I Have Moved

I've moved from blogspot to wordpress. You can visit Fork in the Road Music blog at the following addresses.

www.forkintheroadmusic.org
www.russellmartinmusic.com
www.russellmartinmusic.net

Getting Serious

Over the past few months I have toyed with this blog idea. I have shared some insights, thoughts and resources about worship and have had a fair response for the effort I have put in. Now that I have seen what is possible I have decided to get more serious about this blog.
My goal will be to provide a place of resources, connection, and encouragement for worship leaders, band members, youth directors, pastors, media people and all those who work with worship services in various settings. I want this to be a place that you can ask questions, share ideas, and get some help through the advice and responses of others.

The site will be launched soon and once it is all the blogs from this location will be moved to the new location. I am using a self hosted wordpress blog which will enable me to do more with hosting resources, using forms, layouts etc.

I apologize for missing links that have occured over the past few days. These should all be resolved soon as we move to the new host. I will make a few posts that contain all the links I have offered over the past few months and put them in one location.

Thanks again

Resources: Where to Find Music

There are plenty of free sites out there that offer you chord sheets for your favorite worship songs. Finding them is as easy as searching for the name of the song, and tabs. The result will be a variety of sites, with a variety of results. There are also some sites that cost a little but give you a lot. Two sites that I have landed on recently that I am tending to use more and more for my worship song resources.

Praise Charts- www.praisecharts.com - Praise charts is a collection of Worship songs from many of the top worship publishers on the scene today. Artists like Lincoln Brewster, Hillsongs, Tommy Walker, Mercy Me, Passion and David Crowder. Options for most songs include Orchestration, Piano, Rythm, and sometimes Finale files and chord charts. The songs are based on a credit system. You sign up and pay for 25-50 credits and use them over a one year period.

Recommendation- If your group is small and just plays mostly by tabs then this might not be the resource for you. However if you either have or are planning on any brass, winds or chorus then these arrangements are great and have it all done for you.

Song Select- www.songselect.com - Song select is a service of CCLI and provides a collection of arrangements for most of the worship songs covered by CCLI. Songs like "Mighty to Save", "How Great is Our God", "Blessed Be Your Name" and tons of others used in worship services everywhere. Song Select provides lyrics which are downloadable and formatted for Media Shout, Power Point etc, an audio clip, Chord Sheets, Lead Sheets and Hymn Sheets (4 part harmony arrangements). Most of the arrangements are good. I don't particuarly care for the Hymn harmonies but I can be picky. The service over all is a set fee and you can download as much as you like. The thing I really like is that all the songs are transposable and you can print them in any key.

I listed these two paid sites because they offer consistent results and cover a multitude of songs. I know there are a ton of free websites that offer chords and tabs along with lyrics. What sites do you use when you or your worship team is looking for chord sheets?

Free Stuff: Song "Breathe Your Love in Me"

The other night our youth director Russ Bowlin, led a discussion based on the song "Instead of a Show" by Jon Foreman. He has promised me he is going to write a post on it for FITR so I will not share reflections on that right now. During the course of the discussion, the conversation kept going to how we so often read the words, say the words, sing the songs and go through the motions without even thinking about what we are doing in church. Immediately this song called "Breathe Your Love in Me" came to mind. It is basically a song of confession and a prayer that God will revive us. I wanted to share it with you. Maybe you can use it in a worship service, maybe it is something you can play or listen to as part of your own prayer time. I am including a link to the song and to the chord sheet.

Breathe Your Love in Me mp3
Breathe Your Love in Me PDF

(You have permission to use this song for corporate or personal use. Just don't record it and tell people it's your own. I'd love to hear how it is being used so send me an email.)

If you have resources you would like to share please email them to me. If I post them I will give you a link back to your site and a huge thanks.

Resource: Contemporary Songlists from the Lectionary

I know there are many churches that use a "sermon series" format for their worship services. This makes it real easy on the worship leader when choosing songs because they have a general theme to go off of for several weeks. This is how I had done things for several years before moving to my current church. Here we use the lectionary. The lectionary is basically a three year cycle of scripture that follows the church liturgical calendar and takes you through most of the scriptures in the bible in three years. Each week there are readings from the Old Testament, Psalms, New Testament and Letters, or something close to that. At first I thought this would be more difficult when chosing worship songs but really it just takes a little more work and study. One thing that helps tremendously is the United Methodist Music and Worship Planner, which already is filled with suggestions of hymns and worship songs for a particular Sunday. One of the benefits of this system is that I can tell you the scripture will be one of four passages as far ahead as you would like. As long as we are choosing music along those themes we should be inline with what will be brought in the message.

With knowing that far in advance what is coming it allows us to come up with tentative songlists well in advance. We sat down yesterday and planned basic lists from August 3rd to September 28th. Now this does not mean they are set. Songlists change all the time because we find a song that fits better, or we have people out a particular sunday and the instrumentation is not right for a particular song, or the pastor takes a different focus than we were expecting, but they work as a base to go off of.

Because I know there are some others of you who use the liturgical calendar and preach from the lectionary I am going to provide you the link to our songist. Please use these as suggestions or as a jumping point for your own lists. Also remember that your pastor may not choose the same passage to focus on for a particular week, but these should still be helpful for you.

Songlists August 3 thru September 28

Free Stuff: Angel Background

Ok.. so everything is free on this site. That's kind of the whole idea but I wanted to be able to have a place to share resources that come my way or that I create. The first one is fairly simple. It is a background I made using a picture taken at College UM ARMY of an angel statue.

Right click the link and save as.

If you have resources you would like to share please email them to me. If I post them I will give you a link back to your site and a huge thanks. Thanks.

3 Things: Advice for New Worship Leaders

One of my goals and passions is to help young worship leaders develop and help to give them the tools and opportunities to do so. With that in mind I thought what would I tell someone who is starting to lead worship? So I am starting this post of "3 Things".

Three things to keep in mind when leading worship.

1. Have more than you need- You never know when a worship service might run quicker than you expect, or someone who was supposed to sing a song gets sick, or any number of other things happen where you need an extra song. If you think you'll need 5 songs for a set, plan and rehearse 6 or 7. This way when something unexpected happens you are ready. We always have a few songs that we know we can do with little or no rehearsal to help when unexpected things happen.

2. Timing is Everything-Know how to read the congregation and to feel how the service is flowing. Maybe everything is going well and you can sense that you can keep going with a worship set. Maybe this may not be the best time for a long contemplative repetitive solo chorus. Also in your set know when to do a faster more upbeat song, and when to slow it down and move into the more contemplative song.

3.Know more than songs- Your role as a worship leader is more than just singing songs or leading the band. Therefore you should have more in your repertoire than music and lyrics. You should be able to lead the congregation in prayer, have stories or illustrations to use as a transition between songs, or between worship elements.

Here are the three things I would mention right now. But what would you say? Share three things you would want to tell new worship leaders.