Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Evan Armatas, priest at St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church in Loveland, Colorado, the host of the AFR live Sunday-night call-in show Orthodoxy Live, and the host of the AFR podcast Transforming Our Lives in Christ. And now he has published his first book with Ancient Faith Ministries titled Toolkit for Spiritual Growth: A Practical Guide to Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving.

Dr. Albert Rossi challenges us to consider how we are relating to one another over the issue of wearing facial masks.

How does one attain spiritual wisdom? This week offers reflections grounded in the sayings of St Isaac of Syria, on wisdom approached through humility, prayer in the scriptures, and love of neighbor.

In this first half of a lecture recorded live in commemoration of the "Pauline Year," celebrating 2,000 years since the birth of the Apostle, Archimandrite Irenei explores the heritage of the great missionary saint in Orthodoxy. Drawing connections to Elder Joseph the Hesychast of Mount Athos, St Symeon the New Theologian, and other great figures of the Orthodox tradition, this first portion of the lecture addresses questions of conversion and relationship, and how St Paul’s example is at the heart of living Orthodox Tradition.

This week we broadcast the second half of our lecture on the heritage of St Paul in Orthodoxy, given recently in Manchester, UK, to a largely non-Orthodox audience. In this portion, Archimandrite Irenei focuses on St. Paul’s injunction to "pray without ceasing," and explores the manner in which this is lived out in the Prayer of the Heart and experiential life of Orthodox Christianity throughout history.

Bobby Maddex interviews Aleksei V. Shipovalnikov, the director of The Spirit of Orthodoxy Choir.

We talk with Claire Brandenburg, Manager of the Heavenly Ladder Bookstore in Taos, New Mexico, about a new CD featuring the writings of Archpriest Sergius of Kasimov.

On this special episode of “Ancient Faith Presents,” Bishop John Abdalah, an auxiliary bishop for the Antiochian Diocese of Worcester and New England, offers the first keynote address at a conference at Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology titled “Pastoral Challenges in Marriage: O God, Replenish Their Life with All Good Things.”

Bobby Maddex interviews Craig Hella Johnson, the director of the Conspirare choir, and Vlad Morosan, the founder and president of Musica Russica who helped select the songs that Conspirare sing on their 2015 Grammy-award winning CD The Sacred Spirit of Russia.

We interview Fr. Robert Miclean, the Rector of Holy Archangels Orthodox Mission in Annapolis, Maryland, who will soon be leading a pilgrimage to Romania. Among the highlights of this upcoming trip will be the celebration of Holy Ascension in Valea Plopului, Romania, and Holy Pentecost at Putna Monastery in the northern part of Romania, home of the famous "painted monasteries" built by St. Stephen the Great.

Fr. Barnabas Powell interviews Fr. Evan Armatas about Fr. Evan's new Ancient Faith book Toolkit for Spiritual Growth.

The unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is certainly the gift of God. But St. Paul considers a great deal of human effort to be necessary for its maintenance. It does not take care of itself. Fr. Pat fleshes this out.

The Christian must guard against anything antithetical to the Holy Spirit, whom, in 2 Corinthians 1, Paul calls the downpayment and guarantee of salvation. Fr. Pat considers three such things which should be of special concern given the world in which we live.

Deception is a major phenomenon of our own times. There have always been deceivers. But deception has become a far more integral part of modern life. Fr. Pat discusses the psychology and theology of deception, as well as the solution to the problem.

On the Feast of Pentecost, Fr. Pat compares events in the book of Genesis with the events in Acts 2.

In this homily from Pentecost Sunday, Fr. Pat reflects with us on three points about the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in our lives.

Ananias and Sapphira's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Fr. Pat takes a closer look at the true meaning of Hanukkah.

On the Sunday of the Paralytic, Fr. Pat reflects upon a most pernicious kind of paralysis—the spiritual kind.

You probably know what you need to do to grow closer to Christ, but you're having trouble getting started. Here are five ways to jumpstart your spiritual life and start connecting with the Lord today!

Can you be spiritual without organized religion? What does it even mean to be spiritual? Maybe we need to rethink what we mean by spirituality and religion... Maybe we need to live like Christians: full of the Holy Spirit.

Father Daniel Rogich (PhD), author of the book Becoming Uncreated: The Journey to Human Authenticity, is Kevin's guest as they discuss a growing trend in the Millennial generation regarding religious belief.

Kevin's guest is Rita Madden, host of the AFR podcast "Food, Faith, and Fasting." Rita is a Registered Dietitian who finds inspiration in the great role that the Orthodox Christian faith can play in her modern-day healthcare profession. Here she discusses caring for your health in a spiritually minded manner.

You want a spiritual experience? You want to show off about it? Listen to what St. Paul says...

For whom are the Gifts of the Holy Spirit?

St. Paul tells us to make use of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and in the Gospel we see an example of this in action. It is obvious though that there gifts are NOT for you! Matthew 9:1-8, Romans 12: 6-14

This was not what the disciples expected. 1 Corinthians 4: 9 - 16 Matthew 17: 14 - 23

Mark 9:17-31 And the Lord will lift you up too.

L’émoi de l’incendie de Notre Dame de Paris dépasse largement nos frontières hexagonales. Et plus intéressant encore, il transcende nos croyances, nos cultures, il touche au plus de profond de l’être humain. A cet égard, j’ai également été touché par...

1. MSI Katana 15 B13VFK-2201FR, PC portable gamer multimédia performant 15" IPS 144Hz sous GeForce RTX 4060 Core i7-H et SSD 1 To  LaptopSpirit
2. Ce PC portable gamer avec une RTX 4070 est en promotion de 500 €  jeuxvideo.com
3. MSI Thin 15 B12UCX-2412FR, Ultrabook polyvalent 15" évolutif fin et léger sous Intel Core i5-H avec GeForce RTX 2050 pour jouer à des jeux modestes  LaptopSpirit
4. MSI GeForce RTX 4060 : la carte graphique est à son prix le plus bas jamais atteint sur ce site  Le Parisien
5. À moins de 700 euros ce dimanche, cela serait dommage de ne pas se jeter sur ce PC gamer  Ouest-France

The Washington Spirit women's soccer team, the self-proclaimed "most-popping team in the city," opens a playoff run at Audi Field on Sunday after a strong regular season that broke attendance records as more fans flock to women's sports.

Learn some of the amazing evidence of the eternal spiritual universe of the Bible, and why the physical world is a mere temporary illusion by comparison.

This is the first of a three-part series on team building. The ideas are simple, but the why behind the what is the secret sauce to growing a solid team. Like most people reading this, I’ve made mistakes. And those disasters have forged the conviction that we can’t be in ministry without being radically committed to loving Jesus and his church more, and on a daily basis.

Keep Jesus close, make sure that your family always takes the right priority (more on that in the future) and be willing to make your church better.  Notice I said better, not different. 

Better, Not Different

One of the biggest complaints I hear from worship pastors/leaders is that somehow, they have found themselves in a church that they really don’t like. 

They don’t feel appreciated by their lead pastors. 

They don’t like the weekend worship experience. 

They don’t like the people. 

At the end of the day, there is so much complaining that I am left scratching my head wondering if they even love Jesus.  If this is you, take some time to pray if you can make your lead pastors vision for your church come alive. If you aren’t in agreement, you may be in the wrong place.  Do yourself, your family and your people a favor and get connected with someone or something that is complimenting to your convictions and your philosophy.  God created you to be you, but we are servants before leading anything. Some of us carry the responsibility to make things different.  Most of us don’t.  Know your place.  Is it your burden to change things? …or is it your job to make things better.  Talk to your teams about this.  This is a fantastic “clarity” question that will free up your bandwidth.

Is it your burden to change things? …or is it your job to make things better.

OK, that is my soap box! ☺  As I give you these three helpful tips, it’s important for you to know that these are just tools.  You can’t fake or replace strong spiritual foundations of ministry leadership.  Love Jesus and use tools and resources to LOVE His PEOPLE better.  We try to change people or churches.  But what I’ve found is that when you develop people, things change. 

But what I’ve found is that when you develop people, things change. 

So, if it’s our job to make things better, what are some ideas that we can do to commit to improving? 

1. Develop a leadership pipeline

Developing a leadership pipeline is a helpful tool to bring clarity to “who’s responsible for who and who’s responsible for what”.  It’s really difficult for a worship pastor to carry the burden of a ministry on their shoulders alone…and they shouldn’t. I don’t have to tell you that the apostle Paul makes it clear that we are called to empower people to do the work of the Kingdom, not do it all on our own! (Ephesians 4:11-13) We also get a peek into Moses' anxiety in Numbers chapter 11, where he's at his wit’s end and well over his capacity. The Lord tells him to gather 70 of his most trusted and responsible people. Moses brings them to the "tent of meetings" and the Spirit of the Lord pours over them.

God helped Moses build his team. He will help you build yours.

A leadership pipeline helps you identify your 70 (or even 7 figuratively speaking). This is the pipeline our church utilizes.  

How this works:

In this chart, we document how responsibility falls within a team.

• An assistant is the first place in which we invite someone to be developed as a leader.
• A leader is the first level in which a person is responsible for a team.
• A coach is the first level in which a leader is overseeing other leaders.
• A director is responsible for directing a particular team.
• A pastor is responsible for care, culture and vision.

My favorite area to develop is our coaches. In worship ministry, I am so lucky to have some of the best coaches.

Here's how this role works:

Jordan Hicks is my guitar coach. He is responsible for developing all guitar leaders, recruitment and assimilating guitarists for all of our campuses, adult, youth and kids’ teams. He's responsible for all communication and administration for this group as well. Because Jordan is the leader I've poured into, he completely understands my values, our church’s values and culture, and our end goal. He's a volunteer, but he brings a priceless value of leadership and excellence to our church. Our worship leaders never should worry about who they are leading with. We are spoiled because of warriors like Jordan. He's just one example of Ephesians 4 coming to life in our ministry.

I grew up as a jazz musician—tenor sax. I loved John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk. C’mon somebody!  I was in high school when I first played in combos with some older pro musicians in our city. We started playing a blues tune when one of the guys stopped me and said, “In the words of Miles Davis, man…you can’t play blues because you haven’t hurt enough yet.”  Apparently, I lacked any sense of emotive playing ability as a teenager. And I hadn’t hurt enough yet. 

If playing jazz and blues is an expression of pain and hurt that we’ve experienced, then singing worship music is an expression of the HOPE we know. We can’t and shouldn’t do this alone. Lean on your team. Empower them. 

I am excited to share with you the next two tips over the next few months. You’ll be able to find them right here at allaboutworship.com.  If you have questions about developing your leadership pipeline, you can email me at mike@worship.coach.

For free development resources, check out www.worship.coach.

For thousands of younger Gen Xers and older Millennials who were raised in the church, much of our maturing as worshippers is marked by the poetic lyrics and fluid vocals of the duo known as Shane & Shane. I personally remember having Be Near on repeat during a difficult season of transition in my personal life. And I don’t know about you, but just about every guy in my high school youth group could be found working their double strum on acoustic guitar at any given moment.

But it wasn’t just their original songs that sunk deep into the hearts of their listeners. Barnard and Everett also have this uncanny ability to take songs recorded years earlier or made popular by big names such as Hillsong or Passion and make them fresh and accessible to our generation of worshippers. 

They are capitalizing on this significant gift through their latest ministry effort called The Worship Initiative (TWI). I recently got the chance to talk with Shane Barnard at length and hear more about their journey through ministry, how they juggle it all, and their hopes for the future. Hopefully you’ll find the perspective and insight he offered up as encouraging as I did.

When I asked him to share the story of how the vision of The Worship Initiative came to be, he jumped right into an impassioned explanation. They had been doing the touring, writing, and recording thing for years and gotten to experience worship from and with just about every kind of stage, venue, and demographic. As they got to know hundreds of worship leaders from everywhere you can think of, they began to see a gaping hole . . . that being the understanding of the true weight of the calling of the worship leader.

A scripture that they’d read hundreds of times and even used as a sort of mantra throughout their ministry also played an enormous role in their starting TWI. Colossians 3:16 says,

“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”

One day a word jumped off their pages in a way that opened their eyes afresh – THROUGH. These times of worship they were leading on a regular basis were not just a means to an end. They actually serve as one of the primary ways the Church conveys the message of Jesus to raise up a generation of Christ followers who can change the world. Yet somehow, this position has gotten watered down to nothing more than a song leader in most church settings. They suddenly felt a whole new level of responsibility.

So the two set out to discover a way to pour into worship leaders around the world, both spiritually and practically. They started by taking a more personal look at their own gifts and bents. Barnard says about Everett, “I can’t think of a better salesman or evangelist . . . He’s just loud, funny, always cutting up, and can win anybody over to do anything . . . and unleashing that in an overseer role and our relational PR person has been awesome to watch. I think God dumped the PR side and evangelist side of Shane so hard into him that I think we still have yet to see what God is going to do in that regard.” Whereas for Barnard, his skill in songwriting and producing contends with just about anyone you could name. Over the last 20 years of ministering together, they’ve learned to “embrace who God has made [them] and not be disappointed in that anymore but just know that this is how God has made [them].” They’ve worked incredibly hard to figure out how to balance all of the overlap between their personal and professional lives, which is inevitable when you’ve worked so closely together for that long. “You would think we would have some kind of system after 20 years, but we are getting better. I would say that a few words come to mind . . . simplifying, strategizing, doing things on purpose. These are the things that have kind of been a banner over our lives the last two or three years.”

For a long time, all the different aspects of their lives were spread out all over the DFW area of Texas. Their studio was far south, much of their steady worship leading opportunities were at a church in the heart of Dallas, and they were living a good jump from either of those. So they are in the process of bringing all of those components closer together so that doing life with the families, church community, and ministry partners is easier. Taking this step has made it easier to grow their efforts with The Worship Initiative more rapidly.

So what is The Worship Initiative and what does it look like for someone to participate or take advantage of these resources?

Basically, an individual can pay a yearly fee and access a list of over 150 (and constantly growing) worship songs that each have multiple tutorial videos and charts accompanying them. These videos break down how to play the songs in different keys, on different instruments, and with varying skill levels. A worship leader on staff at a church can also pay an annual group fee, based on the number of people, for his team to be able to access everything as well. There are also craft training videos for everything from the different instruments and vocals to tech/production and using the number system. If that’s not enough, the site has an entire section dedicated to heart training, where they break down all the different spiritual and practical components for worship leading with the likes of John Piper and Ben Stuart. There are even creative devotionals to accompany every song on the different TWI records. TheWorshipInitiative.com truly is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom for anyone looking to grow as a leader or team member, and there are still exciting things to come. Shane shared a bit about what’s ahead for TWI. “Our next phase of The Worship Initiative is to create what we’re calling learning paths. Some people love to be given a world of information to explore on their own. But most people would really love to be told what to do to get from point A to point B. We will take our existing content and add to it and give them a year long path to stick to and see measurable growth in both skill and leadership.”

Given the length of time and the platform they’ve had over these last two decades, I asked Shane how he feels his perspective of worship both personally and within the Church has evolved over the years.

“I think worship, and even the idea of worship, has come a long way, in a good way. I think we’ve seen a pretty good uptick on understanding the Romans 12:1 life of worship. I often think back to a time when I was leading worship in a basement or college dorm room for several years, and it was always the oddest songs ever.” He recalled singing, with hands lifted, Make It Right by Kenny Marks (and yes, I might’ve gotten a solid 30 second serenade over the phone . . . it’s fine!) and other obscure songs that really had no purpose or meaning to the one worshipping. Yet, what we see all throughout the Psalms is “this gut-wrenching, very honest, it is okay to pour out your heart to the one who cares for you mentality. . . and that language is okay.” He remembered hearing the words to Breathe for the first time, where it says “I’m desperate for you,” and thinking “is this okay to have this kind of language in front of people? But yes, it is okay even in a congregation or corporately to say ‘I am thirsty for You in a dry land where there is no water.’ In fact that can be really helpful to the person sitting next to you. That can be us ‘singing spiritual hymns and songs to one another’, just that opening up of the heart and the embracing of singing those honest songs and using them to allow ‘the message of Christ to dwell among us richly.’”

Learn more about The Worship Initiative, as well as Shane & Shane, at www.theworshipinitiative.com. Here at All About Worship, we believe in what these guys are doing and the ministry they are fostering. We can’t wait to partner with them in the future as God continues opening those doors.

Over the last few months we’ve tackled the topic of TEAM BUILDING.  As much as I would love to feel as if we have this one nailed, we don’t.  TEAM BUILDING is a muscle that every leader needs to continue to develop.  It’s easy to let this one slip away from us! Just when we start to feel like we are getting on top of this, something changes.  A vital team member leaves.  A leader needs to take on the responsibility of a different area.  Your best guitar player gets hired as the worship pastor at another church.  These are all real-life situations that happen in even the best teams.  They will happen to yours as well.

In our “Month One” blog on team building we presented the IDEA of developing a Leadership Pipeline within your worship ministry.  This IDEA helped support that idea that building an EMPOWERED TEAM is a powerful Kingdom tool.  “Who’s responsible for who?” and “Who’s responsible for what?” are two of the most important questions that needs to be answered in any team environment.  When you lead a team with clarity and spread out the responsibility for others to own your team, you ignite growth opportunities that might have went unnoticed. 

In “Month Two” we presented the idea of “Making Recruitment and Assimilation a Normal for Everyone”.  So many times, I bump into Worship Leaders and Pastors that feel the very unfair burden of building ALONE.  With this IDEA, we present the notion that every team can build better and faster when the team members who are on the teams are your best recruiters.  Make this a normal practice.  At my church, we practice asking new team members to “bring one” with you.  We have found that by making this a standard practice at ground level, we never have to ask for participation from the 10,000-foot level.  Whatever is visible is what replicates.  Empower your best leaders to build.

So here we are. Month Three.

Idea #3. Clearly Identify and Communicate Simple On-Ramps.

I love my city.  I live in Lincoln, Ne.  Home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  I love the youthful spirit and progressive nature of our city.  I have even grown to love and cherish the special college football atmosphere that engulfs our city on game day.  It’s addictive to say the least.  But one thing that I am not a big fan of is traffic on game day.  There is one primary road that leads into Lincoln and over 90,000 fans make the trek to our city on game day.  There are probable more if you include tailgaters.  THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM: The roads infrastructure needs to be able to support the traffic flow to the desired destination.  If there are too many confusing pieces of communication, it would put our city into emergency mode and have catastrophic effects.  I mean, the world might come to an end if people missed a Cornhusker Football Game! (No, but seriously) ;)

Having clear and simple communication about “what to DO next” can make or break your teams culture. 

Every month I host a worship leaders round table in Omaha Ne.  At this round table, Worship leaders from multiple different denominations gather for friendship and peer coaching.  These leaders have become family and they are amazing.  We discuss a wide range of worship ministry issues.  One topic that comes up regularly is “attracting the right volunteers”.  If a leader starts to pour their heart out to me about how they can’t get enough volunteers, I always ask one question to start the conversation.  “Can you tell me about your on-ramp?” This might sound overly simplistic, but what I have found is that sometimes we make it more complicated than it needs to be or we haven’t identified the answer to the most important question at all.  Every leader on your team, in unity, needs to be able to answer this question with clarity and simplicity.

 THIS IS THE QUESTION

“Where do I go and What do I do?”

 Having clear and simple communication about “what to DO next” can make or break your teams culture. 

 Here are a few suggestions when it comes to identifying your onramp into your ministry:

       1.     KEEP IT SIMPLE-

Keep it simple in language and communication.  Your “on-ramp” shouldn’t be riddled with complex forms, interviews and assessments.  Not yet anyways.  Create an “on-ramp’ that just answers the question, “where do I go and what do I do?”.  Worry about next steps later.  But for now, getting a “willing one” to show up is your biggest win. Make it simple for them.

For example, I person asks about playing guitar on the worship team.  Any leader in your department should be able to have the same simple answer. ”I am so glad you are interested!  We host all our new volunteers on Monday Nights at 6:30pm!  Would you be my guest?!”

       2.     USE WHATS ALREADY WORKING AS YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD-

­What is already working in your church?  Do you have a rehearsal process that is spot on?  USE IT!  Is God’s presence so thick in your weekend worship services that lives are being transformed?  USE IT! I’ve made the mistake of overthinking and over programming.  I’ve launched the “extra” visitor’s night or the quarterly worship night with the intentions of attracting new people.  Sometimes those things work.  But the problem is that even though they may be effective, it takes a long time for those events to represent the culture and team that we want people to be attracted to. 

Identify what’s already working and utilize those moments to “on-ramp” your team.

        3.     KEEP IT CONSISTENT-

Nothing can steal the wind out of the sails of progress like a good dose of inconsistency.  If you “welcome” new team members on Monday nights, keep that consistent for a season.  If you “welcome” new people to your choir rehearsal and you celebrate leaders that brought them, don’t change that unless you are communicating change.  Consistency, on this point, allows us the opportunity to get buy in from our team! Consistency builds reliability. Consistency gives our leaders tools to build with.  (Side note:  We will be talking about “embracing change” and reinvention in the upcoming months.)

Consistency tells our teams that we aren’t building a kingdom that only serves us, but we are leading an army that can fight battles when we share the burden.

Identifying your “on-ramps” could be a simple strategy that could help you engage people better.  Below is a sample of an “on-ramps” document that I created for our kid’s ministry at our church.  This idea isn’t just for worship/creative teams, but for everyone.

It is essential that you clearly communicate the “WHERE/HOW” to START whenever you are building teams.  Keep your communication clear and simple.  Try utilizing opportunities that your church is already doing well to interact with potential volunteers.  Lastly, be consistent.  Everyone should know the answer to this question: “Where do I go and What do I do?”.

 Having clear and simple communication about “what to DO next” can make or break your teams culture. 

Jesus, I pray today for the burden and stress that our worship leaders and pastors feel daily. We pray that you would continue to grow our capacity to shepherd well.  Thank you for entrusting us with big things.  We are honored to pastor your people.

Please feel free to use this resource or any that you find at worship.coach. Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions about these three helpful tips.  I am always glad to help. 

Michael King @michaelkingjr
free resources available at www.worship.coach

Tony Rivera presenta la Biblia para la Guerra Espiritual, una poderosa herramienta que combina las Escrituras bíblicas con extractos de reconocidos autores expertos en la materia como: John Eckhardt, John Bevere, Iris Delgado y Kim Daniels.