Adler Ministry Group - Adler Ministry Group - News&Observations;

Date Night at Ross Bridge Reviews!

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

My wife and I look at things differently now. We will continue to build upon what we learned.

God is so good!! What a blessing this weekend was for my husband and me and our friends who joined us. God used Rick, Sherry, Linda, and you in a mighty way this weekend. I am overwhelmed by the renewal and challenge I received at the retreat.

As Rick mentioned, it is time to let everyone go and pray they will use what they learned.

Last year was good - this year was GREAT!!

The other couples that assisted were so nice and helpful and concerned that we were enjoying our time. What a wonderful group. Thank you so much for all of the gifts at check-in and the breakout session as well as the door prizes.

Date Night at Ross Bridge

Tue, 17 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Invest in your marriage this summer!

Michael and Linda Adler

and special guests, Rick and Sherri Burgess

present

DATE NIGHT AT Ross Bridge

At the Renaissance Ross Bridge Golf Resort and Spa

Information and Registration at the web site

www.DateNightAtRossBridge.com

Friday Thru Sunday, July 29-31, 2011

Wake Up America

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Sometimes we finish an event and we realize that we've really been able to work in our "sweet spot".

Scott Dawson and his team really affords us that opportunity when they invite us to come and lead their guests in worship. The "Wake Up America" conference in Sevierville, Tennessee, was that sort of event and Linda and I came away with a big smile on our faces at all that God allowed us to do.

Worship times were scattered throughout this three day event at the beautiful Sevierville Conference Center and Wilderness Hotel. Each time we called the attendees to join us, the participants jumped in with all their hearts and were much more than an "audience".

Leading worship before Mike Huckabee spoke was a real highlight for both of us. We got to meet and speak with Mike back stage before the evening event and he just exudes warmth and genuineness in his demeanor.

DATE NIGHT AT THE GRAND

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Invest in your marriage this summer!

Michael and Linda Adler

and special guests, Rick and Sherri Burgess

present

DATE NIGHT AT THE GRAND

At the Jewel of the South, the fabulous
Grand Hotel Marriott Conference Center, in Mobile, Alabama.

Information and Registration at the web site

www.DateNightAtTheGrand.com

Friday Thru Sunday, July 23-25, 2010

HYMNS ALBUM UPDATE

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Our "Hymns" project is nearly finished. We are in the final mix stage, then it is shipped off to Hank Williams at Mastermix in Nashville, then on to Texas for processing and packaging. We're expecting them in hand by April 2. We'll have sound samples up on line soon.

Twelve ancient and modern hymns arranged by Michael Adler and sung by Michael and Linda Adler. Programmed by musician / drummer Richie Pena (Natalie Grant; Babyface) Guitars by Mark Baldwin Engineered by Rob Searcy. Songs include “Jesus What a Friend for Sinners”, “Thy Mercy My God”, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”, “Power in the Blood”, “I’ll Fly Away” and more, plus special bonus Adler arrangement of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow / When We All Get to Heaven”.

New Year - New Chapter

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

God has led Linda and me thru so many amazing chapters that it is hard to even focus on just one era.

Some chapters were full of adventure, big projects, activities and lots of events.

Wait a minute .... ALL of the chapters had those characteristics.

Some chapters, especially those when we first began, were like a child taking giant steps trying to be big. We had great responsibilities, but we were truthfully just still young and inexperienced. Soooo... we just took big steps and tried to keep up.

Some chapters were full of challenges and one had to look hard to find a consistent source of joy. Somehow those seasons actually made those grown up steps come a bit more easily and in retrospect, God was putting us on the fast track of growing up.

Some chapters went by far too fast. Those were the seasons where activity was a far greater force than any sort of internal motivation or passion from God. We were on a very rapidly moving conveyor belt and just trying to keep up.

This chapter is characterized by our desire to do fewer things and do them very well.

This year - Luke and Lindsay are getting married May 22. What a gift!

-"Hymns" recording is nearly completed. In hand April 2.

-DATE NIGHT AT THE GRAND. July 23-25. Check out the "News" entry on this cool event!

God is ALWAYS faithful. We are not. God is ALWAYS just and fair. We are not.

So now we look ahead, pray a lot, rejoice in the beautiful, joyful and sometimes mind boggling treasures He places in our path and press on.

Watch our calendar and our Facebook "Adler Worship Ministries" page for details and updates.

Is Your Work a Perfect Fit? (written ten years ago, but worth another look)

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Is Your Work A Perfect Fit?
Michael Adler

A few weeks ago I had a church search committee member call me to come to work for them. This gentleman was the second caller of two from the same place. Both were charged with the mission of convincing me to make a career move. While it was an honor to be sought after, I knew it was best to come to closure quickly on a request like this. I have found that to have a divided mind in this line of work makes an already consuming job become completely suffocating. Before even considering what kind of carrot is being dangled in front of my face, I need to ask myself a few fundamental questions: Do I feel a sense of closure where I am currently serving? Have I done all that God intends for me to do in the fellowship where I work? Have a learned from the Lord all that I am supposed to learn while in this place?

Back to the phone calls. We exchanged tidbits about each other’s locations. I conveyed that I felt extremely blessed to do what I do for a living and to be able to do it where I currently serve. In his persistence, the man on the other end of the phone tried to steer the conversation toward a more undesirable view of where I currently serve, hoping to make the grass even greener on his side of the fence. He started the sparring with budget questions, then on to fellow staff members, then to another oft-used weapon, musical styles. After several rounds of good conversation and my not surrendering my corner, he jabbed with this question, “Well, is the place where you are now serving what you would consider a perfect fit?”

I immediately replied with a resounding, “NO”. Do you know the feeling you get when you know you are definitely in the spirit? My response must have been one of those rare moments. I know that in the flesh, my soulish man would have at least considered the question a little bit longer before answering. But I knew that this was a God kind of answer and I’d like to show you why.

Eugene Peterson creates a perfect commentary on service by highlighting Romans 12 in his paraphrase, The Message:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Should our vocational goal in ministry be to find “the perfect fit”? If it is, then when the dating (search committee) relationship begins, there probably should be some sort of prenuptial agreement so that both parties have the option to move on to other relationships should there prove to be “irreconcilable differences”. I think about my friend and former college roommate John Lindstrom. He and his family live in Papua, New Guinea in very primitive accommodations and work as Bible translators for Wycliffe. I wonder what he’d say about our struggles for power, platform and recognition. I also wonder about my grandparents, immigrants from Switzerland who gave their lives in service with the Salvation Army. I doubt that the question, “what’s my package?” ever came up with them when the prospect of a new place of service emerged.

Don’t misread my rantings. I still struggle with looking over the fence at other ministries. I look at management structure and style, physical plant, staff makeup, demographics and anything else that happens to pop up on the screen of envy or discontent. BUT when the Holy Spirit is in control, I know that God gave me the gifts that I have in order that I would give them back to Him and His children; in whatever conditions may come with the territory.

I hesitate to confess this, but I believe that those of us in the music ministry have a more difficult time than any other ministerial area in separating personal preference in our area of ministry from the needs of the entire body. We have chosen a career path that postures us as leaders who express themselves through the arts, and most generally, enjoy a platform that allows that sort of expression. But the arts have an element of subjectivity that runs through them that is virtually nonexistent in other areas. When someone expresses an opinion about musical preferences or likes and dislikes, how often is it based on a chart or graph or the latest statistics? Rarely ever, I would guess. Musical expression is so much about the heart and emotions and feelings. (That’s why informing a passionate, artistic auditionee that they “don’t have the right stuff” remains a very difficult task). Along the same line of thought, when a music minister is asked to make a philosophical or stylistic change in their format, up go the hackles of personal preference. We take the latest format change personally because it is our art and an extension of what we are. Here is where our wanderlust kicks in and we decide that there must be a place where we can do it all. But here is where we have the opportunity to allow God to grow us up. Here is where that “perfect fit” philosophy can change seats with a new line of thought...”the right fit”.

Realistically, our congregation’s musical tastes are as diverse as the number of radio stations on the dial. Within that mix dwells our own preferences as well as the God-given responsibility of bringing them all together on Sunday in one united chorus of praise. Giving up our musical rights for the good of the body becomes remarkably liberating when we see our vocational position as a calling of service and sacrifice. There are few things more rewarding than to hear a 73 year old woman come to me and tell me that she’s been “doing church” all of her life, and has just now caught on to the fact that God is her audience when she sings. That didn’t happen from her singing the latest Delirious CCM hit. It came from steadily and deliberately including her and her generation, along with all of the other demographic groups in your congregation, in a worship format that continues its metamorphosis with each new trend. More often than not, it won’t be my preferences that fill the worship list, although something in there ought to really stimulate me as well. But, “the right fit” means that though your current location may not be Musical Mecca, it is where your gifts were meant to be used for that time with those people.

When you gave your life to the work of the ministry, you didn’t do it committing to ultimate personal and musical fulfillment. You came committing to Jesus and His work. The sense of fulfillment that follows a sacrificial, wholehearted ministry life is leagues deeper than hitting the latest musical lick. (Don’t get me wrong, I love hitting the latest musical lick, too.)

Too often we mentally create this dream church environment and set sail on a vocational trek searching for own artistic Avalon. I’m seeing it now, two entities running in slow motion toward each other ready to embark on a long journey of bliss and beauty. Your gifts match their desires; you’d prefer to have three days off instead of one or two; they insist on it!; You golf, so do they!; You don’t like asparagus, their church constitution has banned it! This is not reality.

My wife and I have served in the music ministry in three different churches as well as several national ministries. Each of those areas was unique and had its own personality. Most often the character of that ministry was built around the personality of the particular leader in charge. Each leader had a style, philosophy and method of doing things that distinguished him from the others. Of course we experienced a weeding out process prior to coming to land in these ministries. We declined a job offer from a guy who asked if I would leave work if my wife went into labor. I gave the wrong answer. We said no to several places where we would have been in a theological environment that didn’t fit with our background and preferences. We said “No” to some that were not going the philosophical direction we were going in ministry. And yes, some said no to us for similar reasons. But once we all agreed that this is where we were going, the very first thing we did was to ask the Lord to show us favor with His people. Without exception we have had rich, meaningful times in each place of service. And yes, we’ve also had frustrating, demotivating, and discouraging times in those same places. Had any one of those places been the perfect fit, shouldn’t we have remained there for life? Or, instead should we go ready to serve and submit ourselves to whomever God has placed at the helm?

I had one of our talented choir members call me a few days ago and describe the situation he was finding himself in as an interim minister of music at a neighboring church. He’s been looking for a place to serve full time and this seemed like the right spot. The church he was serving was searching for the full time man and initially asked him to come “on a trial basis”. After several months of hard work and good results he learned that the church was “also looking at other candidates”, but wondered if he might stay on until they come to their final conclusion?

He moaned about feeling “used”. I thought about that word and wondered out loud to him if being “used” is not such a bad thing after all. The fit may not have been perfect, but he was still the man privileged to lead that congregation before the Lord every Sunday until they made a final decision. He could drone on with his negative “I’ve been used” mantra, or determine to bless the Lord for the opportunity to be “used” to His glory.

Someone recently remarked about a fellow colleague, “He stays put just long enough to realize that his boss is human too. Then he sends out the resumes.” What does that say to those to whom we minister? Are we going to stand shoulder to shoulder with them until our life gets a little inconvenienced and then pack our gig bag and move on?

I’ve been reading a book, The Authoritative Life of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. My family roots being from the Salvation Army, I am especially interested in this man’s legacy. His biography has reminded me what sacrifice really means. Here is an excerpt from his diary:
“I felt that I wanted, in place of a life of self-indulgence, to which I was yielding myself, a happy, conscious sense that I was pleasing God, living right, and spending all my powers to get others into such a life”¦”

A perfect fit comes when we are walking with the Lord and having fellowship with Him and using our gifts to His glory. We won’t always have the greenest grass on our side of the fence. Some other guy will always have something we’d like. But I want to be found with William Booth’s “happy, conscious sense” that I am pleasing God; not just through great worship experiences, but through my heart.

Â©Michael Adler 1999
Worship Pastor
Shades Mountain Baptist Church
www.shades.org
www.adlerworshipministries.com

Worship Leader Wanted

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Worship Leader Wanted -

Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to spend time with leadership from three major Christian universities to give input into their current academic curriculum as it relates to Church Music Majors. The common dynamic with these three great schools was that the "product" that was graduating under the umbrella of Church Music Degree was NOT in many ways prepared for the expectations of today's church.

My first experience was with the University of Mobile where Roger Breland, (a huge influence in my life since I was 19) was asked to take on the position of Dean of the Center for Performing Arts. As founder of Christian recording group TRUTH in the early 70s, Dr. Breland has made his calling to invest in young Christian talent and in my opinion, he is unparalleled in that quest. The call to retool the scope and vision of this fine music program was the singular act of one man, University of Mobile President, Dr. Mark Foley, who backed Dr. Breland completely thru every major decision involved in this quest. In just a few years time this division of music has shown exponential growth and now features many premiere performing groups including their stunning brass and percussion group, RamCorps and the powerful vocal ensemble, Voices. In addition, Dr Breland has brought to this campus some of the finest academic and musical talent in the country including Integrity Music's Dr. Pete Sanchez, Don Wolf, Dr. Al Miller.

My second experience was at Liberty University where Dr. Vernon Whaley invited me to teach at their Liberty Center for Worship. Here again, Dr. Jerry Falwell stood with Dr Whaley in the reshaping of their current academic program; not jettisoning the current structure, but adding and broadening the options for today's prospective worship leader. One of the Liberty University Center for Worship strong points is the consistent exposure of their students to real world application by bringing in adjunct faculty members to teach. Current large church worship pastors are invited to teach on a short term basis, but to bring to the classroom real world experience.

The third and most recent was at Trevecca University in Nashville where I spent some of the more stimulating hours I have spent in recent days with five other men from around the country. In attendance for this intensive 36 hours was Chuck Fromm, Editor of Worship Leader Magazine; Howard Rachinski, founder of CCLI; Jim VanHook, Christian Music Industry Veteran; Carlton Dillard, Worship Pastor from Riverbend Church in Austin; and Dr Dan Boone, President of Trevecca University.

The common element to each of these appointments was the desire of these institutions of higher learning to deliberately train up a new generation of worship leaders for the local church. Each of these schools had a strong history of excellent music programs and graduates who entered the work force with excellent music skills. But the shared sentiment among all three was that the needs of the local church were not matching the profies of the graduates coming out of these music programs.

Being given this opportunity has expanded my perspective in some ways, but also has confirmed many of my long standing beliefs in others.

I think most would agree that the worship / music expectations of today's local church are profoundly different than they were in generations past. The plethora of styles alone makes the expectations for a single local church music program quite mind boggling. Add to that the sense of entitlement felt by today's lay person and you have created a formula for failure in many cases.

What is a prospective worship pastor to do with a church that asks for a contemporary-blended-mosai

c-traditional-edgy-keep-the-hymns-but-not-too-many-of-them-cool-looking-worship-band-with-great-lighting-but-don't-offend-the-older-folks music program???

Here are a few observations for pastors or search committees who are looking for new worship leadership for your church.

-Create a written philosophy of worship. What that means in your situation could be as diverse as the writings of Marva Dawn to Robert Webber or a page from the Chris Tomlin School of Passion Worship Leader Guys. It simply needs to be a profile for your church.

-If at all possible, find two other "models" which you believe are realistically similar to the direction you are heading or desire to head. I use the word "realistic" intentionally because there are always churches who fancy themselves as being just like another high profile church (Willow, Saddleback, Mosaic, Fellowship, etc) but the reality is far from that model. This disparity of vision vs reality sets up the prospective worship leader for failure.

-Know your demographic and then set out to set the table for them to come and have fellowship with God thru worship. Aim high with your talent pool, but teach them about the Christian walk at the same time as you motivate them to be excellent musicians and performers. Keep Jesus as the main thing. Remind them often that the ultimate goal of a worship leader is not to sing a killer solo or have an amazing musical moment, but to have fellowship with the One who loves them most. All the rest is gravy.

Seek out one of these three universities for advice and even for prospective candidates.

Our hearts have always been for the local church to not just survive but thrive because the heartbeat of God resonates among His people. Worship leadership is an essential element to that formula and it must be handled with care and prayer.

Press on.
Michael Adler

www.adlerworshipministries.com

MetroOne Worship Conference

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Linda and I were privileged to host the MetroOne Worship Leader Conference in Nashville, TN this past February.
It is an annual gathering of 50 large church worship pastors and their wives for one week of inspiration, teaching, motivation and peer to peer interaction.
These men and women are some of the finest in their craft and hail from ministries as diverse and wonderful as Max Lucado's church, Rick Warren's church, David Jeremiah's church, and about 47 more.

Linda and I led parallel paths with the men and women divided thru most of the daytime events and then gathering together for lunch and PM venue events.
She and her team had their meeting space looking like a Pottery Barn model home; quite wonderful. They had sessions ranging from heart rending speakers to a fashion show called, "Does This Make My Butt Look Big?"

We had been in the planning stages of this for more than a year and had asked God to be in every detail. Suffice to say that He had a word for all of us in EVERY person we invited to speak, sing, worship, or entertain.

The fruit and results were far beyond what we could ask or imagine.

Many thanks go to Linda's posse of girls from our church that absolutely OWNED this week and volunteered many days and hours of their lives to help us thru the week. Janie, Becky, Lindy, Leslie, Jennifer, Kelly and Karen all played a huge role in the success of our week.

Some highlights for all of us:
- 3 On a String as the fun, but excellent opening act. Rick Burgess' opening address, "I'm Going for the Well Done. How about you?"

-Howard Rachinski. CCLI Founder
-Country Music Hall of Fame - FORD THEATER Concert with the AMAZING Kirk Whalum and band PLUS an incredible night of worship led by Travis Cottrell and band
-Dr. Ergun Caner's talk
-Dennis Jernigan leading us all in worship. He's one of the giants.
-Natalie Grant and Band in Concert at the Hermitage PLUS Michael Neale and his wonderful People's Church Band
-FINALE night at David Phelps' HOUSE! David and his band hosted us at his rennovated, all white barn for a full concert and meal. His musical gifts are mind blowing and his committment to the body of Christ is humbling. Thank you Scott Gurosky and MG&A for sponsoring this amazing night.

I Am Second

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

I found this very creative, very God filled web site yesterday.

I hope you'll check it out and pass it on. I started by viewing Brian Walsh of KORN.

www.iamsecond.com