Tag Archives: music ministry

Revelation Conference Website Launch

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This week the website for the brand new music and ministry conference went live.  Check it out.  www.revelation.org.au

Registration is all online.  Consider coming along and being part of the inaugural event.

There’ll be launching of new music (including my own new album), a whole heap of really interesting and thought-provoking workshops, plus we’ll be delving into the whole question of how our gatherings need good music!

I can’t wait to share the stage with Nicky Chiswell and Geoff Bullock – 2 artists for whom I have enormous respect, and from whom I always expect to be challenged and uplifted.

Join us!  Take the Friday off work.  Travel if you have to.

Hope to see you there.

Trinity Music Conference 2011

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After 6 years of thinking about running a music ministry conference at Holy Trinity, I’ve decided (after prompting and prodding from others, plus the emergence of a number of key people to help run it) that it’s time!

So July 14-16 2011 is the proposed date for the conference, to be held in Adelaide.  It would have 3 evening sessions (Thurs, Fri, Sat) plus a range of daytime sessions during the Friday and the Saturday.  It’d be during school and uni holidays, so we’d hope to pick up a good number of students.  But we’re also hoping many workers will see the value of the conference and take the Friday off work.

Here’s why I want to run a Trinity music ministry conference:

  • Music ministry in church is harder than ever: think no more one-size-fits-all hymnbooks, think copyright hassles, think pulling contemporary bands together from largely untrained amateur musicians.
  • Church’s expectations are higher than ever: think massive growth in the Christian music and worship music “industries” and the demand for sounds that will attract a new generation.
  • The cost of doing it poorly is higher than ever: think how we’ve thrown out liturgy and replaced it with more music – so music really needs to be good, given how few prayers and biblically structured patterns we have in our services.
  • Holy Trinity is a big church with lots of resources that we want to share for the sake of the kingdom.

So it will be at Trinity music conference, but I’d really love to have people there from all sorts of churches.  What do you think?  Give me your thoughts… What could we include to guarantee that we’d see you there?

Vision Day 31 July 2010

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Today was very significant for music ministry in the Trinity network of churches here in Adelaide. We just ran our first network music vision day. 68 musicians from across our 5 centres came together to think about who we are and what we’re doing in our ministry.

So what’s the big deal?  Well, first of all, this time last year we were only 3 centres, but in the meantime (after several years of planning) 2 more centres were planted at Mount Barker and Northeast – see www.trinityadelaide.org.au.  So there’s a real sense that we’re getting bigger.

But although it’s wonderful to see the numbers growing, I’m also really buoyed by the positive attitude of so many of our musicians to the opportunities that lie ahead of us.  God has really blessed us in our ministries, and we have an opportunity to bless others with what we have.  In what ways?

Well among other things, we want to run our first music conference next year.  It’s been a long time coming, but 2011 is hopefully the year we can pull it together.  The enthusiasm of the team for doing this was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that there was basically a cheer from the crowd today when we announced the plan.

Why a conference?  Well certainly more training.  I think we have a real issue with the contemporary music that we play in churches today, that it really does put considerable strain on our volunteers, and it also is hard to get training for anywhere else.

But more than training, we need Biblical perspective.  Today’s talk from Paul Harrington was extremely challenging and encouraging about God’s grand vision in Ephesians.  It was wonderful to be reminded of the part we play in this cosmic unfolding.  I wish we’d had more time to be able to delve more and more into what the scriptures say about our music ministry role… but perhaps here is where a conference will be useful.

The more I’m involved in music ministry, the more I believe that spiritual maturity of our people is not only the enabler of our ministry, but it is also the goal of our ministry.  I continue to pray that God would transform us, use us, teach us and exalt Jesus through us.