Heaps of great new songs have been added since the
last newsletter and update. This month’s
new featured songs
are:
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# |
song |
author(s) |
mp3 |
lo-fi |
sheet |
chords |
lyrics |
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1 |
Drink the Water |
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2 |
Reconciled! |
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3 |
You need to Remember |
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4 |
Father's Love |
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5 |
Highest Praise |
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6 |
Like an Eagle |
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7 |
I'm Not Standing
Still |
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8 |
First Love |
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9 |
At the Feet of Jesus |
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10 |
Hiding Place |
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Stats are still going
nicely, with an average of 2700 people per day visiting the site (refer chart
below), 40% of these being direct hits (i.e. return visitors who did not come
through a search engine or link from another site). This is encouraging, indicating that more and
more people are finding ShareSong.org to be
a useful resource and coming back repeatedly to find new music. The lo-fi mp3s are making up about 40% of
downloads, indicating that many people are using the new lo-fi preview before
downloading more files (note tip for songwriters).
A bunch of new features
have been implemented into the database including download stats for each song in
the database and the ability to sort songs by download popularity when doing a
normal search. Go to http://www.sharesong.org/worship_music.htm
and check them out.
You can also check out
the third quarter download stats at the new download centre - http://www.sharesong.org/most_used.htm
As the visitors grow,
so does the bandwidth and the cost.
Donations are welcome at http://www.sharesong.org/donations.htm
Hope you enjoy checking
out the great new praise and worship music at ShareSong.org this month!
I’ll leave you with
some thoughts from Rick Muchow of Encouraging Music’s “Ask Rick” column.
Blessings
Marty Kendall
ShareSong.org
Coordinator
Ask Rick Muchow
From
Vas-Kennedy Coffie serving in Accra, Ghana
QUESTION:
Feeling Down
“What
do you have to do when you are supposed to lead worship and your spirit is
down?”
RICK MUCHOW:
Dear Vas-Kennedy,
Blessings on you and your ministry in
Lead from your pain. Lead from your low point. Worship is our response to what we value the
most, or in our case Who we value most.
For those who believe in God, we have learned from experience that God
shouts to us in our pain. The key is to
put your spirit in God’s hands.
Surrender is one of the purist forms of
worship. When going through pain or
discouragement, if you will surrender those feelings and thoughts to God, you
will be able to lead worship in an authentic way that perhaps in times of joy
you would not be able to replicate. As
leaders, this can be a hard thing for us, to surrender our pain and
discouragement to God, but it will lead to deep intimacy for us that can spread
to our congregation as we join together in worship.
Psalm 30:10-12 (NIV) says, “Hear, O LORD, and be
merciful to me; O LORD, be my help. You
turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with
joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will
give you thanks forever.” We as leaders
have to work through that process.
That’s what surrender brings. That process is our promise, and with this
hope, we minister and worship from our weakness.
How about some practical steps:
1)
Ask God to be your strength before you greet your
team and/or your congregation.
2)
Realize that your intuition is obscured because of
how you feel. Not everyone is feeling
weak, depressed, or feeling pain at the same time as you are.
3)
Use the emptiness and the emotions you are
experiencing to express your statement of faith. 2 Corinthians 4 (NIV): “We are hard pressed on every side, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck
down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”
4)
Go to your friends and family for the support,
prayer and encouragement they can give you.
I have led from a position of weakness more times
than from a position of strength. I’ve
never been let down by God when I’ve trusted in Him. He’s always come through. It helps me to remember that it’s not about
me, it’s about Him.
- Rick Muchow
******
Look for Rick’s latest album, WEST COAST WORSHIP
featuring his popular “The Greatest Mystery” on Christian Records, in Christian
stores now! A complete archive of Ask
From
Matt Hogan serving in Jefferson, PA
QUESTION:
What makes a worship song a worship song?
”What makes a worship song a worship song?
In other words, what is it that makes us use one song for worship and
another purely for entertainment? I
realize that the line can be blurry. I'm
a member of a worship team. The worship
leader and I tend to disagree on this.
He likes to use any song he likes and thinks we can play. I try to have some requirements for the song.
What do you think?”
RICK MUCHOW:
Dear Matt,
What makes a worship song a worship song? Lyrics.
Pastor Rick Warren says there’s no such thing as Christian music. I would add that there is no such thing as
non-Christian music. Music style is more
about culture than about God’s theology.
Music is defined by its style, the combination of instruments resulting
in some recognizable category of sound. That is not true for what is called
Christian music and/or Gospel music today.
Christian and Gospel music come in a wide variety of styles. Worship is one type of music, but it is
defined based on the lyrics not based on the style of the music. Lyrics are what make a worship song a worship
song.
Worship is our response to what, or in our case
Who, we value most. A song can be a tool
of worship to bring the truth of God, God’s Word, from our head into our
spirit. Any song that helps people bring
more of their life to God as a living sacrifice is a worship song. The goal of worship is to lead people to
respond to the greatness of the one and only living God. “1Therefore,
I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual (reasonable) act
of worship.” Romans 12:1.
Of course, there are different types of worship
songs. In our services at Saddleback, we
use a model for worship flow in order to lead people into a more intimate place
with God. It’s called the IMPACT model:
Inspire
Movement
Praise
Adoration
Commitment
Tie it Together
All of these types of songs are worship songs
based on their lyrics but they serve different purposes while also serving the
common purpose of worship. We assume
that people don’t arrive at service already in worship, though many folks
do. Inspire Movement songs are warm up,
hand-clapping songs. Praise songs are
hand-clapping songs about God’s character and deeds. Adoration songs are hand-joining songs about
how we feel about who God is and what he has done. Commitment songs are hand-raising songs, our
personal response to God. Tie it Together songs are hand-joining songs of
fellowship that say we are part of God’s family. We don’t clap or join or raise hands for each
of these types of songs, but this model is a way to help remember our goal.
So in summary, what makes a song a worship
song? Any song with lyrics that are used
for His purposes is a worship song.
- Rick Muchow
Look for Rick’s latest
album, WEST COAST WORSHIP featuring his popular “The Greatest Mystery” on
Christian Records, in Christian stores now!
A complete archive of Ask