On a recent post, the following question was posted as a response.

What are we doing for our congregations in worship that they should be doing for themselves?

In recent years there seems to be a resurgence in congregation participation in worship after a decade where the trend was more about watching worship, or watching what was happening on stage. I suggest that this limited worship because worship is a verb.

There are those that would suggest you can participate by watching and there are some elements of worship that the congregation cannot do for themselves.

I am glad the trend is moving from watching to participating.

I believe it was Kierkegard who stated that God is the only audience in worship. (Actually if we believe that God is speaking to us in worship then He is also an active participant.)

I have to go back to the premise of Kiekegard’s statement that worship is a drama and those on stage are the prompters that encourage everyone to do their part. The stage personnel worships and in so doing leads and encourages others.

So, worship leaders, are we still doing things in worship for our people instead of letting them do it?

Can they read the scriptures, instead of a person on stage?

Can they or should they speak their prayers without the distraction of a amplified voice?

Is it time to transition the ‘traditional choir’ from singing beautifully prepared ‘special’ songs to singing songs the congregation can join in on?

While going through the process of planning worship services I ask myself a list of questions and now thanks to a response on this blog I will be adding another.

What are we doing in worship for our congregations that they can do for themselves?

In the midst of past worship wars these two terms have been opposing sides and have been tossed around as ammunition.

Those churches who prefer quiet worship complain there is no sense of awe or reverence in the energetic churches that take a more lively approach.

The charismatic leaning churches shout back to the quiet churches “where is the celebration and the emotion in your worship.”

These two schools of thought do not have to be separated. They can survive and I suggest thrive together. Continue Reading…

The following post is taken from a document that our worship staff worked on and prayed over during last year. We took time each week in our worship planning meetings to look into God’s Word and find what it had to say about worship. We also read and gained insight from solid books on worship. We also scoured the internet to find churches who had published their beliefs and values on worship.

Since the following was authored we have used it and continue to use it in these ways:

1. Communicated the contents to our whole staff. We wanted them to know what we think about when planning services. We also believe that the same thought should go into any worship gathering whether that is for children, youth and any other gathered group.
2. We continually refer to these statements in our worship planning and evaluate past services and plan future services against these values.

I welcome comments about the statements below and hope you will post them in the comment section.

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Many of us have been asked over the years: “what is the worship like at ClearView?” And probably most of our answers have centered on the ‘style’ of music that dominates the particular service we attend. It is time for us to change our answers or the theme of our answers. They should center around our beliefs about worship, not style of our worship. Continue Reading…