Kiki's Worship Blog

In Chapter 13, Kauflin gives us tips on how to choose the right songs for worship.  He points out that when we rush and stress, we tend to focus on ourselves and how to make us look good.  We obviously should be picking out songs for God, not ourselves.  Instead of rushing, we need to plan our set lists selectively, peacefully, and prayerfully. I believe we can resonate a lot with choosing songs for the wrong reasons.  Often we find ourselves searching for songs that we know well, so we can do well.  There's too much of "us" in that statement and not enough of God.  We also choose songs to excite the student body, so that they can sing along and make us feel better while performing.  We should be choosing songs solely for God and His worship.

In Chapter 12, Kauflin gives valuable advice for how we choose and play our songs and gives us the reasons as to why we should be doing it.  People often repress their emotions during worship, but they shouldn't.  There is a difference between emotionalism and emotions.  Emotionalism pursues the feelings as the end themselves, while emotions are felt because of what God has done.  Worship should be focused on God for these emotions, not emotionalism.  As for actually playing music, Kauflin advises that we should choose meaningful songs with meaningful lyrics.  We should adjust the volume of our playing accordingly, because the real worship team is the student body.  Lastly, we should use variety in our songs.   I agree with what Kauflin said about emotionalism.  Students associate worship with the tingly feeling they feel in their chest during their favorite Jesus song.  They focus on that instead of God.  The emotions they ...