Where I'm Leaning Into for 2026

Alright—time to peel back the curtain on how I’ve been managing music ministry at my home church.

A lot happened over the course of 2025—highs, lows, and everything in between.

Here’s a recap of the main things and how I’m planning to adjust for 2026.

My Main Headache: Putting Out Tech Fires

OK, so it’s not literally putting out fires. But sometimes, it feels like it.

The main fire I was managing was our sound/light system. Carrying over from problems in 2024, we had to deal with several malfunctioning and outdated components. A leaky roof had damaged much of our equipment, but I was trapped in “salvage mode,” instead of doing a comprehensive overhaul.

I suppose it’s my general thriftiness that worked against me in this respect, but in the second half of 2025, we shifted from analog light control to a digital platform that was WAY easier to use, plus gave us more robust options for shaping the look of our space.

On the other side (sound), we started experiencing some awful distortion in one of our main speaker enclosures flown above the congregation at about 25 feet. Over the course of Q3 and Q4, we isolated some sound sources that were contributing to the problem, but then it culminated with a near-total failure on Christmas Service morning.

Talk about frustrating, right?

This forced me to look at diagnosing problems at a deeper level, where I didn’t have the luxury (read: funds) to make wholesale replacements.

In this deep dive, I learned more about signal theory, where the manipulation of pitch frequencies and the summing of those (think, “bundling” audio and “sending” it to a speaker) has to be handled in a particular way—we’re talking mathematical equations and such.

Thankfully, once I got the numbers right (thanks ChatGPT!), we were able to make the correct adjustments to our system and nearly eliminate the distortion. (We ARE going to do a system-wide upgrade this year though, replacing components that are 20+ years old!)

The broad lesson: Think strategically, not reactively. Sometimes, you’ll need to pre-empt a catastrophe with new gear, or you’ll need to solve an immediate prblem with replacement tech. Just remember, new components need to be progressive, meeting criteria like:

• Ease of use

• Durability

• Function over form (i.e., just ‘cause it’s FANCY don’t mean it’s the right FIT!)

I’m looking forward to this coming year as myself and the team double down on skills that create an inspiring and unhindered space for worship and community, through our creativity, discipline, and overall pursuit of glorifying God together.

Broadening Attention in Worship

Largely within my first full year as a creative ministries director, I focused on a few core themes in our singing:

• The story of the gospel

• The nature of the Trinity

• The role of Christ in the narrative of redemption

These were (and are still) solid themes that should resonate at the core of our spirit, helping us to pour out worship. But this year, I want to take our congregation through some more themes:

• The joy of the Spirit

• The realness and nearness of the Living God

• The unity of local believers who are called to live missionally

With this, we will re-vamp our song catalogue a bit, but most of this needs to come from exhortation. It’s easy to hide behind the safety of “just play the song” to communicate the much-needed message, but articulating (outside of a sung melody) what God has molded your mind to understand leads to a deeper enrichment of those truths. In this, you encourage the gathering of believers while simultaneously reinforcing what you’ve learned for yourself.

This comes on the heels of some hard circumstances I’ve observed recently regarding team and church members, leading to some disappointment and frustration for generally everyone involved. Rather than dwelling on those disappointments, I’m going to lean even more into formation—not just in a “doctrine-in-song” sense, but tapping into the emotion of what means to worship from a heart that’s filled by God. We’ll keep highlighting truths (the “head” knowledge) and digging into the comfort, vitality, and hope they bring, entering into spaces that allow for fuller measures of expression (Spirit-filled with right sense order, of course).

Deepening Discipleship

This is an area that I’ve really only done on an individual basis, mostly in passing interactions—which means it’s not really an effective form of discipleship.

Discipleship carries a weight of intentionality that requires consistency and availability. My hope is that with the team, I’m able to speak to the “heart of worship,” coming alongside team members who want to contribute and grow, or need an encouraging, steady voice if they’re in seasons of uncertainty and instability.

There’ll still be periods of technical instruction—both musically and discussing doctrine/theology—but this season will be about focusing what we know into our expression, all pointed to One who gave these abilities, knowledge and passion in the first place.

Be blessed 👊✌️