Kim Gentes

I've spent the last 15 years evaluating and recommending resources for worship ministries, churches, leaders, musicians, vocalists, audio/video techs and pastors. I've even written a book highlighting the best of those resources that I've found relevant to worship and music. But in that time and search, I've yet to recommend a resource that completely covers the topic of how to lead worship. There are several books and DVDs and resources that drill down on specific details, skills, issues or ideas- all of them good and needed. But what I was looking for was the one book that could serve as the manual or textbook for those with a calling to leading worship.  My search has ended.

In "How To Lead Worship Without Being a Rock Star", Dan Wilt has crafted a values-based approach to the calling, development and practice of worship leading. As the title indicates, Wilt is as concerned with answering the question of why to lead worship as he is to how. Right from the start, the author identifies the 800lb gorilla in church music: the fact that leadership of sacred worship has collided with the "American Idol" pop-culture on the Sunday morning music platforms of churches around the world. Wilt's pithy phrase brings these tensions into crystal clear focus in his introduction:

Excitement and danger - that is the privilege of worship leading.1

From that place, the book takes the reader on an eight chapter course that will engage all the necessary components of development to bring a person through detailed information, study, evaluation and questioning- all as a means to growth into worship leadership. The first chapter drills deep into the subject of why we worship and why leading is a part of local church expression of worship. This flows nicely into the second chapter which continues to carve out the foundations by addressing the core values that we must have undergirding our understanding and practice of worship leading. The final foundation stone of his book comes in chapter three, which is titled "The Character of the Worship Leader", in which the reader is made to face the hard questions of motivation, calling and desires in their hopes of participation in leading worship. These first three chapters are worth the cost of the book on their own, and as someone who has worked for years at developing other worship leaders the importance and value of these foundations can't be overlooked.

Chapters four and five kick into practical guidance on the skills, planning, practices and thinking behind great worship leading. Chapter four focuses on the functions, techniques and skills of the worship leader and chapter five drills down on the leadership of a worship band. Chapter six deals with the pastoral relationship and the role of mentorship as you help others in growing in worship leading. Chapter seven culminates this practical guidebook approach by articulating excellent points to helping you in "Becoming a Great Worship Leader". The final chapter revisits the main points of the book and returns the reader to foundational concepts of values that undergird this book.

Dan Wilt's book is as virtual "course in a book" on worship leading 101. If you are looking for a rock solid manual to help with teaching the foundational values of worship leading along with the essentials of practical worship ministry, you have struck gold with "How To Lead Worship..." by Dan Wilt. I would especially recommend this to those of you who may be training, mentoring or leading other worship leaders (whether Sunday morning or small groups)-- this is the one manual that can help you and those that you are mentoring! Because the book is laid out in eight distinct sessions (including salient points, chapter discussion questions and summaries), you can use it as you "ready-to-use" study that both you and your trainee will learn from. Wilt has used his years as a local church worship leader, pastor, college professor and mentor to worship leaders around the world to inform his very practical approach to creating and developing this manual- and it shines through.

There are certainly more things to learn and technical concepts to be drilled down on as a worship leader develops, but this book should be at the starting point as a foundational course text for churches, worship departments, and Christian colleges everywhere. It is practical, readable, honest, values-centered and encouraging! Get a copy of this physical printed book in your hands now! While it will be life-changing for the beginner, it can also serve as a great structural inspection for the values and operational architecture of those already operating in the call of worship leading.

Book Link: http://bit.ly/1a3U5w9

Review by Kim Gentes

1. Wilt, Dan (203). How To Lead Worship Without Being a Rock Star: an 8 week study.  (Page 4). Wild Pear Creative.

"Daring Greatly" is a brilliant and well-founded book that explores the relationship between vulnerability (and its antithesis- shame) and the human ability to thrive in various aspects of life. Researcher, professor and speaker Brené Brown presents a comprehensive treatise on the strength of weakness as encapsulated in the concept of vulnerability. Basing the book on almost a decade of grounded theory research, Brown pours out a narrative of our society: grounded in a culture of scarcity, steeped in shame, disengaged and dehumanized, we've become ineffectual and immobilized by our vices while remaining skeptical of a solution from the weak-kneed concept of vulnerability. Into that realm, she categorically refutes the myths of vulnerability and builds a bulwark of understanding, combating and refuting shame. By juxtaposing these two concepts- vulnerability and shame- the author gives practical tools for people to begin to reframe their approach to everything from work, to mission, to relationships and even to parenting.

What endears this book to the reader is its terse and pithy style in which Brown's "Texas-attitude-meets-Ivy-league-education" approach draws both research and reality into sharp focus. Brené Brown may be as brilliant a writer as she is a researcher, and one can only hope that she is as resilient with this kind of writing as her formula for combating shame-based systems. Her examples, her categorizing and her structure of the book brought me along effortlessly. Every time it seemed that she was about to run ashore with data, psychobabble and information overload, she would pull out another human story of what she was talking about. OK, I'll admit it. I welled up with tears a few times reading this book. Especially the parts that were about things I have dealt with, such as parenting, shame, work (success and failure) and more. Rather than make up hypothetical cases, Brown peppers this book with real life. The kind of real life that hits you in the heart like a sucker punch in the solar plexus.

The only "fault" I could find with this book was its later-half renditioning of iterated concepts into named "manifestos" and "checklists", which feels to this reader like a liturgical social contract that perhaps adds its own very tiny hint of shame to those who already feel burdened down by the expectations and shame this book otherwise so powerfully addresses. I say this not to berate the author's work, but merely to point out that it is the nomenclature of "manifesto" and "checklist" that perhaps places them on another long "To-do" list that our shame-laden society is already struggling to stand up under. I will take the great advice given in them as helpful, but may not want to call it a "manifesto"- a term which has so much charge and grandiosity as to make ignoring it something of a shame.

That point aside, the book explodes the heart with joy from every corner. The topics covered will be of interest to literally every person in western society. Who is not driven by the pressures of shame, afraid of the weakness of vulnerability, and out-gunned by the societal pressures of being the perfect parent? I absolutely LOVED what  Brené Brown says about parenting. I finally saw some actual explanation behind the occasional times of glistening success I've felt as a parent, and some solid solutions for parenting issues I am still struggling with. The chapter on parenting, alone, is worth the entire price of the book, although, frankly it makes little sense until you've read the rest of the book (as it appears, fittingly at the end of the volume). It is excellent and penetrating in its clarity of the essential aspects of relational connection and leadership with our children. To cite just one example (from which are many) is this obvious and brilliant axiom that emerges in her writing:

What do parents experience as the most vulnerable and bravest thing that they do... the answer was obvious: letting their children struggle and experience adversity.1

This is just a sample of Brown's common sense reality that mixes well with her deep research background to create a brilliant collage of wisdom in this chapter.

Now, finally, to my absolute most loved part of the book- the appendix. Call me a geek, and you'd be throwing a big stone into my glass house for sure. In the appendix Brown explains her particular approach to research theory and process. Her work has been taken seriously because she took it seriously. This was not a book written out of convenience or conjecture. Brown is driven by research. This is what I LOVE about this book, and from it comes an appreciation that has me reading it through a second time.

I've got to admit something. I don't like reading pop-psychology books. I especially don't like when they become phenoms that garner tabloid level press and afternoon talk show appearances. My disinclination to this kind of writing made me wince when I had found out that (after I had downloaded the book to my Kindle), it was widely celebrated in just these kinds of arenas.  But Brown's research, excellent writing and incredibly practicable solutions (that she details therein) dispel all of my concerns of being one of the "mob" running after the "hot fad" in pop-psych.

This book is excellent, timely, deep (but not technical), caring and enjoyable. An astounding feat in just 250 pages of text that fly by in a couple days.  If you have time to read just one book this year, make it this one. You won't regret it.

Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/106XPOt

Review by Kim Gentes

1. Brown, Brene (2012-09-11). Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (p. 238). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. 

"Forgiving means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin, but it is a loss that liberates the victim."1

This lithe statement makes clear what equation is required for solving the problem of reconciliation. It was this solution that was the heart and soul of the transformation that took place in South Africa in the last 20 years. As a prominent member of the ecclesiastical and moral movements within the South African nation, Desmond Tutu became an icon of leadership for the black people who had suffered  for decades under the crushing blows of apartheid. Tutu's book "No Future Without Forgiveness" is a personal memoir of his process and involvement with the, now famous, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which he chaired during its lifetime.

The commission's broad mission, mandated by the South African President Nelson Mandela, was two-fold. First, it was to engage a process which would discover the truth of the apartheid operation in South Africa, expose it, allow for confession of its terrible acts by the people responsible (under the auspices of a later process to amnesty), and look for verbal contrition related to those confessions. Secondly, it was to engage victims as well, and call for their testimony and courage to reveal the stories of their abuse and suffering. A later process of both amnesty and reparations was to follow the revelations brought out by the TRC's findings.

What is most surprising about the commission is not, however, the stories of horror brought forth by the victims, or even the admissions of guilt submitted by many of the perpetrators. What is most surprising is the consistent, real, verbal, physical, on-the-spot, heart-rending examples of forgiveness. In profound case after case, magnaminity flowed like the waters of healing through so much of the proceedings of the commission that the TRC, South Africa and Tutu himself became examples of the power of forgiveness for the entire world. Though the stated title of the commission included reconciliation, there was no true step in the process of its actions that guaranteed or even offered such a wild promise. Yet it encountered it time and again.

Tutu is quick to point out the failings, weaknesses, hurdles and sufferings of their efforts, as well as their successes and is all the bigger a human being for doing so. "No Future Without Forgiveness" is a definitive example of the gospel of Jesus becoming the good news for the 20th (and 21st) century human race. Without casting any religious encumbances on either the procedings or his book readers, Tutu guides both through a process of healing the begins with confession, leads to admission, responds with forgiveness and goes forth with reconnection and the beginnings of possible relationship.

While topic and content are ultimately the pinnacle of concerns for the human race, as a writer, Tutu runs slightly aground on a few points, but never endangers the work with irreprable harm. First, the book has several sections that repeat examples and recite cases. This would not seem odd, as the importance of the work demands repetition, but this happens so often and with such detail one believes a broader editorial presence might have scaled back some of the recitings as thinner references, with restating much detail. Second, there are several times when grammatical sense and structure were not attended to. Slight deference is given for the uniqueness of South African english which may fall askew from American english (or vise versa), but I found a few examples of clauses without whole sentences, which seemed odd. Both of these relatively minor authorship roadbumps seem like they could have been avoided by good editorial management.

That said, the book is engaging, unique and profoundly needed. So far beyond being a great book with no practical application, "No Future Without Forgiveness" is a success not because it is a literary juggernaut, but because it is an archive of amazing action that literally changed a nation.  Saying more about the content is not necessary, as the story is a compelling and inviting read for anyone who wishes to take it up.

An unstoppable book with an unstoppable message.

Product Link on Amazon: No Future Without Forgiveness

Review by
Kim Gentes

[1]Desmond Tutu, "No Future Without Forgiveness", (New York, NY: Random House 1999), Pg 272

Pastoral Care is an ancient volume written by Pope Gregory the Great in 591AD. It was written to instruct pastors on the details of their office, warnings to those entering its service and extensive instructions on how to administer spiritual care to parishioners. The primary content of the book is a systematic listing of methodologies for how to evaluate and speak to Christians under the pastoral care of the reader. The methodologies, called admonishments,  contain two basic components in each. First, each admonishment contains a paradoxical evaluation of two kinds of people. These are categorizations of the types of people a pastor will encounter. While they are fairly simplistic in name, it is their simplicity that makes them especially effective as diagnostic tools.  Each admonishment begins with a listing of the two paradoxical types of people that will be dealt with. A pastor can use those types to help him find (within Gregory’s extensive treatise) and diagnose the kind of person he is trying to help.  Second, each admonishment also contains a specific and detailed account of how to treat each person described therein. Especially clear is the assumption that Gregory feels his coverage of the subject as a whole should be sufficient for almost any situation, and he approaches it is an analogous manner to a physician, employing the metaphor extensively, and acting as a instructor to spiritual physicians.

One topic which Gregory deals with that I was particularly impressed by was his understanding of giving. He states it this way:

For when we administer necessities to the needy, we give them what is their own, not what is ours; we pay a debt of justice, rather than do a work of mercy..[1]

His discourse on giving is one of the most extraordinary I have seen. Though not without objectionable points, he perfectly applies a surgical knife to misguided thought about giving when he states:

"[one] gives of his bread to an indigent sinner, not because he is a sinner, but because he is a man. In doing so one actually nourishes a righteous beggar, not a sinner, for he loves in him not his sin but his nature." [2]

Though the work is vastly important and helpful to the pastoral office, it is not without its questionable suggestions:

The married must be admonished to bear in mind that they are united in wedlock for the purpose of procreation, and when they abandon themselves to immoderate intercourse, they transfer the occasion of procreation to the service of pleasure. Let them realise that though they do not then pass beyond the bounds of wedlock, yet in wedlock they exceed its rights. Wherefore, it is necessary that they should efface by frequent prayer what they befoul in the fair form of intercourse by the admixture  of pleasure.[3]

Sadly, Gregory’s pre-medieval understanding of the marriage bed will only serve  as a template to plunge the church and its leadership into 1300 years of further angst and castigation against sexual fulfillment through marriage in specific, and anything sexual in general.

Product Link : Ancient Christian Writers - The Works Of The Fathers In Translation - St Gregory The Great: Pastoral Care

 
Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Johannes Quasten, “St Gregory The Great: Pastoral Care” in Ancient Christian Writers - The Works Of The Fathers In Translation, translated Henry Davis, SJ (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1950), Pg 159
[2]Ibid., Pg 155
[3]Ibid., Pg 188