Contemporary Music Theory
Pursuing Excellence
Personal Development
Leadership Principles
Administrative Skills
Welcome to HotPraise
I love praise and worship. I have been involved in worship teams for most of my life as Music Director, worship leader, guitarist, keyboardist, drummer or vocalist. But whatever my actual role has been, I have always loved praising and worshiping Jesus. If you feel the same way, this website has been developed for you.
The reason this site exists is to help enrich your (and others') experience as a worshiper of Jesus. I figure that if everyone knows what they're doing and why, then everyone is going to get more out of this beautiful time with God.
So, what's here? Well, not to take away from the pleasure of just exploring a website, it might make it easier if I let you know what's available.
Obviously, there's teaching on praise and worship itself. If you're wondering why, it's because plenty of believers attend a church service and see the singing time as the religious version of a club singalong. To them, it's just singing. So if you don't like singing, why bother? In fact, why not turn up late every week and just arrive in time for the important bits, like the sermon, or communion? You probably know people like that. But really, it's because they don't understand the power of praise and worship, or why we do it.
Since I'm a songwriter, I've also included a section on songwriting. These days, I'm much more motivated to write praise and worship songs. But the basic principles remain the same for all genres.
Lots of churches struggle with worship teams. How do you set them up? What do you do at rehearsals? How do the various team members make their best contribution? I've got a whole section to help you get the best out of your team.
Also, there's the dreaded Music Theory. I realise that for many musicians, these words are almost like swearing. However, as much as you might like to try to bury your head in the sand, if you know what you're doing and why, you'll get the best out of your instrument.
I hope your experience at HotPraise is a rich and rewarding one.