Worship Ministries

Vision/Mission

We support the church’s mission statement of “To honor God by helping people find and follow Christ” by following this mission statement:

Objectives

1. To provide excellent leadership through the Arts that will enable people to worship God, understand spiritual truth, and respond with increased obedience to His leading.

2. To develop a lifestyle of worship, and to do so in deep community with people we love. (Ps 92)(Heb 10:25)

Philosophy and Goals:

Because this is a valuable ministry, the requirements are high. We are very selective about who preaches; in the same way, we are very selective about who communicates through Worship Arts. (II Chron 31:2, 20:21; I Chron 15:16)

• A. Spiritual Maturity: A living growing relationship to Jesus Christ. A model that will be seen as an outpouring of what God is doing in your life. (I Tim 1:16)
• B. Servant’s Heart: Be humble and willing to do anything for God, surrendering your gifts and talents to be used as the Lord and the team leaders see best. Our attitude should be, “I’ll do anything you need, anytime I can. If you can’t use me, I won’t be hurt; if you can use me, I won’t be proud.” Our motto is, “It’s not about me, and it’s not about now.” It’s all about Jesus, others, and eternal things! (Rom 12:3-8)
• C. Team Player: Be able to work well with others to accomplish our objectives. When we lead people in worship we are prime targets for the enemy. We cannot be united in spiritual warfare if we’re not right with God and each other! (Eph 4:12-13, Phil 2:1-5) D. Strive for excellence: Not having any Worship Arts is better than bad/mediocre Worship Arts. Excellence is not perfectionism (which is bondage), but doing our best for God’s glory. (I Chron 15:22, 25:7, II Chron 34:12-13, Ps 33:3)

If you are interested in serving on the Worship team, here are a few things that we as a worship ministry strive for:

-Our ultimate goal each week is to serve the Lord and bring glory to Him through the gifts that He has given us. We want to do to everything to bring glory to God. (1 Cor. 10:31) We desire to serve in such a way that draws attention to the Lord and not to us.

-In our heart of hearts we are serving an “audience of one”- God himself. (Col. 3:23) This is not a performance so much as it is serving as unto the Lord, and if that is the heart’s motivation, the rest of Swan Lake will be blest as well.

-A phrase that we have adopted is that we seek to glorify God with “undistracting excellence” (as opposed to perfection) in our music.

-There is a tremendous pull toward seeking the approval of men when one is involved in a public worship ministry. By nature, we crave people’s approval. Seeking to gain people’s approval is an unattainable goal and a snare of the enemy. (Matthew 6:1, Gal. 1:10) Our goal is to point to Christ and bring glory to him, whether or not we gain approval from people.

-All of us in the body of Christ have unique gifts and we seek to use these gifts to glorify God and build up the church. (1 Cor.12:12) We have the privilege of using the musical gifts God has given us to build up and bless the body of Christ.

-God has revealed Himself to us through the His Word, the Bible. God’s Word is living and active (Heb. 4:12), therefore we seek to worship through songs that conform to the truth of Scripture.

-We desire to engage both the head and the heart in worship. We want to have a deep and accurate understanding of God, and we desire for this to draw our hearts and emotions into an appreciation of the glorious Gospel and a love for God Himself.

If you are interested in singing or playing an instrument:

-You are welcome to come and check out a worship team practice any time. We practice most every Wednesday night.

-We would like to practice with you at least two times before you would be a part of the worship service, for you to get to know us and for us to get to know you.

-We would need to have an informal interview in which we would hear how the Lord has worked in your life.

-We would need to listen to you sing or play your instrument in front of a couple of the worship leaders.

-Anyone still in high school is welcome to come to practice any time as well. We handle those who haven’t yet graduated high school on an individual basis.

Again, thank you for your interest in serving in the worship ministry. We hope that the verses listed above express the desire of your heart as well. We look forward to serving with you!

Sound Technician

Training

1. Anyone interested in becoming a sound technician is welcome to come to a worship team practice and learn more about what the ministry is like.

2. Those interested in running should plan to come to at least three Wednesday practices (as consecutively as possible) to learn from a sound technician. This time should be considered a trial period to confirm interest and determine competency.

3.  Following initial training, the trainee should plan to shadow a sound technician during a Saturday evening/Sunday morning worship service for a minimum of two weeks,   and then be shadowed for a minimum of two weeks while operating the sound during a Saturday evening/Sunday morning service.

If you have more questions or wish to be involved in the ministry of sound technician please contact Brad Meulebroeck (507-929-0585) or Tim Loe (507-530-5529).

Questions?  Interested?  Contact Tim Loe @ 507-530-5529 and thank you for your interest in serving the body of Swan Lake!