The relationship between the senior pastor and the worship pastor is a vital one if for no other reason than these two roles work in tandem to create one of the biggest things the church does—the Sunday morning service. It takes both pastors working together to cultivate a healthy relationship which breeds a healthy ministry. So, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor at Cherokee Hills Baptist Church, Mike Keahbone. He shares his wisdom on what it’s like in his shoes as a senior pastor, what a worship pastor needs to know about his senior pastor and how to make this important relationship thrive.

A service producer may not be one of the first roles you think of when you think of a worship team or a production team, but it can be a vital role that takes weight off of you as the worship pastor and help shepherd the people on your team and to eliminate distractions within a service. Sara Emmerson is currently the Creative Pastor at Soul City Church in Chicago, but her roots in ministry can be traced back to her time as a service producer at Willow Creek Community Church. Her experience as a producer plus her skills as a relational leader are invaluable to anyone leading a worship ministry.

The God-given calling to be a worship leader can take on many different forms. Elias Dummer knows this firsthand as he began his journey serving the local church in Ontario, Canada but soon found himself touring the world in The City Harmonic, a band made up of other worship leaders from other churches in the Hamilton, Ontario area. Today Elias is a part of a church plant in the Nashville area and continues to write songs for the local church. This conversation is the story of the things he’s learned along the way. Things he’s learned about himself, about worship leading and the God who has called him.

As worship leaders, many of us got the position we’re in today because we could sing or play an instrument. Brian Fuller had a similar situation when he first started, but after being the worship pastor at New Hope Church in Durham, NC and a regular staple on the Worship Tutorials YouTube channel, he’s spent the past 10+ years training and pouring into leaders to succeed at all the aspects of the role from spiritual, relational, administration, coaching and musicality—even creating what he calls the Worship Manual.

Watermark Community Church is striving to be a light in the heart of downtown Dallas, Texas. With ministries that serve the community focusing on marriage, addiction recovery and students (just to name a few), at the core of it all Watermark is a church that is discipleship-focused in everything they do. Jon Abel is the worship director, leading worship at the main Dallas campus and leading a team of other worship leaders and staff. In this conversation Jon shares his approach to crafting services, choosing songs and leading yourself well first as a follower of Christ in order to lead a worship ministry well.

Regular listeners to this podcast and those that keep up with me on YouTube and social media know that something went down last summer in 2018. Almost a year later I want to share my story. It’s a story about being hurt in ministry and how to respond when it happens and how to move on past it and heal. The reason why I want to share this story is to encourage other people in ministry. If you’ve gone through something similar (or you’re going through it right now), one of the most encouraging things you can hear are “me too” and “you’re not alone.”

Easter is that one service where we want to do things bigger than we normally do. Our desire is to help create a powerful moment—especially for those that typically only attend church on Easter and Christmas. Todd Elliott is no stranger to big Easter services, having served as the leader of the Willow Creek Community Church production team for over ten years. Year after year, Todd and his team were tasked with pulling off the ideas from the creative team. This conversation with Todd is about doing something your church typically doesn’t do without breaking the bank, breaking your spirit and breaking all of your volunteers.

Songwriting can unlock opportunties to wrap a melody around your church’s vision and heartbeat. As a worship pastor and now the central ministry leader of worship arts at Life.Church, Chris Kuti has seen first-hand the power of original songs within their services. In this conversation, Chris shares how to get a songwriting ministry started at your church, the process of how songs get evaluated and chosen at Life.Church and the importance of co-writing and creating with the door open.

Lighting design can be a powerful way to add to your worship service, but it needs to be something that supports what’s already happening on stage without drawing attention to itself. Daniel Connell is no stranger to a lighting console with a resume that includes Switchfoot, Steven Curtis Chapman, Bethel and the Passion conference—and even some time on staff full-time at Church on the Move in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He shares how he approaches lighting design to compliment the story being told by the worship band.