WOC: My Community of Faith

Around the middle of January, 2003, I was invited to play guitar in the worship band of a church in Murfreesboro, TN. It was in the middle of their New Years Series, a tradition they had carried on for several years. A week or so before, they had just opened a new and innovative multi-venue worship space in lieu of a traditional sanctuary to support their growing congregation. The decision to go with two venues offered a live, theater-like worship space and a coffee house space with live worship and a video feed of the sermon. This gave the church three different spaces to use during any given week, which included the original sanctuary. I spent that first weekend playing the services in the live venue and, after enjoying the ministry, and being asked to come back again the following week, I never looked back. Brenda and I have worshiped there ever since.

World Outreach Church is nestled in the midst of a college town at the geographical heart of Tennessee. It is a diverse community with a growing industrial and manufacturing base. It's close proximity to Nashville makes Murfreesboro a bedroom community where commuters drive up and down interstate 24 to work and back. World Outreach Church (WOC) is conveniently located just a mile or so off of that thoroughfare. The church officially began on Easter Sunday, 1980, with 29 people. Today, 31 years later, G. Allen Jackson, Jr. , son of founders Dr. & Mrs. Jackson, has led WOC to a point where, just last week during our New Years Series, we saw 10,500 join us on campus for worship. In January, 2010, after outgrowing our other spaces, we moved into a new 125,000 square foot, 2,800 seat sanctuary--built to accommodate a growing congregation and designed to employ even greater technologies. Along with the other three spaces, we purpose to move into the future with numeric growth, and most importantly, spiritual depth.

I joined the staff of WOC in September of 2004 as a worship leader. At that point the attendance hovered around 2,000-2,500. It is amazing to see such phenomenal growth. I feel blessed to be a part of this wonderful spiritual community. People ask me what our staff has done to cause such an increase. Simply stated: God has done it--we just stay out of the way! As our main objective is to help people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, I will list a few things that are, from my point of view, important foundations on which our ministry is built:

1) Excellence. We always ask ourselves while planing for services each week: are we giving this our best effort? Are we creating a service which is not only done with detailed care, but does it have heart, cultural relevance--does it communicate? I have said it before, and I'll say it again--doing things with excellence isn't for the weak or faint of heart, it requires WORK! God has blessed that effort at WOC!

2) Learn From the Past. At WOC, it is imperative to never repeat past mistakes. We move on! We don't huddle over triumphs of the past for very long either, we celebrate them and head toward the future. Many churches make the mistake of arriving at a certain stage with the attitude, "Well, we can rest now, we've made it." WOC is not a destination as much as living, breathing, God-infused body of believers, moving fearlessly into our community and beyond for the cause of Christ. Do we at some point turn people away saying--sorry, we're full...no room at the inn? Instead, we make room for more and continue to look for new ways to communicate the Gospel; we aren't shy of using new mediums of technology to communicate the Message.

3) Safety. We expend great effort in protecting the safety and security of our children. We require background checks on all people who serve in and and around our Next Generation ministries (ages birth through college). We require every parent or guardian to carry an ID tag to insure each child is released into the care of the correct person. Students register and check in and out of youth events using a bar code system so parents can rest assured that their teen is where they are supposed to be.

4) People Flow. WOC makes use of the natural flow of people in our community to maximize our efforts, our financial investment, and to influence the greatest amount of people. We make use of our Christmas Eve services where unbelievers come with family. Then a few weeks later, we host a three-week New Years Series in January to give holiday visitors a chance to assimilate into the church body. We have a large gathering at Easter in our local university's basketball arena where we, again, attract families and individuals that may never darken a door of our sanctuaries on campus. In years past we have invited even secular performers, devout believers who are willing to testify of their faith in Christ. We wrap packages for free at a local mall throughout December. We make a presence in the community every summer by hosting a concert downtown on the square. Halloween is time for Hallelujah Hoedown where we hosted upwards of 10,000 people last year. In short, we get out there throughout the year amongst the people of greater Murfreesboro. We don't wait for them to come to us.

5) Get Smaller As We Grow. A great success at WOC are small groups. We don't have a traditional Sunday School program but make use of our facilities and places off campus for people to meet each week. Even as our church grows, we create even more small groups to serve the needs of individuals and families. The small group is where much of the ministry and care is delivered. We now offer four service times and two functioning venues from which to choose each weekend. When you break that down, a family can choose one of eight times to worship where the particular attendance is never more than 2,800 in the large venue, or 300 in the coffee house. Some day we will have the other sanctuaries fired up an running again as our growing attendance requires. Even as we expand, an intimate church environment is a continued goal at WOC.

As I continue to serve at WOC, I learn new ways to communicate the Gospel. I want to share a video from one of our New Years Series services a couple of weeks ago. I had the honor of arranging and performing Amazing Grace for guitars. This is a great example of WOC meeting people where they are. God's grace IS amazing! Thanks, WOC, for allowing me to extend His grace through my abilities.

The Alan Parsons Project

As a teen in southern California back in the mid seventies, cool date destinations were endless. One of my favorite places to visit was the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park. Perched on a mountain above Los Angeles, scenes from the epic movie Birth of A Nation were filmed there in 1915 as well as scenes from Rebel Without A Cause, starring James Dean and Natalie Wood, back in 1955.

On this expansive 4,210 acres of land, several attractions make their home--one of which is the famous observatory that houses a planetarium. In the planetarium, back in the post-psychedelic era, they hosted laser shows accompanied by symphonic and cinematic music to punctuate the bigger-than-life nature of the lighting spectacle. The audience, of around a couple hundred (might have been less...I'm going on memory here), would sit in circular-arranged seating with head rests attached to allow gazing into the pretend sky where the lasers were projected. All the while, specially selected music played which accented the colorful array of moving light. The music that caught my ear every time was that of the Alan Parsons Project. His music was, and is today, a blend of vocal and instrumental pieces, infused with synthesizers and the creative use of studio effects like delay and reverb. Parsons' productions are always filled with great compositions, and are produced with great attention to sonic detail, which was well suited to the Quadraphonic sound system of the Griffith laser extravaganza.

The next day after the laser show, I rushed to my local record shop and caught up on all of the Alan Parsons LPs offered to that point. I waited in anticipation for each subsequent release for years to come. I lost track of his new records after Eye In the Sky, released in the early eighties. But as soon as the new medium of digital CDs offered his greatest hits collection, I once again marveled at the wonderful sound that flowed from my speakers.

Alan Parsons' career goes back to assistant engineer on the last two Beatles albums at Abbey Road. He was also an engineer on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Al Stewart's, Year of the Cat, and many more hits of which people are unaware. After Parsons teamed with Eric Woolfson (who passed away December 2, 2009) at Abbey Road Studios in 1974, there began a three decade creative force which brought sound scapes to pop music, rarely existent up to that point. The Alan Parsons Project (APP) forged a brand with the co-writing of Woolfson and his vocals and keyboards, along with other iconic APP vocalists like Lenny Zakatek and Colin Blunstone, and guitarist, Ian Bairnson (of Pilot fame with the hit, Ballroom Blitz--another Alan Parsons production). I have continued to enjoy these recordings to this day.

Alan Parsons has a website which is dedicated to his passion for handing his expansive knowledge of recording to a new generation of producers and engineers called The Art and Science of Sound Recording.

Even though Parsons' lyrics are a bit esoteric and laced with eastern philosophy and various religions, the productions employ broad sound scapes which evoke wonder and dream-like moodiness that I cannot find anywhere ele. Delightful!

I Am Not A King

As suckers for period films, Brenda and I went to see King's Speech last night. It's one of those movies that lovers of action or slasher films might snooze through. But we totally loved it from beginning to end.

As one who grew up stammering myself (see my blog entry about it from last year), I felt uneasy each time the future King of England would try to painfully force out a syllable in the movie. The fear of stuttering while speaking in public was almost as intimidating as the childhood fears that caused it in the first place.

In the movie, King George VI--played brilliantly by Colin Firth--was reluctantly forced upon the responsibility of the Monarchy after his father, King George V, died and the scandalous abdication of his older brother, King Edward VIII. Bertie, as his family called him, believed himself ill suited for the position. His speech impediment inhibited his ability to speak on the new burgeoning communication medium of radio, as his father was so masterfully able to do. Even before he took the throne, his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the future Queen Mother, arranged for a speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) to help him. The Prince and the commoner had a rough start due to the therapist's refusal to kowtow to the spoiled Royal. Soon, with small successes, the subsequent King of England went on to deliver a wartime speech that united a nation. Lionel and Bertie remained friends for life.

The movie, as all great ones do, made me think. It reminded me of Moses, who was thrust on the stage during one of the greatest periods in the history of Israel to lead his people out of Egypt. Even as many would jump at the chance, Moses coiled back in reservation. His brother Aaron was given the task of spokesperson because Moses had a speech problem (Ex. 4:10-16). God didn't want Aaron to lead, He wanted Moses. The prophet Isaiah, at another time in Israel's history, was overwhelmed after he was commissioned by God to speak to the people. “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts," was his reaction to the invitation (Isaiah 6:5).

In the movie, after King George VI took the throne, he was sitting with his wife, head in hand, troubled that he would fail at this great trust that his country was placing on him. After all, Hitler was romping through Europe, and he felt it was his duty to stand up to the Fuhrer's advances. As he became vulnerable to the point of open sobbing, his wife consoled him by saying that she believed in him and his greatness as a person. He said to her tearfully, "I am not a king." Lionel Logue, the speech therapist, helped the King deliver his great speech, all the while encouraging him to face his fears, and reminding him that he was up to the task of the King of England.

Some of us will be thrust into situations not of our choosing where we will be required to take on actions or responsibilities that are greater than us. The truth is, we never know the potential within us until we are challenged and our natures are called to action. When those opportunities arise, we have a God Who will go before us with words, wisdom and grace for endurance. I am not a king, but I serve a great King. His voice can be heard through even the most humble person's willingness to stand up to a challenging task.

Creating Great Moments In Worship, Part 4: Rehearsal Preparation

Over the past several weeks, we have studied the process of creating effective moments in our worship services. It is impossible to exhaustively explore every detail and facet in this format but, as time and space allow, we will continue with this very important aspect of the worship production process: rehearsal preparation.

Effective rehearsals will help us to be mentally and spiritually rested when service time arrives. Our teams will be better equipped to deliver a more confident performance and our tech teams will have more time to work on the sound, lighting, video, stage settings and lyric projection if sufficient lead-time is given. A successful rehearsal is made possible by this simple reality: The leader(s), the music team, and tech team must be properly equipped before coming to rehearsal. Our music teams need advance opportunity to spend time with the songs in the set list before everyone gets together. I recommend having all the materials made available 2 weeks in advance. Once again, I hear people saying, "Jamie, you're nuts!" I am very aware that many are volunteer leaders and are shuffling personal, professional and church duties each week. Go with me here--if you can prepare for a service and rehearse right before you take the stage, then with a little planning, discipline and prayer, you can be prepared two weeks out--trust me. If you work toward this 2 week-out goal, you can give every reason for your team to come to rehearsal prepared (at least the excuses may be diminished, although, where humans abide, they will always exist!).

I constantly hear from leaders that some of their team members come to rehearsal unprepared. But the question is, are you prepared as a leader? Did you give your team sufficient time to be ready? Do they have the stuff they need to accomplish what is needed within a reasonable amount of time? Read my blog post entitled Good Eating!. In it, I expound on the reality that the pursuit of excellence is not for the timid, lazy, or the faint of heart. In order for your goals to be accomplished, you must go further ahead on the trail than the others to make provisions for your team to succeed. If you aren't willing to do this, I have serious doubts that you need to continue as the leader.

Thank God for our tech crews! They can make or break us. Our communication with them insures everyone's success. Give the tech crew a "heads up" for what you might need in the way of support prior to rehearsal. They need to know who is going to sing, solo, speak, announce, etc., so they can set up mics and program the mixer (digital boards). It is helpful when the sound person running the console can rehearse the fader moves with you in rehearsal.

Which ever method you use to distribute materials in advance of rehearsal, make sure you include a worship song list, music charts (I will emphasize the importance of using charts instead of "chords-over-words" in another installment), lyrics, and a recorded demo of the song that conveys the way you generally want it to sound. Whatever you do, make sure that your team has the tools to succeed. The arrangement, key and tempo may be different from the demo, but it should allow the band to find their sounds and grooves, as well as the singers to hear the parts. There are proper, legal ways to distribute these items and many questions concerning the use of artist recordings, sheet music, uploading rehearsal materials onto the church website, etc., may be answered online by my friends at Christian Copyright Solutions.

It is imperative that leaders make decisions regarding flow, segues, instrumentation, vocal parts, stage moves, etc., before rehearsal. Indecisiveness and insecurity in a leader breeds disharmony and insurrection! Come to each rehearsal with a plan to hit every area of need. It is important to put a time limit on weekly rehearsals. I recommend no more than 90 minutes. Special productions such as Christmas, Easter, etc., may require more time. Take time to straighten up the rehearsal space by discarding clutter, straightening wires and creating a clean slate each week. If you need help in making musical decisions, create an alliance with a skilled musician on your team to help you in planning and implementation. All successful leaders seek out support from people who compliment their skill set with strengths they don't possess.

In short, to prepare for rehearsal, an effective leader must:

1) Purpose to prepare services 2 weeks in advance
2) Distribute rehearsal resources in a timely, legal and effective manner
3) Create a rehearsal game-plan that can be accomplished in 90 minutes
4) Create musical alliances on your team to give technical and personal support
5) Clean up rehearsal space clutter to start fresh each week
6) Give the tech crew a "heads up" for what you might need in the way of support prior to rehearsal
7) Be the leader that your church and team needs

Your commitment to excellence, and the success that follows, will help attract people to the Kingdom. As a secondary result, it will bring personal reward and satisfaction.

Look for Creating Great Moments in Worship, Part 4: Rehearsal Tips, in the coming weeks. Any comments, questions or suggestions may be directed to: jamie@jamieharvill.com. Also, ask how Jamie can help your church realize a more effective worship experience.

It's Never Too Late

Jack LaLanne died Sunday at 96. It seemed he would never leave us, but mortality cast it's shadow once again over another much loved American hero.

Ever since I was a kid, Jack was an intimidating presence on TV. His message was simple, and I find it to be true in every aspect of life, most importantly, the spiritual: Remember, it's never too late. He was a celebrity who was the real-deal. He was in the fitness business to not only improve his own well-being, but teach Americans to eat right and get off their duffs and start moving. "The only way you can hurt the body is not use it," LaLanne once said. "Inactivity is the killer."

I had an elderly next-door neighbor named Frank Park who, until he died, never wore a shirt and always challenged the boys on our block to hit him in his tanned, leather-like stomach as hard as we could. He never flinched. Later in life I learned that Houdini made the same challenge and his fate was sealed when repeated hits to the abdomen by college student, J. Gordon Whitehead, cost him his life after peritonitis set in from a ruptured appendix on Halloween, 1926. My pal Frank, seemingly indestructible, fell off his back porch one day, bumped his head, and died shortly after. Another one of my heroes was gone.

Today, I do well to heed Jack LaLanne's challenge to keep moving. The well-being of America is at stake even more today with obesity at it's highest level in history. Even though our heroes are mortal, the words Jack LaLanne left with us are immortal. We can start fresh today with a new life. Remember, it's never too late.

Good Eating!

Who will be in the Super Bowl this year? We will soon find out. In 2006 I was in Pittsburgh leading worship when the Steelers were playing the Seattle Seahawks in Detroit. Pittsburgh won 21-10. There's nothing like seeing a sea of gold and black, waving Terrible Towels in a worship service. What a celebration that was! This Super Bowl Sunday I will be in Pittsburgh again, hopefully leading exuberant fans of possible AFC champs in worship. I am excited because this time I will singing and speaking!

The pastor of the church in Pittsburgh is spending several weeks teaching about spiritual gifts. On Super Bowl Sunday, my assignment is to speak on hospitality. As I was praying and thinking over the topic, the Lord gave me inspiration. My two main scripture references will be Isaiah 62:10 (about removing impediments and distractions to worship) and Luke 14:12-24 (the Parable of the Great Banquet). In the banquet passage, Jesus tells the story of a king who sent out his servant and invited people to the prince's wedding feast. When the time had come, and everything was ready, those who were invited began to make excuses not to attend. Jesus went on to tell the rest of the story:

[21] "The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'[22] " 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'[23] "Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. [24] I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' "

As Christians, we are called to invite our community to the celebrations we host each week. The problem is: we also get excuses from family and friends who would rather do something else on a Sunday morning (or Saturday night). As Christ followers and church leaders, it will be productive to ask ourselves these questions: Is the event we are inviting our community to worth attending? Is it relevant to the needs of those invited? I want to submit an acrostic which, I feel, contains a very basic checklist to help create a "banquet" that just might become the talk of the town.

As in every banquet I've attended, the main activity is to eat. The word E.A.T. contains the three beginning letters of the acrostic.

E: Our celebrations must be designed and executed with excellence. It is a learned skill. Excellence requires creativity, time, hard work, focus and money. The pursuit of it is not for the timid, lazy, or the faint of heart. The results will arguably be the best calling card for future guests.

A: Our celebrations must portray authenticity. They must be real, full of heart, humanity, and set in an atmosphere of grace and forgiveness. There may seem to be a conflict between excellence and authenticity, but I think that both can successfully co-exist. It will require a prayerful effort on the host's behalf to bring this about. Again, a great experience will bring people back for more.

T: Our celebrations must be timeless. Most burgeoning Christian communities are filled with various age groups. Focusing on one style of music, or a particular form of preaching or teaching, can be limiting. What is cool today may someday become uncool and/or obsolete. It's impossible to please every person all the time, but finding a solid middle ground will be challenging yet rewarding when those on the outer boundary learn to be supportive. Maybe the music is a little loud, or the songs are not the preferred style, but when people are coming to Jesus, and are growing in their faith, it is wise to give full support.

Building bridges to our community involves knowing the needs of our neighbors. The "people flow" that traverses through the calendar year (Christmas, Easter, new births, life changes, etc.) can be creatively harnessed to lead people right to our door! We can learn to be a beacon of hope in the midst of the marketplace and the highways and byways. People will come when they are loved, fed and encouraged.

Be excellent, authentic and timeless. Good EATing!

Kiss the Sky

This morning I caught myself singing, "...excuse me while I kiss the sky." It's a phrase I have had in the recesses of my brain since I was a ten year-old learning to play the electric guitar. I admire Jimi Hendrix as a musician and gain more respect for his music as I get older. He made an astonishing contribution to the art of rock guitar and his playing continues to sound fresh, modern and unique.

After Brenda heard me sing the phrase from Hendrix' Purple Haze, she was compelled to do a Google search on the song. To her surprise, she came across something that the world may never know about Jimi.

Hendrix, according to his manager Chas Chandler, was said to have written the song after a troubling dream. In it he was walking under the sea where a purple haze surrounded him and he became lost. The interesting part is that in his dream his faith in Jesus saved him. At one point, according to the story, Hendrix wrote the chorus as "Purple Haze, Jesus Saves," but decided against it.

Of course, a Google search isn't the end-all to a quest for facts. One is required to dig, verify and confirm again and again a claim purported to be truth. In this case, outside of a memoir, we may never know. I even read a few years back that Stevie Ray Vaughan had a spiritual awakening before he died.

I can only hope that Jimi and Stevie looked beyond their incredible musical gifts to the Gift Giver. Even though I cannot know for certain, my imagination takes over and I see these two geniuses kneeling at the throne, playing their Fender Strats, singing, "Purple Haze, Jesus Saves!"