In the future I hope to contact the worship leaders who have participated in the initial interview to get their particular viewpoint on certain practical and theological questions and topics related to worship in a type of Roundtable format.
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Give us the stats. Name, age, family, church where you serve and your role:
Mike Ruel, 39, married...2 kids - son: 12; daughter: 10. I am the Worship Director (Part-time/volunteer) at Green Pond Bible Chapel in Rockaway NJ.
How and when did you know you were called to lead congregational worship?
I had been a professional musician for years, living a sinful life away from the Lord...when the Lord brought me back, I started to get involved in music at the church but really it didn't click until I started to get to know the God we serve thru intense reading of great books, audio sermons, and reading the whole Bible. As these pieces were beginning to form the foundation of the calling, a tragedy occurred and friends of ours lost their 16-month old son. They asked me to lead worship at the funeral. Leading the body to worship the sovereign awesome holy God when we needed Him the most was all the convincing I needed that this is where I felt God wanted me to pursue serving.
Give us a glimpse of what takes place from the end of the worship service to the beginning of the worship service the following week:
At the end of a Sunday service I will briefly touch base with the worship team and tech team to see how everything went from their perspective while it is fresh in their minds. Praying for the worship is a daily thing - so I pretty much immediately turn towards the next weeks' service. Depending on if I'm leading or someone else (There are a few worship leaders on my team) they get their sets to me and we look them over and I send it out to all the teams via Planning Center Online and schedule the teams for the next week....work on rehearsal, etc. We rehearse usually on Thursday nights and we run the set.
Describe from beginning to end what a usual Sunday Morning Worship Service looks like at your church:
I usually get to the church about 8:15am to make sure everything is in place or in process to be ready to go - sound check starts at 8:30am. We typically run thru the whole set once...we pray before we start and after for the Holy Spirit to come and do its work thru us as well as thru the preaching of the Word in the hearts of those attending. We have a 9:30 and 11:00am service. The 9:30 service leans a bit more contemporary (with drums and elec guitar) and the 11:00am service leans a bit traditional (no drums or elec guitar). I try to keep both services musically the same, but sometimes I will switch out 1 song. We also have a 6pm service, but this is much more informal and either I'll just lead on acoustic or another worship leader with piano or guitar.
During a morning service I will briefly welcome the people and we'll get started right away with our Call to Worship - I like to say that I'm reminding them that it is time to worship the Lord our God -- let us worship for he is WORTHY!
Depending on if the choir is singing they will be on stage with us for the call to worship, then they will sing 1 song.
From there we have announcements from one of the Pastors. Which yes...we all dread the flow interruption, but it's a "necessary..."
Then I pray, invite the Holy Spirit to come and work in us, be present with us...maybe read scripture, a paragraph from a book, or briefly introduce why I felt lead to chose the songs we are about to sing.
Then I have about a 4-5 song worship set - I have been talking less during the set and just letting it flow...but sometimes, like the Revelation Song if it's a new song and there is such a wonderful bit of scripture that helps reinforce the message I will break in and talk.
Then we have our offering and usually someone will sing / play a special music piece
Then we have a sermon for about 30 minutes from our Senior Pastor
First Sunday of each month we share communion together at this point...
I usually get back up to close with a short chorus or prayer.
What songs did you sing last week and why were they selected?
Last week we sang:
Call to Worship: Majesty - an "oldie" but a goodie. I wanted to focus eveyone's attention on the glory and authority of Jesus as we gathered to worship Him.
Days of Elijah - many of us have been doing a chronological read of the Bible this year and I felt led to that song that ties in so many of the aspects of OT redemptive history and also to celebrate together "There is no God like Jehovah!"
Revelation Song - new for us. I read Revelation chap 4 to paint the picture of the throne of God in Heaven and then we sang those words - so powerful to remind us of what awaits us!
Be Unto Your Name - giving us a chance to reflect on our temporal nature (We are moment...), focusing again on the "Holy Holy Lord God Alighty" and "Lamb who was slain" themes from Revelation
Salvation Belongs to Our God - reinforcing themes of salvation and continuing to build on the "Him who sits on the throne" and "the Lamb" themes
What is or has been the most enjoyable part about leading worship? How about the most difficult?
The most enjoyable is actually leading worship - playing and singing - those moments when I can tell that the Spirit seems to be working in the hearts of those gathered when I see the tears or raised hands or expressions that the lyrics are really hitting home and pieces of understanding are coming together and God is revealing himself by the Holy Spirit to His Glory thru his Son Jesus!
The most difficult...hmm...Sunday mornings themselves are usually a blur for me. There are usually technical challenges, lyric operator questions, pastoral requests...any number of things can go wrong and usually there are about 10 people (or so it seems!) that need to talk to me immediately all at the same time. It's a challenge to keep a clear head and a happy (unstressed) face sometimes. I have learned that more than ever...on the Lord's Day I need to spend some serious solitude time with him alone early in the morning getting my heart happy in the Lord my God and drinking deeply from his word (and a giant pot of coffee) and praying, begging him to work thru me...a clay pot.
What resources or ‘tools’ do you utilize or that you consider a ‘must have’ for leading worship?
Practically speaking I have come to be a huge Planning Center Online fan...I rely on it very heavily for planning and scheduling. Other than that, just good old fashioned diligence, planning, and organization! I need to be constantly connected to the web/e-mail as things and scheduling issues come up I need to jump on them ASAP!
Who has been the most influential person(s) in your ministry and how have they influenced you?
I have the "blessing" of having a long commute to my "day job" - upwards of 1.5 hrs each way...so my iPod is always stocked with podcasts from men of God preaching the full counsel of his word. I have been influenced heavily by great Pastors like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, CJ Mahaney, DA Carson, John MacArthur, Josh Harris, local pastors Dave Gustavsen and Ryan Baitzel, Steve Hawthorne...Worship Leader wise I am a huge Sovereign Grace fan and believe they bring some of the most Christ-exalting, Gospel-centered, cross-focused worship music out there - so needless to say Bob Kauflin has had probably the biggest impact on me as to what it means to be a worship leader...
I also am influenced by great authors...but we'll get to the books below.
Ultimately, I pray that I am most influenced by the Holy Spirit to the praise of His glorious grace!
Where do you find new worship music and how do you integrate a new song into the service?
Like I said...I'm a big Sovereign Grace Music fan, so I do a lot of their songs. I keep a close eye on others that I have come to appreciate like Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Keith/Kristin Getty, Fee. I also love to take an old hymn and rearrange it or pick up someone's arrangement. The hymns are soaked in doctrine!! Otherwise I keep my eyes and ears open for good solid stuff. I am active on Twitter and a blogger and blog reader so I find a lot there. Unfortunately, I am frequently disappointed by the "worship" music that is published and becomes popular. So much of it is theologically vague or just plain Biblically wrong...it seems that we have come to idolize worship leaders and many of them are literal rock stars - some by using the name of Jesus and really it's not about Him it's about THEM and their careers. Don't forget there are those out there that are really just concerned with selling records and the record companies have quickly realized that "worship music" is a great revenue producing category for them. Very sad and very detrimental to the church - we must proclaim the mystery of the gospel thru Christ-exalting, Cross-centered, theologically correct and doctrinally sound worship! We are called in scripture to be discerning, protect our lives and doctrine closely, and test everything! (1 Thes 5:21, 1 Tim 4:16, Rom 12:2, 2 Cor 4:2)
Name 3 books (besides the Bible) every worship leader must own:
Worship Matters, Bob Kauflin
Worship by the Book, DA Carson
Desiring God, Piper (sorry...I know that's 4 but this is HARD to narrow it down!!!)
Tell us a little about your blog; why you started it and what it’s about:
I started my blog really as a running journal of my thoughts from reading the Word, good books and sermons - mostly centered on worship themes and theology. It also contains recaps from conferences I attend, and message text and audio from any messages I give. I really don't use it to vent personal pet peeves, or funny kinda stories (every once in a while...) but it's mostly an online journal that allows me the ability to manage that content, archive it, search it...organize it so that I can access it later. Others seem to have enjoyed it to and I'm happy if it blesses others! At the moment I do also use it to post the master worship team schedule - which will be moved to our new church website as soon as it's done! :-)
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