Dave Helmuth 10/21/26 Dave Helmuth 10/21/26

How To Build Up Your Team

While serving as an interim worship leader for a year, one of the Ad Lib Coaches sent his team something like this EVERY WEEK. It points out something good each person on the team did. He sends it out through Planning Center Online’s text option.

Dave Helmuth 6/3/26 Dave Helmuth 6/3/26

Tell Me Your Story (Podcast Interview)

I was interviewed on the More Than a Worship Leader podcast, and he sent me the questions beforehand so I could prepare. I wrote my answers out and am sharing them with you for this week’s Fertilizer. (Make sure to respond to the questions at the end.)

Dave Helmuth 5/27/26 Dave Helmuth 5/27/26

What’s Your Secret?

You want to be a good steward of the leadership opportunity God has given you, right? You want to help your team be more confident and comfortable as they serve. You want more capable, Godly people on your team. You want to experience joy as you pour out each week. You want to complete your calling to the very end. You want to experience fullness.

Dave Helmuth 2/11/26 Dave Helmuth 2/11/26

The Mirror

Here’s the strange thing. I ask good questions for a living. As I coach worship leaders, I listen to what they say, what they leave out, what they focus on, what their perspective of reality is, and I ask questions from the OUTSIDE. I’m not better than them; I’m not a better leader than they are; I can’t outplay them as a musician. My value is that I’m not them. I’m not on the INSIDE.

Dave Helmuth 2/4/26 Dave Helmuth 2/4/26

Post Conference Blues

Conferences are great! I used to be the guy who would sit in the auditorium in the afterglow. I didn’t want to leave. I had been inspired, encouraged, stretched, and poured into. What I received was not just information, it was impartation. I wanted to take many of the presenters home with me.

Dave Helmuth 1/21/26 Dave Helmuth 1/21/26

Singing With A Click?

“Should the singers have click in their ears?” many a worship leader has asked.

I can almost feel the visceral reactions as you read that.

Dave Helmuth 1/14/26 Dave Helmuth 1/14/26

The Long Game

Are you aging out of worship leadership? Are you feeling burned out or pushed out? Do you wish you had the same passion for Jesus, worship leading, and people that you once had before all those years in worship ministry? How can you rekindle a youthful, yet mature exuberance for the next season of ministry?

Dave Helmuth 12/31/25 Dave Helmuth 12/31/25

My Favorite Questions

Thanks for reading this year! As we prep for a new year, I want to equip you with tools for reflection. Worship leaders usually aren’t very good at reflecting. Introspection and navel gazing, yes, but real reflection, not so much.

Dave Helmuth 11/5/25 Dave Helmuth 11/5/25

Outlast

It’s happening all over America. Worship leaders with twenty and thirty years of experience are “aging-out” of leading worship.

No, they’re not, but that’s what they call it.

Dave Helmuth 10/8/25 Dave Helmuth 10/8/25

The Five Faders Book is HERE!

Have you appreciated receiving the Worship Fertilizer or any of the many resources from Ad Lib Music?

Can I ask you a big favor?

The Five Faders book launches TODAY!

Dave Helmuth 8/27/25 Dave Helmuth 8/27/25

Creating A Multiplication Culture

I turned 50 in February. I’m not sure how it happened. I’m pretty sure yesterday I had all my hair and it was much darker, I could see at night while driving, and there were more days ahead of me than were behind me.

Dave Helmuth 8/6/25 Dave Helmuth 8/6/25

Origin Story: The Five Faders

Have you ever wondered where the Five Faders came from? This is its origin story!

Dave Helmuth 7/9/25 Dave Helmuth 7/9/25

The Berkey Water Filter and the Scarcity Mindset

“Dad, aren’t you going to use filtered water to soak the oats?” Aspen scolded.

Dave Helmuth 6/25/25 Dave Helmuth 6/25/25

Functional To Flourishing

I was talking with an audio coach in rural Illinois and we were reflecting on the realities that many churches don’t realize how far from their potential they have settled for, how they’ve grown accustomed to simply functioning on the lowest possible rung.

Dave Helmuth 4/23/25 Dave Helmuth 4/23/25

Light A Fire

Sometimes lighting a fire feels like lighting you’re using soaking-wet wood. It’s impossible despite your best efforts. Other times, the gas-lit fire practically jumps on you.

Dave Helmuth 4/2/25 Dave Helmuth 4/2/25

Do All Tadpoles Grow Into Frogs?

Hello, fellow amphibians!

We went to the beach last week, and the singular thing my fifteen-year-old was looking forward to was…fishing!

Dave Helmuth 1/22/25 Dave Helmuth 1/22/25

One Who Puts On His Armor Should Not Boast Like One Who Takes It Off

You know that verse about not saying we’re gonna do this and go there and make business happen but rather say, “If God wills, we’ll do this or that”?

Dave Helmuth 1/15/25 Dave Helmuth 1/15/25

Is There More?

Three short stories. (they include your goals for 2025)

Dave Helmuth 12/18/24 Dave Helmuth 12/18/24

Are You Battle-weary Or Battle-strengthened?

I was going to say the last several months have been quite a battle, but honestly, the last five years in Costa Rica have been a battle. What’s been the effect on me?

Dave Helmuth 12/4/24 Dave Helmuth 12/4/24

Minister To The Lord

But what if no one is ministering to the Lord?