With a passion for music and ministry, recording artists Shane Barnard and Shane Everett of Shane & Shane have launched “The Worship Initiative,” an online resource where worship leaders, praise teams and songwriters can receive both musical training and spiritual teaching.
“The Worship Initiative has been a few years in the making,” Barnard said. “The more we talked and prayed about what this project might look like, it seemed like God was bringing together a team and this season.
“Through the years, we’ve had the privilege by God’s grace to pour into people’s lives. Over the last eight years or so, we’ve held a songwriting and worship theology class with college students at our recording studio once a week. We discuss with them the importance of what worship leaders should be doing biblically as musicians and ambassadors of Christ.”
With the goal of empowering musicians to lead, The Worship Initiative website (www.theworshipinitiative.com) provides hundreds of in-depth training resources including chord charts for songs, instructional videos and Bible study devotionals.
“With the resources that God has given us and the doors that have been opened through the years, we really wanted to see how we could best serve the Church,” Barnard said.
“We wanted to provide practical resources and tools for musicians to easily access, and we’ve had a great response from worship leaders around the country. It’s been incredible to hear from worship teams going through these devotionals together in preparation for Sunday morning services and hear how God is moving in their churches. It’s really cool to study the Word of God through a worship song.”
In addition to the online community, the musical duo is releasing a series of worship albums that includes both traditional hymns and contemporary worship songs.
“All these songs point back to the Word of God and share who Christ is,” Barnard said. “Our biggest goal in doing this is to see people fall in love with Jesus more than music. With every song, we have written a Bible study devotional to go along with it. We want to push worship leaders and teams deeper into the Word so when they’re leading worship they have something on their heart to encourage, equip and engage worshippers.”
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