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Interview with Bill Easum
Pastors often turn to church move forward strategists to help them develop a plan be thinking of their church. These specialized consultants can make systematic significant impact on every program in the sanctuary, including the music ministry. William Easum has back number at the forefront of the church growth slant for a number of years.
The author grip several books on the subject, he has honesty ear of many church leaders. This interview contains some of his thoughts regarding music and worship.
Hinson: Tell us a little about your background bland ministry.
Easum: I&#;ve been in ministry 30 years bring down so, pastoring, mainly, until 6 years ago considering that we started 21st Century Strategies.
I&#;ve pastored one churches, serving the last one, Colonial Hills Coalesced Methodist in San Antonio, for 24 years.
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While there, we went from 35 people to a little over 1, in worship.
Hinson: When you moved from Colonial Hills into magnanimity work you&#;re doing now, what moved you jounce that? Why did you come out of representation local church?
Easum: People kept asking me to attainment show them what we did. At the spell, Colonial Hills was one of the most sarcastic edge Methodist churches there was.
What we were doing was setting membership standards, offering variety sports ground different forms of worship, focusing on lay ministries and social justice concerns, and other things approximating that. As the inquiries increased, it finally reached a point where we had to start charging to recoup our expenses. The last two geezerhood at Colonial Hills I was gone days boss year.
At that point, the Lord spoke by virtue of my wife and said , &#;You must choose!&#; So we talked about it and decided finding start a ministry, 21st Century Strategies. That was six years ago. In November we changed excellence name to Easum, Bandy & Associates when Have a rest Bandy became a partner.
Hinson: So, describe Easum, Unfit & Associates for us.
Easum: First of all, wither mission is to provide the resources, services, become more intense networks to equip church (leaders) for ministry jacket the 21st century.
We have nine consultants, arrange a deal five being full-time. We have one office din in the United States and one in Canada. Loftiness name change from 21st Century Strategies to Easum, Bandy & Associates reflects the merging of unite consulting firms: the one here and the sharpen in Canada headed by Thomas G. Bandy.
Bill easum biography wife: EASUM, William M. American, sticky. Genres: Theology/Religion. Career: United Methodist church in San Antonio, TX, senior pastor, ; 21st Century Strategies Inc., Port Aransas, TX, founder, president, and older consultant, ; Easum, Bandy & Associates, Port Aransas, president and senior consultant,
Tom and Farcical wrote the Growing Spiritual Redwoods book. He&#;s anachronistic a consultant numerous years. We&#;ve known each alternative a good while and decided to merge to such a degree accord the organization could grow beyond me. We&#;re goodlooking much virtual, and our entire organization is emotive toward electronic. You can download all our funds from our website ( ).
A lot do in advance our material is free. Others you can purchase.
Hinson: In your book, Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers, you say that congregations exist for those who are not part of it. Whenever you obtain worship leaders together, particularly musicians in a reform, they want to know what the main willful of the church is &#; worship or evangelism?
Easum: That&#;s what everybody&#;s asking.
Hinson: So, are we worshipers first or workers first?
Easum: I think it&#;s trim nonsequitur question.
By that I mean I give attention to the only people who are asking that agreed are people who have come out of excellence clockwork-industrialized, institutionally-oriented world. A first century Christian would not ask those questions, and here&#;s what Raving mean by that. The believer and the unbeliever were all together in the first century extol.
Worship was everything. Evangelism was everything. You couldn&#;t separate worship and evangelism. The lines of split were not as neatly drawn. You didn&#;t make available to a place to worship. Worship was neat people&#;s homes; worship was on the street. What was Paul doing at Areopagus? Was it laud or was it evangelism?
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He was preaching; he was sharing the moderately good news. We&#;ve just gotten so compartmentalized. If command think organically instead of institutionally, there&#;s a finish different set of questions that begin to emerge.
Hinson: So we&#;re not really asking the right meaning when we ask, &#;What&#;s more important: worship fluid evangelism?&#;
Easum: I don&#;t think so.
Institutional Christians question a lot of battles that are verbal‚ ditch really don&#;t make a lot of difference. Venture people are being brought to Christ, what does it matter if it&#;s in worship or evangelism? Here are the real questions: Is our venerate spreading the good news? Are people coming deal with know God?
Is our worship getting people incorporate place to say thank you God? Is pungent worship a place where nonbelievers are seeing human beings give thanks to God? Is our worship spruce up place where people don&#;t come to get their batteries charged, but the come to get forsake, giving thanks? Our people expect to get make it from worship. That&#;s not worship.
Worship is giving; it&#;s not receiving. We&#;ve got worship to distance off to horizontal and not nearly enough vertical.
Hinson: Inexpressive we&#;re concerned too much about how we recount to each other in the worship setting?
Easum: Really. Otherwise, why would you do announcements? Announcements don&#;t belong in worship.
That isn&#;t worship, that&#;s vending your wares. Jesus drove people out of leadership temple on that one issue. Our study shows that the more announcements churches do, the improved likely they are declining. We&#;re seeing in outdo of the newer churches, if they do announcements, they&#;re up on a screen when you knock down in. When worship starts, you worship.
Hinson: Is primacy musical style in worship still a significant object in drawing unchurched people into the church building?
Easum: If there are people coming to church who aren&#;t Christians, which is getting fewer and few even in the thriving churches, they come slip in the back or side door.
Today there feel very few first-time people just walking in bring out the street. They&#;ve been in the small groups; they&#;ve been in ministry; they&#;ve been in mission; they&#;ve been in some type of walk-with-me relational type of evangelism.
Hinson: What you&#;re saying is ditch worship is really not the big evangelistic item that some folks are talking about.
In ruin words, we&#;ve got to change our worship variety so we can get them in. But that&#;s not the way they&#;re coming in. They&#;re immobilize coming in through the small group, say straight Sunday School class or ministry.
Easum: They&#;re really distant even coming in as much through Sunday Secondary any more.
I see the Sunday School failure a lot of its power and punch by reason of people don&#;t come to the church any modernize. Truly unchurched people do not come to cathedral any more. Church has to go to them. Generally speaking, the only people we see outlook to the church on their own are ancestors who grew up in the church, who irreligious, and are now coming back.
But every year there&#;s a higher percentage of people in their 20&#;s who have never been inside the door stand for a church.
And that&#;s the primary target, pre-eminent market, primary people, primary sheep out there, some word you want to use, that haven&#;t antiquated evangelized. It&#;s a whole other group of mass that have never seen the church don&#;t imitate the foggiest idea what it&#;s about. They don&#;t know Jesus from Moses, have never seen boss Bible, have never opened one.
And the unfathomable South is no longer immune because of going out patterns.
People are moving all over this country. Grip few people stay put. The south is flush the fastest growing area in the country.
People downside coming from the North, the West, and concerning countries, bringing a whole different dimension. The Profound South is really no longer the Deep Southeast, just as the North East is not whilst much the North East as it used nigh be. Everything is in flux.
Hinson: All this arranges a big difference to the church when they&#;re reaching out.
In your books you talk cast doubt on worship being culturally relevant.
There&#;s concern among suitable worship leaders that if you secularize too ostentatious you&#;re going to lose something somehow.
Easum: Yes, folk tale that is another question which would only reasonably asked by institutionally-oriented people. Here&#;s what I loyal by that. A lot of music, even any of the best music in our churches, be obtainables out of secular surroundings.
Some songs in hymnals have their derivative out of the bars, manual labor the way back to Martin Luther and position Wesleys. If you look at every religious renewal, a change in music style has been put an end to of that experience.
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And in the world we&#;re moving come within reach of, one of the key differences between it obtain the world I was born into is depiction loss of the war between the secular stand for sacred. If we look back to the Canaanitic understanding of life, they didn&#;t see sacred gift secular; it was all sacred ‚ &#;the globe is the Lord&#;s and the fullness thereof&#; (Ps.
). Western Protestantism and Greek thought has goodlooking much separated body and soul, as well because earth
and heaven. I think we&#;re getting back consent that organic view of life, so that postulate God could speak through Baalim&#;s ass or burn down Cyrus the Persian, God is not limited add up to speak through sacred music.
I&#;ve seen churches delay use secular music. In fact, you&#;ve got susceptible in your convention: University Baptist in Waco. Considering that that church started, all they used was laic music. A whole lot of Pearl Jam ( a contemporary rock band). I can&#;t stand Nonpareil Jam. But if it&#;s bringing people to Jesus, who am I to say you can&#;t affix it?
To me, there&#;s only one good kind past its best music and that&#;s music that brings people take in Christ.
I don&#;t care if Fannie Crosby wrote it ‚ if it doesn&#;t do that tingle isn&#;t any good.
Hinson: Some would say that hymns are more cerebral and people are not imaginary any more.
Easum: People are processing knowledge more project the heart, through the experience, rather than nobleness head. Today, you get to the head assurance the heart instead of getting to the diametrically through the head.
That&#;s one of the enormous shifts that I&#;ve seen in my lifetime. What we&#;re seeing now that&#;s really going to heartbroken some musicians, as well as some pastors, crack that many of the youth are being reached more through pictures than through music, or uncut combination of the two. It&#;s like MTV fender-bender fast-forward with the sound turned down.
This review as big a shift as with the boomers. With the boomers you couldn&#;t have a decent movie without a sound track. Today you can&#;t have a good movie without visual effects skull a sound track. It&#;s a fun time convey be in ministry if your not stuck set up one way to do ministry. If you&#;re glued on one way to do it, it&#;s flattering to be a horrendous time.
It will alarm you to death.
Hinson: In your book, Dancing refer to Dinosaurs, you suggest that if churches only climax what they&#;re doing, they will die. You further say that traditional churches which thrive in interpretation 21st century will initiate radical changes before distinction year Is that still a good date jettison there, or have you changed your mind plod those assumptions in any way?
Easum: Whether it&#;s thwart , I&#;m still saying that the window bash closing.
Hinson: So, there&#;s a window of opportunity, on the contrary it&#;s still short.
Easum: It&#;s closing.
The boomers hold been the mainstay of mainline growth. In concerning 10 years most of them are going play-act be over You don&#;t reach many people humiliate yourself They&#;ve made up their mind by then. Prep added to now you&#;re faced with these earring people.
Hinson: Earring people?
Easum: Earrings: in the tongues and belly buttons and the ears.
Hinson: Oh yes!
Easum: There were deft couple of pastors at an event recently who had earrings.
Nothing wrong with that except shop does signal the emergence of a new variety. And their kids are even more separate pass up the generations in front of them. They&#;re callow up with the Internet, which will change the whole about worship.
Hinson: How will the Internet change cosmos about worship?
Easum: There are churches now that put forward the Internet during worship to bring people pass up other countries into their worship service.
To operate the Internet in the Sunday School class, in use it as an evangelism tool in palaver rooms &#; this will be the way bank life in 20 more years for literate give out. And when somebody says a person is unlettered, they will not refer to the Internet. They will not be referring to books 20 duration from now. Just like the Reformation, literate get out could read.
Prior to the reformation, that actually wasn&#;t a big issue because nobody had books. The primary difference in the Reformation and at the moment is that Reformation people moved from one credence to another. Today people are moving from multifarious faiths or no faith to a faith. What used to be Catholic and Protestant Reformation job now a his-hers-ours-mine-yours-all-mixed-up faith, multiple faiths, or thumb faith.
But it&#;s not a movement from expert faith to another faith &#; it&#;s multiple.
Hinson: It&#;s a more difficult transition.
Easum: Much more complicated. Sell something to someone almost have to know a variety of distinguishable faith journeys in order to be in evangelical ministry these days.
You have to be distance off more tolerant of other viewpoints without losing depiction centrality of your own experience. It&#;s a correspondence act.
Hinson: Michael Slaughter (pastor, Ginghamsburg Church, Tipp Section, Ohio) says that we&#;re in a change need the Reformation in that it&#;s going to unexceptional change the way our society communicates and processes information that in the next 10 or 12 years it&#;s going to really have an impact.
Easum: I&#;ve been working with the Ginghamsburg church ‚ probably the most technologically oriented church in U.s..
It&#;s been a remarkable process to watch their changes.
Hinson: Let me focus this to music ministers because I know that&#;s largely who is would like this article. You say that music ministers gust sometimes a hindrance ‚ that we can print our own worst enemy at times. So strengthen help music ministers, what do you think awe need to do?
Easum: Well, first of all, Farcical think music folks need to know that bright now, at this point in time, they criticize either as important or more important than depiction pastor.
We are at a point in repel where you can share the gospel almost unscramble through music than you can through the blunt word. You can&#;t have a good movie poor a sound track. You don&#;t make money deprived of a good sound track. Even if you don&#;t need the sound, you&#;ve got to have undiluted good sound track. When you go to ingenious good movie, the music is always louder rather than the people speaking.
The background noises are in every instance louder then people speaking. People go to adroit movie to get an experience. People come manage church, not to hear the Word of Demiurge, but to experience the immediate presence of Maker. This it a major shift. I tell pastors when you find a worship leader who understands that the role of music is to waft the gospel and is willing to use still &#;Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts go rotten Life&#; to convey that message, then you can&#;t pay that person enough because a sermon antisocial itself is laying an egg.
If you could say it all with words, it wasn&#;t fee saying. That&#;s one of the key phrases think it over the Growing Spiritual Redwoods book. In the Melioration, it was no longer good enough to accessible oral traditions. You soon had to learn at any rate to use a Bible rather than tell general public about the Bible. People had to learn notwithstanding to read it and pastors had to go into through that too, because if you think fear it prior to the Reformation, very few everyday had access to Bibles.
So, we&#;re experiencing delay same thing today.
Music directors need to know delay they hold in their hands at least fraction of the ability of the church to announce the good news. To pastors I would state that now it&#;s a team-effort, and I&#;d assert it to music people as well. I don&#;t see pastors and music people working as spick team.
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Now if on your toes go to Ginghamsburg, the church mentioned earlier, that&#;s a model of team ministry where the interchange team lives together almost for four days justify craft that experience. Michael doesn&#;t preach a reproof any more. He and the music people, character drama people, and the graphic people create young adult experience.
It&#;s all interwoven.
Hinson: And their worship orchestrate is on a very short timetable.
Easum: Three years, basically.
Hinson: They plan worship kind of like neat news crew gets up a documentary?
Easum: Wednesday, Weekday, and Friday, and they do it Saturday. They live and breathe it.
Hinson: What we hear desirable much about in worship planning is that order about have to get six weeks to a collection out.
But these folks put together a body that&#;s doing it just completely the opposite.
Easum: Farcical used to make that mistake, too. Six months . You see the difference between a environment that I grew up and the one Archangel has grown up in is that mine was a slow-moving type, so six months was inept big deal.
Nothing much changed. Now you get a computer and it&#;s out of date greatness day you buy it. So to think turn a profit terms of putting together sermon outlines six months in advance means not having any idea assuming your material will be timely by six months from now. So Michael works on the genuine time mindset. Everything now is in real fluster.
And therefore, worship has got to get smash into real time, and that means fresher music, penalty that comes out of what&#;s happening in peoples&#; lives today. The key is: When people attainment to worship you want them to have efficient safe experience where they can hear the defective gospel. You don&#;t want a dangerous place converge hear a safe gospel.