We love learning from others, and we love passing along what we’ve learned. We hope this blog continues to serve as a resource for you guys…from the practical to the random to the (hopefully) inspirational. But here’s what we’d like to know: How can we serve you guys better? Are there any questions you have that we could answer? Anything you’d like to know about our ministry?
We strive to be open-source around here. So we want to help. Talk to us. What can we do for you?
hello!
my name is matt, I am a youth pastor in Virginia Beach. First and foremost, I want to say that your worship CD is probably my favorite album, ever. Just ever. Not to give you big heads or anything, but it has enriched my worship, the worship of my students, and my church. It’s always on time, when I need uplifting, to coach me up before a message and the like. Plus, it helps that your pastor has been such a huge inspiration to me. but, I digress.
Our youth band has basically, over the last two years, been whittled down to me. Which is fine, cause worship isn’t about the band. But I know have students who are learning (fast!) how to play guitar, bass, keys. I don’t know if you can help or not, but, I have put out to the Webernet, to all that read my blog or are my facebook friends or twitter followers, that we need some equipment. These kids are poor, from broken homes, and God has done so much in their lives. I want to see them resourced to follow God.
So, if there is anything you could do, even if it’s prayer, we would greatly appreciate it.
In Christ,
Matt
P.S. Last night, we sang “The Church”. I have been teaching through Hebrews 11. This week we had 2 students in local high schools die. One was hit by a car yesterday morning, the other committed suicide over the weekend. I’m calling my students to believe God for the impossible. That they can be the love and the change that their hurting peers need. That Christ love will overcome their pain and sorrow and will restore it with joy and peace. This worship stuff is a part of that.
Thanks for being up for giving back. I was wondering if you have sheet music (piano) for your Kingdom Come album. Our pianist was asking for if it was available. Never hurts to ask. Thanks again.
I think it would be amazing if you guys would offer a worship/tech workshop (or whatever you would like to call it). You all have a lot to share and it could benefit tons of people!!! You all are role models to so many worship leaders and teams and I personally would love it too!
thank you so much for being Kingdom-minded and being willing to help out other churches! Have you guys ever considered selling your background tracks / click tracks to your original songs? Some weeks it’s hard to pull off making good background tracks for every song, but that could be an incredible resource if we could just buy some to save us some time. We’ve gotten a few from North Point before, but Elevation writes some awesome stuff. Just a thought!
I agree with the clicks/tracks idea. Maybe even the Reason files for the songs? Please?
Also, I’d like to hear more about the philosophy behind the way you guys do worship ministry. Do you pay players? Why or Why not? How does the multi-site thing work regarding both leadership and logistics? Why do you wear skinny jeans? You know…the deep questions of worship ministry. Can’t wait for the new stuff.
I’m a new follower and it would be great to know work flow/timelines and even amount of staff hours invested on certain projects to help give other church creative staffs a better idea as to what is standard/optimal, etc
Do you have sheet music available that can be purchased from you?
Thanks
Pastor Mark
Chris, Jon and Mark I’m sure they will get back to you on this but their charts and loops and such are freely downloadable on the resources section of their website. http://www.elevation-worship.com/resources/
One thing I have always wanted to see is like a static wide shot of the service from beginning to end. I know the elevation experience is sorta like that but I would love to see all the little stuff too, how you guys transition from element to element. Someday I’ll make it over there for a weekend service but until then something like this would be awesome.
Hey Guys……I was wondering if you could give any information on your videoing process and distribution to your different sites. What do you use to distribute the sermon to the other sites? Thx for all you guys do.
First off I love Elevation! You guys are blessed. Our church is trying to figure out the best way to run 2 keyboards. one for more piano driven sounds and one for more ambient pads. It would be helpful to see a run through of your set up and how it works. Also just an over view off how things are mic’d (drums, guitar amps), and how you guys are running the bass (amp or preamp di). Thanks so much for being so willing help other ministries
I was wondering what your songwriting process is like. I know a lot of you write the songs, but where do you start? Melodies, chord progression, lyrics, etc.
How much rehersal goes into each worship experience? Do all of your musicians own their own equipment or is some of it owned by the church? Do you guys go for a specific look clothing-wise? Who decides what songs you do on a Sunday morning?
Most importantly, when does the live CD come out?
These are great guys. We’ll do our best to help answer the more in depth ones in the coming week or two. To answer some shorter ones briefly:
We have charts available on our site for free download under RESOURCES page.
We don’t currently have sheet music available for our songs though. Hopefully one day.
We have loops available for free download from our last two albums under RESOURCES page. That’s not full backing tracks, but it’s a start.
Again, thank you guys for supporting the ministry. We’re honored to be a part of moving the Kingdom forward with you.
Thanks so much for your willingness to serve with and along side other ministries, in order to achieve ONE purpose.
My church in Lexington, SC just entered its 2nd month of having worship on Sunday mornings. One thing that I’ve struggled with is finding musicians around town that are “down” with playing at a church. Either I’m approaching my search completely the wrong way or God wants us exactly where we are with keys, bass, acoustic and drums. I guess my question is, being a new church, how do you “sell” players on the idea of being a part of something new? I have a vision for so much more with the songs that we have written, I just need a couple guitarists to make it happen. I’ll hang up and listen to your thoughts.
Thanks so much!
Thanks for being willing to help build up worship leaders and the like so that they can go out and build up others. Just think of the impact you’re having!
First, thanks Chris for answering my question on the previous post.
What I think would be uber-helpful and help answer a lot of questions we may have (and maybe a lot of questions we don’t even know we have yet) is recording from your beginning stages of planning for a service, so that we can see what goes into it. THEN also record the worship service itself so that we can see how all the planning came together.
A lil mini documentary of how you guys go from incubation of a worship service to LIVE would also serve to help your current and especially new team members know how you do things.
This post is more amazing than words can express. The reason being is I wanted to know if you offer any training, possibly even personal? I am attending a Bible College now that offers music training, but I know what they would provide me wouldn’t come close to the quality of training you guys could offer. I’m desperate to grow and learn musically. If you’re unable to offer me training, could you give a suggestion of what I could do to grow musically, specifically vocally? How did you get to the place that you’re at now? I appreciate your time and any suggestions you could give. Thank you for taking music to a higher level!
Yo Elevation!
1. I would love you to talk about how you find incredible musicians to be a part of your ministry?
2. How do you inspire your musicians to do more than play music and transition to lead in worship?
3. What training do you do/have you done to improve vocal and instrumental ability in already solid musicians?
Love you all and praise God for what He is doing through you at Elevation!
I am a choir director and singer who was raised in a very traditional church. Our children talked us into going Elevation 4 years and I cannot tell you what a blessing it’s been! I appreciate the hard work that you do that goes in to offering firstfruits to God through music. I teach a praise band class in a Christian high school here in Charlotte and we use Elevation music quite a bit. You can tell that a good number of our students attend Elevation because they join in singing in chapel. One thing that is hard for our students to grasp in the band is that leading worship is different from performing. They have a hard time connecting to the audience and worshipping while they are performing. I know this comes with lots of practice and maturity but we would appreciate any words of wisdom you could give us in this area. Better yet, we’d love to have one of you drop by and talk to our students! Thanks for all you do!
Hey guys. Just an encouragement, i come here every day to learn from you all!!! Thank you so much for your servants hearts and willingness to pour into us. Im wondering if you have any elevation worship guidelines. Something like a structural guide to what it takes to be a member of the team. Im putting together my first guide book with expectations and requirements, how practices will be run, and what to expect for every sunday. Just wondering if you have anything available like that to use as a guide. We dont want to mimic, but inspire the same culture of worship that you have all seen at Elevation.
Thanks so much guys!!!
Chris
I attend Elevation on a weekly basis and am always amazed at how organized the church as a whole is and yes the music ministry also. I had considered auditioning at one time but realized the level of professionalism and musicianship is way beyond my abilities. I know I have heard many time about the great music being “birthed” at elevation. Have you all ever talked about or considered helping to prepare, guide, instruct etc the next generation of musicians, songwriters that are currently attending the church. For example maybe youth bands made up of teenagers that could be tutored by the elder musicians to help them prepare to take over in future. I know you guys are still young and not even thinking about anything like that but helping to prepare our youth is one of the most important things we can do. I see that also as a way to help to spread the Elevation way of doing things. As teenagers we know they go off to college move away etc but maybe that would help to create a whole new generation of musicians to help spread the word of God. Keep up the great work guys.
Thanks for all that you do. I have been singing your songs at our church the past couple years.
I am interested to know what exactly your vision was and how you choose songs for the services.
How do you teach your musicians there individual parts. I know you can send the mp3 but how do you make it clear what parts you want each musician to learn?
Hi guys! Thank you for taking the time! It’s pretty awesome.
I used to lead worship for a youth group at a small church in SC and sadly things happened and the church split. I have always felt like that was what God called me to do, mainly because when I was doing that I felt most at peace. I currently go to a very large church in SC and don’t really know how to even begin to get plugged in musically.
Any advice would be helpful. Thank you!