Resources abound at the National Worship Leader Conference!

We had a wonderful time at the National Worship Leader Conference in Kansas City this past week! The All About Worship Team was there throughout the week, both as attendees and workshop leaders.  If you missed it, I’ll try to give you a quick recap and plenty of links to some great resources made available at the conference.

Conference attendees not only had the the chance to worship, learn, and build relationships, but also participate. Songwriters could bring in original songs and have a panel of experts give them feedback on their songs at the Song DISCovery Listening Panels. Singing in the conference choir was another great way to participate. There were about 80 people in the choir, under the direction of Stan Endicott. I had the privilege to sing in the choir this year, along with 10 others from our church.  Stan has such wonderful insights about worship, music and life. On Monday night, we sang with Keith and Kristyn Getty, and on Thursday evening we sang two of the Odes.  Stay tuned to the All About Worship Podcast for an upcoming  interview with the Gettys!

On Monday morning, before the actual conference began, I attended a pre-conference seminar on being a “Steward of Technology in the Service of Worship”. You can read more about that in an earlier blog post here.  It was a topic that I believe will become increasingly relevant as the use of technology in worship is skyrocketing! Ben Abu Saada did a great job as part of a panel discussion on this topic, as well!

One of the pre-conference leaders was D.J. Chaung, the network developer for Worship Leader Magazine. D.J. has put together an excellent website on this topic. TechSteward.net is an excellent resource for worship leaders who are interested in learning more about technology stewardship. All About Worship co-hosts Wisdom Moon and Ben Abu Saada did an excellent job leading their workshop called “Leading Your Team Through Technology”.  It was filled with great tips and links.

But, besides the great workshops on a variety of topics, dealing both with the heart and the art, some of my best memories were the times of corporate worship and the speakers who challenged us from God’s Word.  To be led in worship by Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Israel Houghton, Phil Wickham, Tenth Avenue North, Starfield, Pocket Full of Rocks, the list goes on… was truly an experience I will not forget.  Also, to hear 3,000 worship leaders singing at the top of their lungs (in tune!) was a sound that will not be forgotten.  All of the speakers did an excellent job, but I especially enjoyed hearing from from Louie Giglio, Marcos Witt, and Lisa Harper.

Michael Farren, from Pocket Full of Rocks, was one of the worship leaders. I actually was privileged to have a surprise lunch with Michael and Meredith Andrews during the conference! Twitter paid off once again, and 4 of the team from our church, along with a few others won a contest and were treated to lunch, thanks to Praise Charts.com! Here are a few pics:

If you weren’t able to be at the conference, or if you would just like to relive some of the main sessions, you can using the video on-demand feature of the Worship Stream site. The people at Worship Stream were busy all week live streaming the main sessions, but you can now go back and watch them again. Just go to the NWLC Worship Stream site to view all the speakers and even the worship set with Jonathan Lee!

Another really cool part of the conference was connecting with other worship leaders from around the country! I met so many people face-to-face who I had previously only known through Twitter.  There were several All About Worship listeners there this week, and it was great to meet some of you face to face!

I have to mention what a wonderful job Suzie Goodwin Stablein did organizing this event, along with her team at Worship Leader Magazine. It was a well-oiled machine! I’m already excited about next year’s conference! I hope you can make it as well.

If you attended the conference, why don’t you share some of your best memories, or some of the things you learned here in the comment section. We’d love to hear and learn from you!

Barry Westman
All About Worship