Categories: uncategorized
Date: 09 October 2005 12:13:59
A few weeks ago, I mentioned about an “alternative worship” workshop I went to. Well, I was inspired, and as I was rostered for leading worship last Sunday, I thought I'd have an alternative go.
The first thing I did during the week before, was phone up the musicians and tell them not to bring their instruments on Sunday. I was really determined to start with a blank sheet of paper, and I didn't want any commitment to the usual parts of our worship, i.e. singing, prayers, scripture reading, sermon, to be on the page at the moment.
I phoned the person who led the alternative worship workshop and arranged to borrow a video clip that she'd demonstrated... she was very encouraging.
So my planning time was spent thinking and hoping that God was leading those thoughts.
It actually turned out reasonably easy to plan as I adapted the material from the workshop. I think it would be a big task (for a lay person as myself at least) to come up with a complete worship outline that was really different.
My congregation is fairly used to experimenting with different styles of worship, but I still thought it wise to let people know what was happening so my opening welcome included a bit of a description.
Without going into too much detail and making this blog really long, the service comprised, a couple of video clips, a short drama and plenty of time for personal meditation (background music from contemporary CDs) on different themes at three different locations. At about 45minutes people were encouraged to move to the hall for coffee and sharing in table groups. (This sharing in table groups is becoming a usual after-worship thing for us, and developing into a great time of sharing and intersession)
The initial setting had the front half of the church cordoned off with emergency tape and four bright orange traffic control cones (I didn't think calling them “witches hats” was appropriate). At about 10 minutes in, during a dramatic reading of the scripture about the curtain in the temple being torn as Christ died, the tape was cut and the control cones thrown aside. People were invited to come and bring their personal stories in alongside the Christian story.
I reckoned it was great, a couple of people were a bit threatened by the difference, one dear old lady went to sleep, and one guy said to me something like “there's plenty in the scriptures about worship comprising sung praise, teaching, etc. but nothing in the scriptures about what we did this morning”. I took that comment as a positive, as I remember reading somewhere “if you go away from worship satisfied...there is a problem”
I think the big secret about experimenting with different types of worship is to trust the interaction of the Spirit in the worship space