Church historians note that four major revival cycles have marked American history, from the First Great Awakening in the eighteenth century through the Welsh renewal that reached across the Atlantic to impact our shores a century ago. Each of these periods of spiritual regeneration was preceded by a collective yearning for a deeper experience of celebrating and glorifying the Creator and His saving works.
While we cannot, from a human perspective, predict when the Holy Spirit will next spark revival fires, declining attendance and apathy toward community outreach paint a bleak picture of the modern church’s condition – despite decades of church growth programs instituted among all the major denominations. Recent studies and surveys, however, seem to reveal a key source of the malaise: According to a Barna Group study, “Although worship emerged as the most important of the spiritual undertakings tested, a survey among a national random sample of churchgoers shows that most of those adults do not always feel as if they experience the presence of God during church worship events.”
This unfortunate disconnect is a significant root cause underlying disaffection and dissatisfaction among today’s believers; which in turn inhibits real and effective ministry for and evangelism to a seeking world. There is now a growing desire among many pastors and church leaders to deliver the authentic faith and great wisdom of the past into the new cultural milieu of the twenty-first century. As the late theologian Robert E. Webber stated, “The way into the future is not an innovative new start for the church; rather, the road to the future runs through the past.”
Liturgies.com was created to provide resources for churches marked by a sincere yearning for a deeper experience of celebrating and glorifying the Creator and His saving works. These resources can be effectively used to incorporate biblical and historical practices into a modern context – the ancient-future model of worship, as it’s commonly known. In this way, worship will be characterized by . . .
• The restoration of a Christ-centered focus,
• A good balance of order and freedom,
• A rediscovery of Christ’s active presence in both Word and Table,
• An appropriation of the arts as servants of the text, with music drawn from both past and contemporary cultures,
• Heightened communication skills in both preaching and the leading of worship,
• A space for worship that works for the participation of all the people,
• A worship characterized by intimacy and pageantry, and
• A rediscovery of the evangelical nature of the church year.
Over the next few months we will be adding many new and exciting features to Liturgies.com to help you create dynamic and meaningful services for every occasion. Initially we will be offering traditional and contemporary music and text for more than 20 service parts that can be selected and built into an endless array of blended programs for more than 80 traditional, contemporary, and blended services – much like one would build a multicolored wall with Lego blocks. To aid in the development and understanding of the services, we will be providing biblical, historical, and theological overviews of each liturgical practice to provide context; lectionary readings, prayers, and other resources; and musical charts. In the meantime, read below for some of the latest blog developments.
Your Backstage Pass to PraiseCharts, WorshipTraining, WorshipVue, and more
Did you know that PraiseCharts shares the stage with five other related sites? The two sites currently active are WorshipTraining and WorshipVue. Three more sites are in development, including PraiseBooks, Liturgies and ChordShark. All of the sites together form an integrated family of online resources under Sonreign Media, Inc.
Ryan Dahl, the founder of PraiseCharts, has spent the last month establishing an online presence for Sonreign Media at www.sonreign.com. Visiting Sonreign is like having a backstage pass to the world of development and innovation behind PraiseCharts, WorshipTraining, WorshipVue, PraiseBooks, Liturgies, ChordShark … and more to come in the future.
We have decided to not remain secretive about what is in our development tank. Sonreign is like an open book, filled with ideas, concepts, discussions and announcements.
For more than 12 years, PraiseCharts has been changing the landscape of digital music and media publishing. The PraiseCharts platform, along their worldwide development team, as evolved into a well oiled innovation machine. We don’t focus on how things have been done before. We don’t even do a lot of customer surveys (other than for song requests). We are trying to focus on things you haven’t seen before. Things we imagine — that is innovation!
So, don’t just be a consumer. Here is an invitation to come back stage. Enter the dialogue. Watch things unfold. See the half-baked wireframes and concepts that will enevitably become the future.
A world of opportunity lies in front of us. Not just to become bigger — to become better. And really — not just better, but different.
We really have no competition, because we aren’t following anyone. We want to see other publishers, artists, distributors and resource companies around us succeed. Their gain is our gain when it builds the Kingdom of God.
Want to see all this development unfold? Visit www.sonreign.com, get on the email update list and then follow us at www.twitter.com/sonreignmedia and www.facebook.com/sonreignmedia.
Playlists and Setlists for PraiseCharts, WorshipVue and Liturgies
Until today, I have been fairly focussed on doing conceptual development for the new Playlist module, designed specifically for PraiseCharts and WorshipVue (and will become foundational to Liturgies when it launches). But today, the light went on, and I realized that we need to rename Playlists to Setlists, so that we can retain Playlists as a seperate feature.
Some might say that a Setlist is to the contemporary church what Liturgy is to the traditional church. Both refer to a thoughful flow of worship songs, scriptures, prayers and testimonies. We are well into the design phase of our new Setlist module, which will be designed for both contemporary and traditional churches. Soon, you will find this well integrated with PraiseCharts and WorshipVue, plus being connected into other external sites and mobile apps. Here is a screen shot of one of the latest design concepts (even though it says “Playlist,” this is actually a “Setlist” design):
If Setlist refers to a specific order of songs and other worship items, Playlist refers to a thematic collection of songs. Just like Setlists, Playlists can be public or private. For example:
- contemporary christmas songs
- camp songs
- songs for Sunday night service
- songs for traditional service
- choir specials
The lists can go on and on. You’ll be able to narrow our massive catalog of songs and media down using Playlists. Then, you can start building worship services using Setlists.
Dynamic Chord Charts In Final Development Stage
We are making great progress as we prepare to unveil dynamic chord charts inside PraiseCharts. For more than three years, chord charts have been some of the strongest selling product types we have at PraiseCharts. This new module will take our chord charts to an entirely new level. Users will be able to export chords and lyrics in multiple formats according to their unique needs. The chord chart module will also find it’s way into the future Setlist and Playlist modules planned for PraiseCharts, WorshipVue and Liturgies. Here is a screen shot of the new chord chart screen display inside PraiseCharts. Stay tuned for more updates as we prepare to lauch this exciting new feature.
Renewing Your Sunday Worship
In Volume 3 of The Complete Library of Worship, the general editor, Robert E. Webber, states that “worship is primarily a celebration of God’s mighty deed of salvation accomplished through the living, dying, and rising again of Jesus Christ. Worship tells and enacts the story of God’s victory over the powers of evil through Christ. And this worship, which is the work of the people, is done in the fellowship of the community of faith by the power of the Spirit as a response of praise and thanksgiving.” He then goes on to identify key signs of worship that is in need of renewal:
- A congregation is passive and lacking in enthusiasm and a spirit of joy. Visitors do not feel welcome or drawn into the community and its worship.
- Worship is very cerebral and oriented almost exclusively toward teaching. It is almost always evangelistic and too oriented toward conversion experiences.
- Communication skills are weak in preaching and leading worship. Sermons tend to be more like lectures that are long, didactic, and lacking in application.
- Communion is celebrated infrequently and, when celebrated, seems to be tacked on to the end of a service, often bearing the characteristics of a funeral.
- People sit in a typical classroom formation with the back of another person’s head as a major object of sight.
- Singing lacks life and the range of music is limited.
- There is no sense of order that moves the congregation in a pattern that rehearses their faith and thus establishes, maintains, or repairs a relationship with God.
- The Christian year is not practiced, or if it is practiced, it is not characterized by a sense of its gospel nature or used effectively as a means of ordering congregational spirituality.
- The use of arts is shunned except on special occasions such as Christmas or Easter. The senses are not adequately engaged in touch, smell, sight, or hearing.
- The people are not involved in responses, antiphons, prayer, ministry to each other, or the passing of the peace.
The worship of ancient Israel and the early church was equally declarative and dialogical. With the recovery of preaching in the Reformation era and the later Sunday school movement’s appropriation of the synagogue model, Christian worship has evolved into its current declarative forms common among most evangelical churches. This means that often the dialogical, conversational dimension of worship has been undervalued and neglected. Studies show that people of all ages apprehend material most rapidly in the context of community and retain it best when teaching and conversation are combined with thoughtful and meaningful engagement.
In truth, what humanity is seeking is a personal, on-going, and regular encounter with the Living God. And, as Scripture makes known, God reveals himself most fully during our expressions of personal and corporate worship. This is why many prominent Christian pundits and scholars agree that the next revival is upon us and the driving force will be worship renewal.
Playlists Planned for Multi-Site Use
We are in the middle of our design and programming phase getting ready to launch a new Playlist module for PraiseCharts, WorshipVue and eventually Liturgies and PraiseBooks. The beautiful thing about building a digital platform is that we can apply the same functionality across a number of sites. Here are a few ways that will look:
- PraiseCharts – Worship Planning software is already available in abundance. We have long planned to build a back end connection with Planning Center Online, and that is still our intention. We are not trying to offer a full fledged worship planning tool with our playlist module. However, we do plan on making it very easy to gather songs together into meaningful worship flows. Through the Playlist module, PraiseCharts will enhance it’s relationship with WorshipVue. Playlists will allow for a meaningful integration of media and music. Probably the most unique element of our Playlists is that they will be designed to share, copy and modify. You’ll be able to see how others have used songs in their worship flows. You can search for fully designed worship flows, copy them to your account, and then modify them to suit your own worship tastes.
- WorshipVue – WorshipVue was designed to function like a sister to PraiseCharts, offering media to go along with music in a worship flow. Until now, the missing link has certainly been our Playlist module. Soon you will be able to weave together music and media into meaningful worship flows, share them with others, and see how others are using media and music together. The complex is destined to become so much more simple.
- Liturgies – We have decided to commit ourselves to building a Liturgies brand at www.liturgies.com, with a special focus on the new generation of worship leaders looking to incorporate a much more complex, liturgical worship flow into their services. Liturgies will offer playlists that integrate a rich catalog of music (including both classic and contemporary styles), fused together in a meaningful flow of scriptures, prayers, readings, and media. If your taste in worship leans toward this style, you’ll love what is under development with our Liturgies site. We are hoping to launch with something live this Fall.
- PraiseBooks - Due for initial release this fall, you might wonder how playlists could be used in an ebook store. Well, if you can imagine a worship service as a meaningful flow of songs and media, consider a book as a meaningful flow of independent chapters. As it turns out, we are in dialogue with major Christian book and article publishers that have access to a vast library of articles that have never been published as books. However, now that we have a digital medium, books can be compiled from articles, gathered together into a meaningful flow, and bound into a digital ebook on-the-fly. This is just one example of the innovation that is peculating under the surface as we plan to launch PraiseBooks as a major ebook source with a focus on Christian leaders around the world.