Karen Gosselin said there’s a “for such a time as this” kind of need in music ministry.
“As a worship pastor, you need to study and perfect your skill in worship planning to help the church offer praises up to God in an excellent way,” said Gosselin, coordinator of worship resources for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
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But there’s been a gap in resources to help worship pastors do that, Gosselin noted. That’s why she’s excited about The Worship Initiative, which is offering those resources at a new digital hub called SBC Worship.
The Worship Initiative was started just over a decade ago by worship band Shane & Shane and provides music ministers with access to more than 1,000 resources, including song tutorials, devotionals, leadership training and a community for worship leaders and volunteers.
Robbie Seay, executive vice president of leader development and content at The Worship Initiative, announced during the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference and SBC annual meeting in June that the new SBC Worship hub would now take those resources from The Worship Initiative and hone them for Southern Baptist churches.
“We’re able to offer a free kind of welcome mat to SBC churches who are in need of training and resourcing,” Seay told The Alabama Baptist in an interview.
Going deeper
The SBC Worship community is free to join and includes curated training, resources and events. As worship ministers go deeper into the platform, premium training options and features are available for an additional cost.
Gosselin serves on the advisory council for SBC Worship along with more than 30 other leaders from SBC seminaries, universities, churches and entities.
The Worship Initiative, she noted, saw the value of collaboration early in the hub’s development. The council provides vetting of the content as well as offering their voices and experiences among the resources available.
Seay said there “are some amazing leaders” in the SBC who need a way to connect with music ministers in other states.
“Karen Gosselin is your state leader in Alabama, and she’s an incredible woman, she’s an incredible leader and there are people outside of Alabama who need to hear from her experience and her insight,” he said.
Seay also mentioned Joe Crider, dean of the school of church music and worship at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, as a voice church worship leaders could benefit from.
“The problem is a lot of them don’t know how to access Joe Crider; they’ve never heard from him, there’s not been a platform by which Joe Crider can really lean in and teach,” Seay said.
That’s what SBC Worship provides, he added. It was designed to build a trusted home for community and development across the convention using resources from The Worship Initiative.
There is “every resource you can imagine” related to songs and hymns, Seay said, but it doesn’t stop there.
“It’s not less than songs, but it is more than songs,” he noted. “It’s pastoral ministry, it’s theology and it’s leadership.”
For more information, visit sbcworship.com.
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