One Week at New Life Worship
New Life Worship is a collective of worship leaders and musicians that serve at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO. With a rich history of serving the church with songs like Strong God, Great I Am, I Am Free, and Here In Your Presence, New Life Worship are stepping into a fresh season.
They exist to nourish a biblically faithful, historically rooted, musically skilled, and vibrantly prophetic multi-generational worship culture with a focus on encountering the living God - both in the “here and now” and in the confidence of what is to come.
Their team gives us a glimpse into who they are at their core, their worship posture, how they go about selecting songs and more.
WHO IS NEW LIFE WORSHIP?
JON EGAN: For 30 years, we have been writing and releasing worship songs from our church in
Colorado Springs. Our worship has been defined by a strong commitment to our local church and
radically marked by our story. Losing our lead pastor and then, 13 months later, violence breaking out on our campus- to a global recession months after that, our church learned how to worship.
Like David said in Psalm 51 “Going through the motions doesn’t please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.” - Ps. 51:16-17 MSG
Like David, our church learned worship through the trials. We have been writing and
singing through every trial and every victory for decades. Songs of victory even when in the
valley. Songs of triumph even in darkness, and by the grace of God, songs of joy when dancing
on the mountain top. Well known songs like I Am Free, Overcome, Great I Am, Your Name,
Make A Way, Strong God, What You Said, and Be Strong have stretched outside our walls and
found their way around the world, and many more have been anthems for our community. They
all come from rich soil of worship in our home, New Life Church.
HOW DO YOU APPROACH LEADING A ROOM IN WORSHIP?
JON: Worship leading is not for the worship leader, worship leading is for the church. It’s to help the church give worship to God. I’m continually surprised to watch worship leaders on stage get lost in ministering to God while the people are either left behind or worse, feeling strange or feeling forced to watch. Whether in a small room or a large one, our job as worship leaders is help the people join with others and bring unified praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
If a worship leader brings the same energy to small group that they bring onstage in front of thousands, that will not help the room.
If they bring the same energy they bring to a small group to the stage in front of thousands, that will not help the room. When you make the people in the room the priority, you will adjust your tone and leadership to serving the moment appropriately. This is what ultimately will minister to God.
HOW DO YOU EFFECTIVELY DEVELOP VOLUNTEER TEAMS?
KYLE SMITH: Volunteer teams for church can be such a wild-card, and the target, or what you have to work with is always different from church to church. The people, their skills & ability, the volunteer culture, the demands of the services, all of these things play a part in volunteer recruitment and development.
The best thing I have done over the last 12 years of working with volunteer teams is create a clear system for development that I can use to identify and communicate growth areas for our players and singers.
With each of the instruments, I know what the base level of skill is needed for them to be able to play in our weekend services, and I have that clearly laid out for myself, so I know what is absolutely necessary. I also have a clear understanding of what the goal is, what the best players in our teams can do, at each of their positions. Then I have developed a clear path of growth from what the floor is, to the goal, with different levels of skill all throughout, and then I can work with a volunteer over the course of several months or even years to grow in clear, specific ways.
Here is an example: Let’s start with drums, because that is the instrument that can have so many
nuances to the skill they have, yet it is SO important for a drummer to be solid for a worship set
to go well. At the very base level, in order for a drummer to play at some of our different services, they have to be able to do a few things:
• They have to be able to play to a click
• Keep in time in 4/4 and 6/8 time signatures
• Replicate the basic patterns of songs
• Have some way of practicing on their own (I’d prefer not to have a drummer who only practices on their steering wheel :)).
If they can do those things, we can typically work with them to begin growing more and more.
The goal is to not only be able to play at the level of proficiency of what we record on albums,
but to be able to flow with the worship leaders from week to week, and learn to create and adapt
parts on the fly.
There are a lot of steps between the base level of skill and the goal, and there are some real
practical things I instill in our newer drummers.
Here is a list of some of the things I try to work on with our newer drummers from the base level skill to the goal we are trying to develop them to:
• We develop shared language for when worship leaders are asking for a build in a song or
specific type of groove (I use the same language for each drummer so it’s consistent)
• I work with them to learn to play to the dynamic of the moment and the room, volume-wise
and energy wise
• I start to work with the drummers to not just learn and master the songs, but start to learn how
to make transitions and flow moments seamless
• I start asking them to work on their ghost-notes & pocket, this is a step further than just
learning the basic patterns and parts of the songs
• As they grow, I start getting more specific and particular about parts from albums or songs we
are playing week to week
• Once they are able to consistently replicate what we hear on the recordings of the songs, I start
to ask them to create their own parts, typically for flow moments, or if we are trying a new
arrangement of a song
While having a specific goal in your mind is extremely helpful to be able to clearly communicate
growth-points to your volunteers, it’s important to remember that no one has ever fully
arrived. Even with our best drummers, guitarists, bassists, keys players and worship leaders, we
all continue to grow. For each of these positions, I have found it incredibly useful to have a clear,
even at times written out path for what the baseline skill is needed for someone to serve in our
church, what my goal is for them to get their skill to, and what specific steps I would like to see
mastered in the in-between.
That way when I feel something is not hitting the mark, I am not
grasping at some vague standard I have, and I know how to communicate clearly to my volunteers what their next step of growth is.
One other important piece of volunteer development is to remember that, as it pertains to
worship ministry, there may be different venues or services where someone can serve, and it may
be best for them to start in a low pressure environment. For a volunteer who wants to serve, and
can meet some of the minimum requirements but may not be ready to play or lead at the main
services, look for low-pressure environments for them to get some reps under their belt. This
could be in student services, prayer meetings, young adults ministry nights, or whatever that
might look like for your church.
Those are great places for volunteers who are almost ready to
play for main services, but need to grow in some specific areas before they get there.
HOW DO YOU APPROACH DEVELOPING AND MENTORING YOUNG WORSHIP LEADERS?
DANNY & DANICA LAGUNA: We have had the privilege of working with young, up-and-
coming worship leaders in our young adult’s ministry, and here are some of the things we found
have led to the most success:
1. Pinpoint the talent and the anointing.
This requires equal amounts of musical and spiritual discernment. Musical skill is an obvious
requirement in worship leadership, and it’s important to note that any skilled musician could be a
worship leader if that was the only requirement. It’s even more important to sense the spiritual
anointing on their lives for the role. As leaders, what we are ultimately looking for is a good
balance between musical competency and character that is attuned to Christ.
2. The best place to start developing a young leader is relationship.
We start by developing an intentional relationship as friends and mentors. We gain the trust and
respect to speak into not just what they do on stage, but also how they live their lives as a
follower of Jesus. We have always worked hard on the front end to develop this type of
relationship through intentional group moments.
In our ministry, we hold a pre-service prayer five minutes before we play together, to look our
team in the eyes, remind them they are more than just a green Planning Center check mark on a
service plan and come into unity with God’s plan for the service. We also hold a post-service huddle where we ask what they felt God was up to in the service, the good things they noticed in
each other, and we ask how we can pray for them.
We look for as many small opportunities at church to ask about how our volunteers are doing in
life, to encourage the things they’re doing well, and to mention points of growth we see. With
this we always offer a practical solution for actually achieving this growth. We look for bigger
opportunities to spend time with them in our home to connect on a relational level rather than
allowing our relationship to exist exclusively on stage/at church.
3. Give opportunities to lead with clear direction and a clear target (start with small opportunities, scale them up as you see them grow, accept feedback, and buy in).
We always start out by giving our new worship leaders opportunities to lead a co-led song with one of us.
“Pure Exaltation” and “Even If” are some song examples from our own catalog. The next
step often looks like giving them an entire song in a part of the set where they do not have to
carry any pastoral weight. Once they are succeeding in those areas, we will encourage them to
exhort over the intro of a song, often the opening song of the set, as that exhortation moment is
typically a welcome to the service and an invitation to worship. Finally, we will ask them to take
the lead on a whole worship moment (exhortation before the song or over the intro, lead the
song, lead a spontaneous worship moment after the song is over).
WHAT DOES THE PROCESS OF PLANNING A SET LIST LOOK LIKE FOR YOUR TEAM?
KYLE AND LAUREN SMITH: Each week, we work hard to plan excellent services for God and make space for Him to move. As we have been planning sets for our ministries and churches for over 10 years, we have found that having a method to planning sets & services is necessary for a few reasons.
Firstly, this is the gathering of the people of God in the House of God.
People spend so many hours in so many places throughout the week, but for a few hours once a week the people of God get to come together to worship Him corporately. As worship leaders we are planning and stewarding the time that's being spent together, and that time is precious, it's Holy-and it has the potential for lasting life change, so it's deserving of our attention and intentionality.
Second, because we are housing and hosting the glory and presence of God, everything matters. From the songs we choose to sing, to the notes we play, the keys that we pick, our transitions, the scriptures we read, and the theology we teach through our sets-it all matters. When we pray and when we choose songs, we are putting those words onto the lips of the people of God and asking them to say yes and amen to it. So every word we choose is important.
We've come to the belief that it's important to have a philosophy that's based on a theology of worship.
Having a philosophy that's based on a theology means that the activity in the house of God is rooted in the Word of God, and it helps develop a marked out and well worn path that your people in your One of the key scriptures that shapes our theology of corporate worship is Revelation 4 & 5. We see a picture of what is happening in the throne room in Heaven-all the angels, living creatures, and elders are singing to God about God. We don't get the tune or the genre of the songs in heaven, but we do get the content. It is ascriptive language of worshiping God, singing 'holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,' and 'Worthy are you, Lord.' So, we aim to land in this similar language by the end of each of our sets, giving us and our people a glimpse of heaven.
In developing a philosophy based on a theology we have found that there are a couple things that are really helpful when planning worship sets and keeping it organized.
1. It's important to have a written down canon of the songs of your church.
Over the course of 52 weekends, we tend to sing between 4-6 songs per weekend, which adds
up to roughly 260 songs per year. At the same time, people in the American church have a track record of, on average, attending 2.5 weekends per month. Taking this into account, when we think about how many times we as worship leaders hear and play a song by the time a congregant might hear it once, it's usually at least 3-4 times, after rehearsals and services. So while we can get burnt out on songs relatively quickly after playing them for several weekends, and multiple times per weekend, they may still be new to many in our congregations.
We have a written down canon, or list, of the songs we sing at our church, and have found that
it helps us organize and track what we are singing, evaluate what we are singing, as well as regulate how often we are introducing new songs to our church.
This tool helps us organize and keep track of what we are singing over the course of a year by listing all of the songs we've been singing, and it serves as the written down list of songs we reference when we are planning new sets each week.
This doesn't mean that we never sing songs that aren't on this list, there are always songs our church will know but maybe don't get regularly planned, but this list helps us keep a record of what is being regularly sung on a weekly basis. This tool also helps us evaluate the songs we are singing in a very honest way. With having a written down canon of songs, we can quickly begin evaluating what content we are singing from week to week.
We can quickly see whether we are singing a lot about one aspect of God or only certain types of songs and see if we are really giving our people a balanced theology of worship through our services over the course of the year. This tool helps us regulate how often we are introducing new songs to our church as well by reminding us of what we are committing to as the songs we will sing regularly. If we are committing to stick to this list for most of the sets we are planning, we don't allow ourselves to sing new songs every single week.
Regulating the amount of new songs we sing week to week can be extremely beneficial, especially if engagement is one of the goals. We've found introducing only about 8-12 new songs per year is a good balance for us of keeping a familiar rotation of songs in our sets, as well as singing new songs with our people.
2. We categorize our songs in our canon by their content and language.
We realized early in our worship leading years that sometimes, we would get off stage from a
time of worship and feel like we hit the target. We gave something significant and costly, our eyes
were on God and not ourselves, and the presence of God fell in a truly powerful way. Sometimes,
however, we would get off stage and for some reason, it didn't feel the same.
And I remember thinking so often, why is it that sometimes we hit the mark, and sometimes we don't? What even is the mark?
This is where our theology of worship began developing around the scriptures in Revelation 4
& 5. In that passage, John sees the vision of the throne room in heaven, and in the place where God has everything exactly as He wants it, the songs He has sung about Him around the throne are saying 'Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty.' If you flip through those passages, they are songs of total ascription, magnifying and worshiping God.
They're less about our testimony, and more about His glory.
So we aim to have each of our sets end in that kind of ascriptive place. Songs like Revelation Song, Holy Forever, and If Ever (NLW Song), fit this category. If you pull up the lyrics of these songs, they give us a picture of heaven, and turn our eyes upward, beholding God and worshiping Him for His holiness and worthiness. We call these throne room songs.
While this is the goal, the destination of our worship sets, songs with this kind of content aren't
all encompassing of the language in a corporate worship set.
We like to start our sets with songs of gathering, songs with content similar to some of the Psalms of ascent found in the book of Psalms. Some of the songs that would fit into this category would be 'Here for You,' 'Open the Gates,' or 'Everything that's in Me.' These songs have language that serve to gather the people of God and declare what we are here to do. For example, Open the Gates starts with, 'Our praise awaits You with the dawn, our souls awake to You and lift a song.' Starting sets with songs like this make an opening statement about why we have gathered as a people.
In between the gathering songs and the throne room songs, there is so much to say and sing about our testimony.
Here, songs like “Lord I Need You,” “Goodness of God,” or “Make a Way” fit so well to highlight what God has done in our lives, or what He has done for us as a people of God.
When planning corporate worship sets, I often ask the question, where are my eyes turned to?
In the gathering songs, I begin changing my focus from whatever I brought into the room, and towards the corporate gathering I am joining. My eyes are turned towards coming to the Lord, entering His gates with thanksgiving, acknowledging and celebrating that I am joining in with the people of God as we come to lift our voices and our hearts to our God. As the set continues, through the testimonial songs, I recount all of the ways the Lord has saved me, how he has delivered me, and what He has done.
In this, my eyes are turned to what He has done for me, which draws my heart to worship Him.
And finally, we arrive at the place where our eyes are fully drawn upward, beholding Him for who He is. In this place of ascription, this place of reverence and worship, our hearts are drawn by the glimpse of heaven that we get, and we join with the heavenly song as we sing 'holy, holy, holy.'
We care so deeply about how we plan worship sets-the songs, the keys, the scriptures, the call to
worship, any speaking parts, the dynamics of the music-because it's all to usher in the precious and powerful presence of God. It all matters.
