Here’s is a link to web version of an album review that will be published in the next edition of Worship Leader Magazine. Check it out HERE.

I often incorrectly measure the quality of worship using those elements. I processed this with some of our worship team members and wanted to share some of the misconceptions we uncovered in our understanding of worship.

Worship is music.

Worship is the the willful and humble submission, or obeisance, to the Father. As Romans 21:1 says, we are “to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship.” It is a lifestyle.

In our church services or worship gatherings, “worship” usually refers to the music set. Our purpose in life becomes compartmentalized into the 20 minutes before the message and the closing song. What about prayer, the message, and application? Those don’t count?

Music is of course an incredible venue for worship. Throughout scripture, God meets his people and is glorified through our praises. We draw close through music…it touches our hearts and brings understanding that other mediums can’t. While music is a part of how we express worship and experience God, it by no means defines it.

Worship is for our enjoyment.

I so often center worship around myself: how I felt during the set. If I enjoyed it and “got” something from it, then it was an awesome worship session. By definition, worship is willful submission to God. The priority is glorification and obedience, not enjoyment. Enjoyment is a byproduct, and should be put in its rightful place. Instead of coming to gain from a worship gathering, we should be coming to give.

Worship is a feeling.

We often reduce worship to the feelings we experience. Watch TV or movies, and you’ll see love treated the same way. When “we’ve lost that lovin’ feelin” we assume it just wasn’t meant to be. Worship isn’t a feeling, its a state of being…sometimes its emotional but sometimes its not. Often deep, intimate times of worship bring about intense feelings, but deep emotions in themselves don’t equal worship. Feelings come and go, but the call to worship is constant. Authentic worship doesn’t stop with our senses.

Worship is easy.

No, its not. We have to work at it. We are to worship in feast and famine. Job worshipped through his trials. shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego worshipped in the furnace, and Stephen worshipped while he was being stoned. It takes sweat, endurance, and faith. We must persist out of obedience, even when it hurts.

Conditions have to be perfect.

I am so guilty of this…The conditions have to be perfect for me to engage. The music set better be diverse and awesome, the guitarist better nail the Brewster solo, and there better be a short line at the church cafe so I an get my caffeine fix. I better be in a good mood  and have had good week at work if I’m going to engage with God.

If there is a slightest deviation from my list of conditions, my ability to worship goes out the window. I can be so fickle! ITS NOT ABOUT ME. When our faithfulness is contingent upon on environment, feelings, enjoyment, and ease of participation, we will never experience the depth and intimacy Christ calls us to. Who then are we to set the terms? We must abandon ourselves in pursuit of God.

So what do we do with this? How do we move forward? We must follow in the steps of Christ. We need to remove these preconceived assumptions from our understanding of worship. We need to open ourselves up to God’s truth and allow it to change the way we live. We must seek and worship God in and through all things. We must come to  glorify God, not seek personal gain from our worship gatherings. Our understanding grows deeper as we press into God’s character and Word. As Matthew 6:33 says,  seek His kingdom and His righteousness. It is through this pursuit that our worship will blossom from a service to a lifestyle.

So these are my observations. What are some of yours? Thoughts?

Here is the article:

Deep V-neck shirts. Designer jeans. Custom Toms. Messenger bags holding an assortment of Apple products.  Salon hair massaged with product. Perhaps even a tattoo peaking out of a flurry of chest hair. No, it’s not a contestant from Design Star, its probably your worship leader.

Styles have always changed and adapted, and modern worship leaders have always had their own sub-culture: a mix between tradition and MTV.  Yesterday it was Journey and the NIV, today its Coldplay and Bible iPhone apps. Native habitats of the modern worship leader include the Apple Store, Buckle, American Apparel, indie record stores, and any place serving hummus.

Today’s modern worship movement features songs steeped in programming, delay, 4 on the floor kick patterns, and every keyboardist’s nightmare: pads. The environment has changed as well. Floor monitors are replaced with in-ears, set list CD’s are replaced with Planning Center, and PowerPoint is replaced with Propresenter. Concert lighting and fog machines help set the mood. Popular songs include All Because of Jesus, Song of Hope, How He Loves, and Everlasting God.

Now these are of course generalities that don’t begin to sum up all of the different styles and genres we have today. Additionally, none of these observations question the integrity or leadership of an individual. These observations may not describe your resident worship leader, but I think we can agree that we have, at one point or another, come into contact with this “modern” or  “pop” leader.

But where have we come from? What trends have we come out of? Let’s take a look at some of the roots of today’s modern style worship leader. We will discover some key qualifiers to help you identify some stylistic evolutions.

Frankie Says Lift Your Name on High

Mullets, perms, silk shirts, and Dockers (acid wash jeans for the contemporary service). Perhaps a pastel jacket paired with penny loafers. These are a few identifiers of the 80’s worship leader. Songs tended to drip with chorus and flanger, and bands took their cues from sheet music. The 80’s worship leader favored colored, foam-topped mics for the vocalists.  Almost every song had an electric guitar or synth solo, and the drum sets had to be loaded in through the bay doors in back (thanks, Phil Collins). Musical weapons of choice included Kurzweil and Roland keyboards, Yamaha baby grands, and Jackson electric guitars with Picasso paint jobs (the acoustic guitar was still to come as a worship regular).  Regardless of service or style type, a Bolo tie was always the right choice for neck dress. Key 80’s worship songs include As The Deer, The Battle Belongs to the Lord, Awesome God, and of course… Lord I Lift Your Name on High.

Hootie Could Sing of Your Love Forever

The 90’s worship leader loved technology. Cell phones were usually clipped onto a leather-braided belt just below a tucked in short sleeve shirt (perhaps Tommy Bahama). Acid washed jeans began to give way to stone washed, and Bolo’s gave way to “sport your flare” ties.  The outdated “mic on a stand” was replaced with the headset mic…though the huge mic capsule and foam cover stayed (this is an important factor…it allows you marvel at the fact that YOUR worship leader has a HEADSET mic).  This was of course attached to a belt pack the size of a VCR (clipped next to the cell phone). Drum sets were replaced with every sound guy’s dream: electric drums. Tube amps were replaced with solid state and guitar effects were replaced with the multi-effects processor. Acoustic guitars replaced the keyboards as the main worship instrument, and Ovations were the acoustic guitar of choice. If you ever had to lead a song from the baptismal you were good to go…those synthetic bodies wouldn’t warp in water! Shakers, chimes, and percussion sets rounded out the 90’s worship sound.  Sheet music was replaced with chord charts, and the overhead projector gave way to PowerPoint. The 90’s featured “worship choruses” which would become the staple among church services for years to come. Key 90’s worship songs include: I Could Sing of Your Love Forever, Open the Eyes of My Heart, Shout to the Lord, and Better is One Day.

Clash of the Worship Titans

The 5-year period after the turn of the millennium brought some very memorable styles within the worship leading culture, including an array of Christian slogan shirts. In the event someone wasn’t sporting Abercrombie, you might catch him or her in a “Know Fear,” “Pick Jesus,” or “His Pain, Your Gain,” shirt. These were of course accented with puka shells, leather sandals, and cargo shorts. Hair was spiked with some good old L.A Looks, and bleached tips ran rampant. Carabiners replaced cell phones as the belt décor of choice, and jeans began to see the modern age of distress and bedazzle. Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, and the rest of the Passion movement dominated the late 90’s and 2000’s with anthem after worship anthem.  Following in Tomlin’s footsteps, goatees thrived (though cut shorter than the 90’s goatee…except for the case of David Crowder and Charlie Hall). Synth strings gave way to pads, drum kits began to sneak back amongst the V-Drums, and delay became a lead guitarist’s best friend. Tubes and analog tone returned among the solid-state amps and digital processing. Worship leaders began to trade in their acoustics for Telecasters and Strats and their PowerPoint slides for MediaShout. Key songs of 2000-20005 include Famous One, Blessed Be Your Name, and God of Wonders.

That brings us up to the last 5 years, where labels abound and pop culture continues to evolve.  “Traditional” seems to mean “archaic, “ contemporary” ironically now means “traditional,” and “blended” means “no one is happy”.  “Modern” gives way to “post-modern”, which gives way to “minimalism” which gives way to “neo-traditionalism”. However you label it, worship leaders continue to evolve their styles to engage and invite the surrounding communities to join in the conversation. What we call “traditional” used to be cutting edge. Many hymns were Christian lyrics set to the tunes of bar songs, so if a drunk stumbled into church they would know the melody!  The music may change but the message stays the same. The beauty of the whole thing is that worship is so much more than music. Worship is giving God the rightful place of authority in your life.  When God’s fame is the focus of your endeavors, He is glorified.  I truly believe that our God loves to hear praise in every sort of style and genre when our hearts are in the right place, though sometimes we may look a little ridiculous doing it.

So these are some of my observations… what are yours?

Ryan Axtell EPK from Ryan Axtell on Vimeo.

It’s finally done! Chris Loope did an amazing job putting this EPK together. It does an amazing job of sharing the heart and the story behind what I do what I do! Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

All of you who watched online, I’ll come to your city next!

All 11 songs started as lyrics from a prayer journal as I began to converse with God and struggle through the reality of losing our firstborn. As a worship leader, I had to examine myself and see if I truly believed everything I said and sang on stage. Half of the album is geared towards the corporate worship setting, and the other half reflects some honest and hard personal conversations I had with God. This is the first full collection of music I have worked on that started lyrically…This may happen once or twice but normally I have a catchy tune or riff to build upon. It has been a fun challenge to craft melodies and song structures around pre-existing meters.

God has revealed himself to me during a pivotal time in my life, and I don’t want it to stop with me, so I’m putting it out in song. I hope you guys will enjoy! I will have some snippets up soon, but right now, I have to get back to tracking electric guitar!

“Love Alive” is a worship song I just finished in the last few weeks. It was a journey for me to write this song. In the midst of our pregnancy complications, I really felt God challenging me to look at the big picture and to soak in His grace, instead of just focusing on the day to day hardships. Through weeks of prayer I was reminded of the immensity of what Christ did for us and what that really meant to me. It affects absolutely everything I do. The more we let that amazing truth grow in our hearts, the more we have to share it…We just can’t contain something of such great porportions. I hope you enjoy this live version.

Additional Musicians:

Ashur Benjamin- Bass, Casey Block- Drums, Phil Tipping- Keys, Brett Reinhart- Guitar

Happy Day – Audrey Assad & Ryan Axtell – Cornerstone Chandler – Worship from brianwurzell on Vimeo.

Song of Solomon 8:6-8

⁶ Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy ^[a] unyielding as the grave. ^[b]
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame. ^[c]

⁷ Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.

I had the privilege of leading this song with Audrey Assad.

We had another great VBS session today. The kids love teaching us Tegulu (the State language) vocabulary in exchange for their English counterparts.  This is a great way to connect with the older classes (ages 12-14) who want to practice their English. They LOVE singing and hand motions! The whole team, especially the women (Kara, Danielle, Heather, Mary), are doing a great job engaging with all the kids!

Indian Wedding

Today we had the incredible privilege of attending an Indian wedding party for a friend of Saresh. The girls wore saris and the the guys wore our custom tailored Indian suits! We were a fine bunch, I must say. For 10-20 days before the wedding, both the bride and groom’s families host huge parties for hundreds of people! We attended the bride’s party on the day before the wedding. We enjoyed an amazing lunch, overwhelming hospitality, and a time of prayer for the bride.

Redlight

In the evening we visited Harvest India’s prostitute ministry in the nearby red-light district. The center provides food, medicine, and a chance to break away from the trade.  The women shared an intimate time of prayer and encouragement.

A bit shorter on the post…sorry…we’ve all been a little sick and have been spending our time in the bathroom.