of the experience and was able to once again remember the wonder and awe of who God is and the incredible opportunity I have to be a part of the Church.

Thanks to Nancy Beach and the whole team at the Willow Creek Association for their efforts… thanks for inspiring me to look for the wonder that’s all around.
Hillsong United did a night of worship as part of the conference and it was absolutely incredible… here’s a small taste of what we experienced.

Worship of the Beloved :: Efrem Smith

by Tim Schraeder on 06/12/2009 in Notes, Willow Creek Arts Conference 2009 with 1 Comment

Senior Pastor of The Sanctuary Covenant Church, Efrem Smith serves close to 1,000 people with the vision to be an urban, multi-ethnic, relevant, holistic, and Christ-centered community. He is an internationally recognized leader, speaker, and consultant on diversity and multi-ethnic issues. Smith has held leadership positions in both church and parachurch organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club of America and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Hip Hop Church.

  • “I’m an artist acting like a pastor…”
  • 1 John 3
  • The wonder of Beloved worship.
  • We need to use our artistic gifts and passion within the experience of worship from the identification of the Beloved.
  • We lead, we serve… in worship… use our gifts God has given us, but use them and serve and lead from the identification as being God’s beloved.
  • We can’t contain God’s love… we can’t keep it to ourselves.
  • There’s something different about us than just our artistic gifts.
  • What does it mean for us to serve, to lead, to use our gifts, rooted in our identity in Christ?
  • Use your artistic gifts as an extension and expression of God’s love.
  • There was a time when worship wasn’t about performing for an institutionalized, consumeristic Christian church.
  • There’s something powerful when we truly express our worship out of our identity as the beloved of God.
  • Blues music is the difference between singing out of belovedness and brokneness.
  • There’s a deeper root and understanding for why our gifts our needed for the advancement of God’s Kingdom.
  • There’s a need for people for people can use their gifts to bring anointing where there is addiction, bring freedom where there’s bondage, belovedness where there is brokenness.
  • Why are you using your gifts? Use them to expand and express God’s love in a broken world that the lost might be found.
  • Worship must be connected to a movement of freedom and reconciliation.
  • We see preaching as some scientific, systematic, exegetical process… how can we look at this story of drama, love, redemption, song and betrayal as stagnant?! We need rhythm!
  • “You don’t need to be black, but be something expressive!”
  • Preaching is an art form.
  • If we could recapture the idea that preaching is an art, then we can embrace the idea of art in the church.
  • Storytelling at its best, from God’s word, is an art.
  • Beloved in the Greek is about 2 words being intimately connected together:
    • agape – unconditional, compassionate love of god. We don’t deserve it, did nothing to earn it… and is most expressed through Jesus.
    • agapao – to be loved and be loving, simultaneously (1 John 4:7)
  • God is loving us, and this love empowers us to love others.
  • We must utilize our artistic gifts, rooted out of an understanding of God’s love.
  • We don’t need production meetings or worship design meetings, we need meetings to remind us that we are here and we are loved by God and that His love can be extended through our artistic gifts.
  • We must be reminded we do what we do because the only difference between us and “that artist the church is talking about” is that one is using their gifts out of belovedness and the other out of their brokenness.
  • We have to come to terms with how the ridiculing of the arts in the church has impacted artists.
  • When we know we are God’s beloved and not people’s property, we are free to use our gifts.
  • Freedom will show itself through our art and will be set free.
  • We need free expressions of who God really is… not institutionalized religion.
  • How is freedom and reconciliation really expressed?
  • God has placed artistic gifts within us that God, through His love, pull them out, that the lost might be found and the hurting might be helped. God wants mercy, compassion, healing and reconciliation to be expressed through our gifts.
  • We must build beloved communities of artists that have the space and room, not to just perform and use their gifts, but have their brokenness to be replaced with belovedness.
  • We don’t just need platforms, we need spaces and places with others where our artistic gifts are affirmed.
  • We need a monthly day alone with God.
  • We’ve got to explore the cultures in our contexts and find where people are expressing themselves and their art out of brokenness and show them how to use their gifts as the beloved.
  • The arts ought to be a Kingdom-advancing movement.
  • The African impala has the ability to stand still on all fours and jump over 8 feet high, as high as 13! It can go 30 feet out! If it can’t see where it’s going to land, it won’t jump… it has no faith. It will only jump where it can see… which is why it doesn’t jump over 3 foot zoo walls.
  • God has given us gifts… what’s the 3 foot wall in front of us that we aren’t trusting God helping us to overcome? What’s keeping us from going higher and further with the gifts God has placed in us to advance His Kingdom?
  • Kris Kross said, “Jump, jump!” … Cypress Hill “Jump up, Jump up, Get down, Jump Around!”
  • We’ve got to jump… take our gifts the world.
  • Don’t sit in religion, get up and jump!

Worship + Justice :: Joel Houston

by Tim Schraeder on 06/11/2009 in Notes, Willow Creek Arts Conference 2009 with 2 Comments


Joel Houston is the Creative Director of Hillsong Church and a world renowned songwriter and worship leader. As well as overseeing the creative team, Joel also travels the globe with Hillsong United bringing a message of worship and justice to an emerging generation. Through this, he has birthed ‘I heart’; a movement that inspires this generation to rise up and change the world around them.

  • We need to see the best minds go towards building the Kingdom of God, and the Church
  • There’s been a misconception that if you work in the church that you are either a pastor, evangelist or worship pastor… mainly in forms of leadership.
  • Joel had no desire to be under any “church ministry” categories… and began to think what is ministry, what is church and what does it mean to be a follower of Christ.
  • Instead of going the route of ministry he started a band and hoped that they would make an impact in the “pubs and clubs” … outside of the church.
  • The wanted to be famous, have money and then do positive things for the Church through their efforts.
  • The band fell apart and Joel thought his world was over… but decided to do whatever was in front of him… which at the time was United.
  • At the time he was only playing bass and writing songs… volunteering in youth, etc.
  • United was still new and forming… and Phil Dooley asked him to lead worship.
  • Over the course of time he became an established worship leader.
  • He began to study what worship was and went to Romans 12… a living sacrifice.
  • Worship is removal of our own agenda and dying to ourselves to pursue God.
  • Mark 12 … “the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.”
  • Worship is as simple as loving God and loving other people.
  • Joel moved from the safety and security of the suburbs to the middle of the city… and was exposed to the true needs of the world around him.
  • We can get so isolated in our church world where we’re oblivious to the real world that’s around us.
  • At what point do you start taking God’s grace for granted that you think you can do it on your own?
  • You need to truly encounter grace and who Jesus really is.
  • It’s pointless to talk about worship and justice without a true revelation of who Jesus really is.
  • We’ve traveled around the world and had some of the most incredible experiences… it never grows old because every night we’re seeing the church and seeing people coming together, singing God’s song.
  • He was concerned about the fact that worship ended at the end of the night and being contained inside the church walls.
  • Generationally, God does something different in each generation. As the world changes, the church needs to adapt.
  • In his parent’s generation, evangelism was all the church was about… massive crusades and appeals.
  • In recent years, there’s been an awakening to worship in the Church.
  • It’s no surprise that God is opening our eyes to see the other part of what worship is… loving our neighbors as our selves.
  • There’s an awakening to pursue justice.
  • There’s an inseparable union between worship and justice.
  • Hebrews 13:15 – Everything we do needs to point to Jesus and His redemptive work on the cross.
  • Everything we do needs to have an intersection with the cross.
  • Hebrews 13:16; Isaiah 42:1-12 … worship and justice… loving God, loving others.
  • Isaiah 58
  • We put so much into our worship experiences… to do it with excellence and put our all into it… and sometimes it can feel like God is absent… but when we try to do it in our own strength it will fail.
  • We’ve got to have a revelation of the grace and love of Jesus.
  • Amos 5:21-24 in The Message… WOAH!
  • There is something sacred about bringing our best to God (John 12).
  • There’s balance.
  • Read John 12 in the context of Matthew 25… when you do anything for the least of these, you do it unto God.
  • In the same way we give our best in our expression of worship… the sacrifice of our lips confessing His name is costly … but when we use what God’s put in our hands for the benefit of others… as we outwork what love is… placing value on humanity, from the famous to the faceless… when we value humanity as Jesus valued us… we are breaking our perfume over the feet of Jesus.
  • We have a responsibility to direct people to God with everything we’ve got.
  • It’s about noticing the world and the people around you.
  • We can focus on justice as much as we want, but a revelation of the love of Jesus Christ and an understanding of His grace is what will move us to action.
  • We’ve got to tear down the walls within our ourselves first and then tear down the walls that surround our churches.
  • The Church is God’s plan to bring justice.
  • We can spend so much time critiquing each other and being self-righteous, being critical about anything and anyone… criticizing the church, theology, etc. It’s a vicious lie to bring disunity within the church.
  • The Church was never built to be isolated… it was meant to build community to reach our communities.
  • We are called… and how we are supposed to live out justice and worship is within the context of the local church.
  • When local churches begin to work together, as the Church, we can transform our cities, our nations and the world.
  • Wherever there is life… humanity… and community… there should be the Church.
  • We get so focused on justice and think of Africa, Central and South America… but there’s injustice all around us if we’re willing to open our eyes and hearts to see it.
  • There are people who live next door to us that have everything but are inwardly in need.
  • We are where we are for a reason and wherever we are is where we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
  • I Heart is their endeavor to show the Church and the world we are called to reach.
  • They are going to work to get the movie into theaters around the world.
  • The film will be focused on justice but is a great apologetic for the Gospel… showing the God of love, compassion and grace.
  • It will wrestle people of their comfort zones.
  • Developing a website to launch in August that will help educate people on issues of justice and let people know ways and areas they can get involved.
  • Whatever your passion is, you need to find an area to get involved.
  • Our goal is to help people help more people.
  • If we can get a Kingdom mindset and not think about what we are doing… but get under the bigger banner of the Kingdom and what God is doing through the Church, there’s no limit to what God can do.
  • Worship and justice has far less to do with songs we sing or justice projects we are doing, it’s all about understanding the Kingdom and where we fit in God’s story.
  • As leaders we have a responsibility to see worship as a Romans 12 lifestyle but not limit it to evangelists, pastors, etc… but whatever it is that we are called to do in life, that we do it with the best we’ve got to the glory of Jesus.
  • Creativity is a whole lot more than visual, writing, music etc… it’s an incredible opportunity to use what’s in our hand to create things to help people who have nothing in theirs.
  • Find your something…

Willow Creek Arts Conference Session 2 :: Darlene Zschech & Joel Houston

by Tim Schraeder on 06/10/2009 in Notes, Willow Creek Arts Conference 2009 with No comments

Australian Darlene Zschech is acclaimed all over the world as a singer, songwriter, worship leader and speaker, most notably for spearheading the music that comes from Hillsong Church. Although she has achieved numerous gold albums and her songs are sung in many nations of the world, her success is not the result of pursuing stardom and fameit stands as a testimony to her life’s passion to serve God and people with all her heart.

As a songwriter, Darlene is perhaps most famous for the chorus “Shout to the Lord,” a song that is sung by an estimated 25 to 30 million churchgoers every week. “Shout to the Lord” was nominated as Album of the Year for the 1997 Dove Awards and Song of the Year for the 1998 Dove Awards. In 2000 Darlene received a Dove Award nomination for Songwriter of the Year.

Darlene has written over seventy songs that have been published by Hillsong Music Australia alone. She has also written three books on her passion, which includeExtravagant Worship and her latest release, The Kiss of Heaven.

Darlene has a great heart for helping hurting people. Currently, she is an ambassador for the work of Compassion International, and is committed to relieving human suffering in any possible way. A new project, featuring the theme of worship and justice is in production now.

A missions trip to Central Africa in 2004 prompted Mark and Darlene to initiate Hope: Rwanda, a global endeavor designed to bring hope to a nation seemingly forgotten since the horrific genocide of 1994. The 100 Days of Hope (April 6 July 15, 2006) project was strategically coordinated to cover the same 100 days that saw approximately 1 million people viciously slaughtered. www.hoperwanda.org

Darlene and Mark reside in Sydney with their three daughters, Amy, Chloe and Zoe. Darlene’s greatest joy is her role as wife and mother.

  • On leadership… The process of developing a team was a deeply spiritual one and she had no clue what she was doing.
  • God spoke to her in Psalm 45… “And God your God will anoint you with joy and set you above your companions…”
  • She struggled from being pulled from among her peers and to lead them.
  • She knew she needed to be anointed to lead.
  • The intentionally pursue joy.
  • Without joy, it becomes works. We don’t get saved to work… we’re saved by grace, through faith.
  • The worship team is not its own “church”… it comes underneath a greater vision… the vision of the senior leadership.
  • There’s not a culture of whining and complaining… it’s a culture of serving the Lord with gladness (Psalm 100).
  • Wherever Jesus is being preached in Australia, the church will grow.
  • On Developing People… God gives way for the ordinary with passion and the call on their lives to see their gifts released.
  • Gifts are honed over time… you’ve got to give people time to develop.
  • Darlene was known as the “velvet sledgehammer”… when there’s an environment of commitment that values people more for who they are than what they do, you earn the permission to speak the truth to them.
  • Help people go on the journey to find where there gift lies.
  • We’re not asking people to join a club or do a gig, it’s a holy calling.
  • On Songwriting … If you aren’t open to receiving critique or correction, don’t give something to people to check out.
  • “We’ve never been under any allusion of not being under the hand of God in what we do… we know it’s nothing we’ve done to earn the platform or the influence we’ve been given.”
  • They “workshop” songs… there’s never one song that’s been written by one person. They critique, work through the songs, check theology, etc.
  • “In the early days we sang things that weren’t even in the Bible… we didn’t know!”
  • On Compassion International… true worship is that we go and be Jesus hands and feet whenever and wherever we can.
  • If you’re leading up front you also need to be leading in the areas of the unseen.
  • On Her Transition… She is no longer the worship pastor at Hillsong Church for nearly 14 years and gave leadership to Joel Houston to pursue global efforts.
  • She said she felt an urgency to “replace herself” and sensed change was coming.
  • She knew it was time to invest in the next generation.
  • It was intentional.
  • Worked hard at getting a good theology of worship and teaching them to be disciples… not puppets or to follow a method.
  • They stayed at Hillsong intentionally during the time of transition and are still there.
  • She promised not to get in the way and committed to not “standing the way.”
  • Her new book “The Great Generational Transition” is coming out soon!


Joel Houston is the Creative Director of Hillsong Church and a world renowned songwriter and worship leader. As well as overseeing the creative team, Joel also travels the globe with Hillsong United bringing a message of worship and justice to an emerging generation. Through this, he has birthed ‘I heart’; a movement that inspires this generation to rise up and change the world around them.

  • On the transition… Darlene used to babysit him!
  • Growing up as the pastor’s son made for an interesting dynamic.
  • In his personal journey, he learned to love God and love the house of God, the Church .
  • Just as parents love their children and point them in the right direction, he felt Darlene set him up well and set the stage for him.
  • He used to play the bass and primarily write songs, but didn’t see himself as a worship leader.
  • Went on staff at Hillsong 2 years ago, not sure of what God was up to.
  • When he was asked to assume the role he knew God was in the midst of it.
  • Hillsong United only travel 5 times per year but the rest of the time they are committed to their church… Hillsong has 4 campuses and over 30 services per week.
  • Biggest challenge assuming the role was the huge shoes he had to fill in the wake of Darlene’s leadership.
  • Find the place within yourself where even if you don’t feel like you have enough to trust that God is with you and will give you grace to work through you.
  • You need to learn to be not be moved by what you see.
  • Worship is about giving.
  • If you are really doing this “as unto the Lord” we must be a gracious people and give grace to one another to work through our personal challenges.
  • It’s your faith not your gold that God puts on display.
  • There’s a definitive “Hillsong sound”… how did that happen? The style has changed over the years but just as what the mouth speaks is in the heart… the sound of Hillsong is reflective of the heart of their church and the vision God has given them.
  • The church is not built on the gifts of a few but on the sacrifice of many.
  • How do you keep yourself and your heart in check? Matt L (Willow): Amount of time spent in God’s Word makes the difference. Joel: Surfing. He lives in the heart of the city near the beach and is connected to the culture where he’s at… away from the church and the suburban setting. He sees the world and the people in it and it keeps him balanced with why they do what they do. In a very worldly setting, but with the right safeguards in place… remembers the ministry is with the people and not on a platform. Darlene: We need to be Spirit people, Spirit-led, Spirit-filled. It’s a balance that we’re in the Word and in prayer… but for her soul to be fed she needs to do other things… be with her family, on the mission field, etc. The spiritual thing is a non-negotiable… you cannot be in ministry and not be a prayerful person or a person of the word. We need to be soulful and identify what also fills our souls… not just in our artistic expression but also the expression over the course of our lives.
  • Joel: Prov 16:9 … walk where you are and with what God has placed in your hand. God has called every single one of us and we all have a part that only we can play. God has given us everything we need to do everything He has called us to do for right now. It might not seem like much, but step with confidence and in God’s grace. Honor Him where you you are at. Over the course of your life as you continue to be obedient and die to self, you will look back and see God has taken you further than you could ever imagine.
  • Darlene: Take stock. How are you leading others and speaking life into other’s dreams? Are you encouraging? Mentoring? Giving life to others? As threatening as it can be, the reward on the other side of obedience is greater joy. Seeing someone released into the call of God on their lives is the greatest reward. Humanity is depending on it. Historically, in the church, we haven’t done it very well. We are sitting on the cusp of the greatest time in history… as fear is ruling the church in America, it’s our time as the church in America to shine.
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