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?

As I led worship from stage this morning I was faced with that sea of green and also students lost in and enjoying the conversation with God in worship. I became overwhelmed at the passion displayed on their faces. As I watched my heart began to cry out: ‘can we keep it this way?’

That cry was not directed solely at the students.

Will there be a day when we all are ready to meet God in worship from the time we walk into our places of worship?

Here’s what we can all learn about why the students were prepared for worship:

1. they made a decision to be a part of the weekend.
2. they sacrificed personal time and activities to make a conversation with God a priority.
3. they spent time in prayer before they arrived at church.
4. then knew it took action on their part to worship
5. they came expecting to participate.
6. they participated.
7. they made the worship between them and God…it was a personal conversation.
8. they encouraged each other by their participation.

Can worship next week have the same energy? Yes…if we are willing to make the effort the students made.

The challenge to our students is: ‘put in the same effort for worship next week.’

The challenge to all of us is: ‘learn from the example of our youth and be passionate about our God.’

Here is our setlists that helped us engage in the conversation of worship.

Songs, Scripture and Prayer
Your Grace is Enough
Praise to the Lord the Almighty
Psalm 24:1-6
Nearer

Welcome

Baptism

Songs of Celebration and Testimony
Christ is Risen
All Because of Jesus
Stronger.

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This post is my participation in the blog carnival Sunday Setlists which can be found at The Worship Community.

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.

If we believe that Christ-centered worship is the reflection of a relationship with a living God then it should have moments of awe and celebration.

I grew up in a worship style that leaned heavily on an emotional celebration in worship. There was freedom in those worship services to express your love to God with abandon.

It wasn’t until I went to graduate school that I attended a worship service where there was emphasis on ‘awe’ in worship. That was displayed in a couple of ways, ‘silence’ ‘more reading of scripture,’ ‘a Capella singing’ and even the majestic sound of a pipe organ. I enjoyed learning of this new style of worship, however, the majority of people in the services seem to going through the motions and emotion was never displayed. There seemed to be a deeper interest in creating a great aesthetic sound rather than enjoying a great God.

Today when we plan worship services we feel that there needs to be intentional elements that encourage us to stand ‘awestruck’ as we recognize the amazing God we worship and what He has done through the gift of His son. We also feel that we need to give opportunity for celebration because of the very same thoughts.

I love my family, my wife and my two children. There are times I enjoy their presence and their actions by standing near and observing, watching them grow and interact. There are other times when we enjoy each other’s presence by laughing, singing and even crying together.

I love my God and there are times I need to think about Him in silence, learn of Him through the quiet reading of His word. There are other times when the realization of all He is and all He has done demand a celebration. All of that is worship.

This weekend when I gather with my church family I will not be surprised if there are moments of silence when I stand in awe at the majesty of God. I also will not be surprised when we sing loudly, clap or even shout praises to Almighty God.

Reverence and celebration are human expressions therefore they are acceptable in worship.

Are you comfortable expressing both ‘reverence and celebration’ in worship?

Do you feel in your church one is emphasized more than the other and is that healthy?

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.

Mission and Core Values

“ClearView exists to make radical disciples who are focused on making God known to the ends of the earth.”

We support this mission by standing firm on five core values:

1. God’s Word is the ultimate authority and source of wisdom. It is the book for all sermons and foundation for all other classes.
2. Our lives, everyday, should be about Passionate Worship, a surrendered life. Then weekly we come together to corporately express our beliefs in worship services.
3. Through Passionate Worship and study of God’s Word we expect to see Transformed Lives, individuals becoming more Christ-like.
4. It is a command of Christ to go and make disciples, whether that is in our neighborhood or around the world…we call that Global Missions, and we are intentional about training and sending people to follow Christ’s command.
5. The ultimate support for a church or any Christ-centered ministry is Prayer. We believe in prayer and unashamedly participate in prayer.

At the center of the stated mission and values is the belief that our main goal is to glorify God. This is done through how we live our lives and our emotional actions encourage others to do the same. From the beginning of time God has been revealing His glory to us and our response as His creation is to reflect that Glory, His character. Jesus, God’s Son, made it clear that His main purpose while on earth was to do the work of his Father, reveal who He is…reflect His glory.

Biblical Examples of Worship

If we were to read God’s Word as literature we could say that it is a great story filled with characters who are faced with choices. God’s Word is not literature, it is a glimpse into the very nature of God where man was invited to participate. In these encounters, as God reveals Himself, man is given the chance to respond to who God is. The ultimate revelation from God came with the presentation of His Son. In the life of Christ we find the glory of God revealed and we are faced with His grace. The correct or adequate responses to God’s revelation is worship…surrender to Him through His Son.

It must be stated, before we move to focus on corporate worship, that worship in itself is not about a gathering but about the heart as it reflects God’s glory. Simply put it is about ‘surrender,’ surrendering to the will of God for our lives, where our actions are in line with His teaching. (Romans 12:1) “Worship is the most important action of the human experience.” (Transformational Church p. 149) It is in worship/surrender that we find ourselves in tune with God.

Corporate Worship Principles

If worship is about living a life centered on Christ, then why do we even gather as groups to worship? The bible holds two great priorities that govern corporate worship gatherings: to glorify God (2 Cor. 1:20) and to edify His people (I Cor. 14:26; Col 3:16) God is glorified as we lift our songs, hymns and spiritual songs in worship and also when we respond to how He has been revealed through these and the reading and explanation of His word.

The research of God’s Word reveals that there is a history for corporate worship. In both the Old and New Testament writings we find examples of God’s people gathering, expecting to see God revealed through His presence and/or through the reading of His word and in turn see the people responding through adoration, confession, praise and petition.

The accounts of worship in God’s Word are both of the personal and corporate experience and each follow the pattern of revelation and response. In the Old Testament we find personal worship experiences explained, one example being from Isaiah 6. A corporate example of worship can be found at Solomon’s Dedication of the Temple in II Chronicles 5-7.

In the New Testament we find the writings of Paul that urge us to make worship a personal experience as seen in Romans 12:1. In other writings the apostolic writers list elements of corporate worship that had been passed down through their history and taken from Temple worship: prayer, reading and preaching of God’s Word, giving testimonies and others.

Our corporate worship today also takes from both the Old and New Testament examples and these examples give no guidelines for style. Corporate worship has taken on a variety of forms from its earliest beginnings, but the model passed down over the centuries centers on one theme, the re-presentation of the Gospel…the story of God.

Corporate worship, Christ-centered worship,  is worship rendered to an audience of One in a gathering of many to glorify and learn of the One while also encouraging the many.

God’s people are edified by the witness of others engaging in the act of worship. Worship becomes an activity of encouragement as they recognize that they serve not alone but with others. Worship also edifies the body and challenges the unbeliever because a believer’s participation is an active testimony of their faith.

The understanding of worship is clear. It is a command of God and the privilege of man. There has been and will continue to be an active and passionate conversation about the content of a corporate worship service. Any conversation about content of worship must be viewed in context of the two great priorities of worship, ‘to glorify God’ and ‘to edify man,’ which are biblical principles. The teaching found in God’s Word centers around these principles and not around content, style or form.

All worshipers maintain personal preferences, desires and expectations and so unanimity concerning style and form in corporate worship is not a realistic goal. There has been and will continue to be a discussion between ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘reverence;’ and between those who define those in light of the preferred mediums of hymns, gospel songs, praise choruses or piano, organ and/or guitars.

Corporate worship today should be a model of that revelation and response because it is centered on a relationship where there is an active conversation. The relationship is initiated by God as He reveals His glory and invites us to participate through the revelation of His grace. In other words there is a re-presentation of the Gospel in the worship experience. Please note: there is a larger meaning of the word Gospel here than the ‘telling of the good news’ or ‘giving an invitation to accept Christ.’ Re-presentation of the Gospel is found when the worship service is designed with the intent of telling the story of God: how does He reveal Himself, why does He reveal Himself, what is His grace and how do we respond to all of this?

In planning worship services it is clear that we want to tell the story of God. We desire to give believers and non-believers a chance to respond to how God has been revealed. This revelation can and does take on many forms; from silence to enthusiastic singing, from corporate prayer to private thoughts, and from reading to exposition of scripture.

ClearView Believes

• We at ClearView want to use elements in all our services that reflect on, exult in and expound upon Christ’s atoning death on the cross which points us to and gives us instruction on being committed Christ followers.
• We at ClearView encourage all who enter any of our spaces dedicated to worship to participate with passion and spontaneity. We believe this active participation is an outward expression of a life that is actively and continually pursuing a relationship with God.
• We at ClearView believe that every element, no matter the style that is used in our worship services, should give people doctrinal fuel for their emotional fire.
• We at ClearView believe that everything we do in worship should be centered around God’s Word: we preach the word, we pray the word, we read the word, we sing the word and we fellowship around the word.
• Worship of God is our outward display of the relationship we have with Him through His Son and sustained through the Holy Spirit. We desire this display of worship in our daily actions and in our corporate worship.

(The bullet points above were adapted from research gathered from another church. At this time I cannot find that resource again. I apologize for not being able to do so.)

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That’s what we believe…

I hope you can see we take planning our services very seriously and do so with much intentionality.

Finally, look at this post to see some questions that I have been using in planning for many years. They support our core values.

Again, I welcome your comments.

There was a call to prayer and the whole place was silent, except for the person on the stage. That is today’s normal.

I grew up in the first tradition, but work in the second. There is nothing wrong with either, its just tradition.

Our most recent worship service centered around ‘gratitude.’ At the conclusion of the service we were asked to spend some time talking to God, thanking Him for our blessings. We were all encouraged to come to the front of the church and kneel or kneel near our seats….AND we were encouraged to pray out loud, all at once.

When our pastor gave the instructions I could almost here the collective gasp and all the air being sucked from the room….BUT…when we begin to pray I could hear the collective amazing sound of voiced ‘thanksgiving’ and ‘gratitude.’ God was being glorified and the body of Christ was being edified (encouraged) by the prayers of fellow believers.

The sequence of coming to the altar and verbally praying out loud was out of our congregation’s comfort zone, yet because we moved out of our comfort zone we experienced a great time of worship.

As worshipers and worship leaders it is easy to get stuck in a ‘comfort zone’ of worship and be lulled into a routine that requires little thought or engagement. To break out of the ‘comfort zone’ doesn’t necessitate a dramatic change but it does require the willingness to change.

Here is our setlist that gives the outline of our services of February 12, 2012.

Songs and Scripture

Greater Is He
Indescribable
Come Thou Fount Come Thou King
Scripture: Psalm 18 (selected)
I Will Not Be Shaken
You Never Let Go

Welcome

Prayer
*I posted more about this prayer in my post of February 10, 2012

Song
Great I AM

Sermon

Prayer of Response
*this is the place we all prayed together, individually and out loud.

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This post is my contribution to the blog carnival Sunday Setlist which is found at The Worship Community.

Sunday is a few hours away.

I often stop at this time of the week and ask “am I really prepared to meet God in worship?” As a worship leader that question can go in many directions: “is all the music in place?” “do we have gaps we need to cover in the technology teams?” “am I ready to lead?”

We…okay I take that back because I can only speak for myself…I often only think about my role, what I am going to do or have to do in worship.

And, I am wrong for that.

I need to pray for:

• the people trying to decide if they are going to come to church on Sunday. God give them a desire to come.
• the people who will come. God open their hearts to hear and their voices to praise.
• the people who serve on teams so that they can worship. God give them peace to worship as they serve. Don’t let the ministry distract them from worship.
• the people who are leading. God let these worship with abandon and let their example encourage others to do the same.
• and…the pastor…I have this vision of just before he comes to the pulpit that we stop him at the bottom of the stairs, surround him and pray. We pray that God would give him clarity of thought.
• would give him confidence that all he written through his hours of preparation is from You.
• would give him peace as he speaks
• would let him sense that Your Holy Spirit is surrounding him.

What would happen if we prayed those prayers?

What would happen in our worship?

What would happen to us?

Sunday is just a few hours away so we still have time to surround our

pastor,

friends,

family,

all those who will attend and

those who are thinking about attending worship in prayer.

In the last few days I have become aware of a new song “Show Us Christ,” a prayer. Its words are helping me prepare for worship.

Every chance you get.

I believe that time should be given in every meeting to ‘values and mission.’ It might not be an agenda item but there should be intentionality to intertwine and evaluate all discussions around values and mission.

Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A has gathered a group of items he keeps in a “Leadership Tool Kit.” One of the items is a railroad spike. He explains that the railroad spike represents a company’s core values and they are what secures that the organization stays on track.

I will take it one more step:

When you look at a train track you don’t just see four or five spikes holding down the track but hundreds and even thousands. The spikes are not different but all look the same. The repetition of the spikes is what keeps the track down. Let’s look at if from an organization’s or team’s perspective. A team or organization does not have hundreds or thousands of values, often just a few maybe four or five. Yet it is these values that keep the team on track, and the team needs the values all along the way. It’s the repetition of the values that secures safe productive passage to the destination.

In the team meetings that I lead:

We examine our own values

We look at our action items, projects and goals and their relationship to values and mission.

We often look at the values and missions of other like organizations to see what we can learn.

These discussions help us evaluate our beliefs and therefore they help us mold and further define our own values.

The mistake of a leader or organization is not talking about values too often, but the failure to repeat values and mission.

How often do you hear, repeat or discuss your organizations core values?

We don’t do worship that way.

We don’t have a liturgy that we follow.

Our order of service is different each week.

I have made those statements.

That was my ‘worship history.’ That was all I knew about worship. I thought that churches that followed a liturgy were stuck in a routine and were just going through the motions of worship.

I worked for a pastor who didn’t want me to even print an order of worship for the people on stage. His thinking was that I need to let God lead me from one song to the next.

Two thoughts:

1. You can hear from God other than a Sunday morning. If you think otherwise you limit God.
2. Making a plan of your own choosing can lead to selfish worship that is based on feelings and not the gospel.

In the book Christ-Centered Worship the author, Bryan Chapell states: “where the gospel is honored, it shapes worship. No church true to the gospel will fail to have echoes of these historic liturgies.”

The Bible is a presentation of the gospel, all scripture glorifies God and points to His plan to redeem people through Christ.

If the whole bible is a presentation of the gospel, then our worship should be a reflection of it also. That is what we can learn from ancient liturgies that have been passed through generations. Those liturgies present the story of God.

This is a subject that my team and I discuss regularly. When we plan and preview upcoming worship services we ask ‘how is the gospel communicated?’ There is an expectation in our planning that we have been intentional to present the gospel.

There is also freedom to vary how we do that each week, we learn from historical liturgies, we are not locked into them.

Here is the worship outline we used last week. We pray that the gospel was evident in the songs and other elements we used.

God is God…we worship Him for who He is

Holy Is The Lord
Glory to God Forever

Confession of Sin

Spoken introduction using theme of Isaiah 6

Lord Have Mercy (soloist sang verses, congregation responded on chorus.)
Spoken Confession (between chorus 2 and verse 3 the worship leader read the following prayer)

Merciful God,

we confess that we have sinned against you

in thought, word, and deed,

by what we have done,

and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you

with our whole heart and mind and strength.

We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

In your mercy forgive what we have been,

help us amend what we are,

and direct what we shall be,

so that we may delight in your will

and walk in your ways,

to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon

Amazing Grace My Chains Are Gone

Welcome

Songs of Testimony

I Stand Amazed
We Will Declare Your Name

The Spoken Word

A look at Luke 17:1-13 (podcast for February 5, 2012, is uploaded here)

Response

An intentional time of reflection on God’s Word

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This post is my participation in the blog carnival, Sunday Setlists, found at The Worship Community.

Yes we can all stand back and say God is watching us but there are others.

Someone is always watching you

• in your home
• at your job
• at your school

The question is ‘what are they seeing?’

I meet regularly with a group of high school students to discuss leadership principles. In a recent meeting I asked them to turn to their neighbor and say: ‘someone is always watching you and you are an example.’

The room got silent…

We talk often around the thought: ‘to be a good leader is to be a good example, model how you want your team to act.’ But the silence that day punctuated the thought that they are always an example; when they model intentional behavior as a leader and when someone sees their unintentional reaction.

I want to be a good leader and try to model behaviors for my team but I have to remind myself they see all my actions, not just the ones I want them to see...because they are always watching.

The role of the worship choir has always been to prepare through rehearsals music for the weekend services. That has evolved as there has been a shift in the type of music we prepare. We have gone from preparing only ‘special choir ministry songs’ to a combination of ‘ministry songs’ and ‘songs that we will teach the congregation.’ That line often blurs when a ‘special song’ is used for the second or the third time and the congregation catches on and begins to sing. That’s what happened this past Sunday.

The choir ‘ministry song’ was Because of Your Love. The theme is: we have already won victory over sin and trials because of Jesus’ power over the cross. The chorus has a great hook and the melody falls in a congregation friendly key…so they sang with us.

This was a great reminder to me to not limit the congregation to what I think they can sing…let them sing when they want to. It is also a great reminder that a worship choir is a great ministry and their participation in the whole worship service encourages many to engage in the conversation of worship.

Here is our worship set.

Opening Prayer (everyone was encouraged to connect to God, through their own words, without anyone praying from the stage)

Songs

Great I Am (this is a new song for us and was the first time we have used it. We started it as the conclusion to the prayer)

You Are God Alone (this one is a few years old with a powerful message, just because it is older doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it.)

Welcome

Songs

Because of Your Love (As mentioned this was a choir feature that the congregation joined in on. The arrangement we used was from Community Bible Church San Antonio Texas. It closes with one stanza of the hymn Nothing But The Blood)

Stronger (this is relatively new to us, but is becoming a favorite. We were able to put it in the same key as the previous song, which allowed us to move straight to it without an intro.)

Sermon

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This post is my participation in the blog carnival Sunday Setlists found at The Worship Community.