A beginning
Hello all -
I'll dive in and be the first to respond to Mike's invitation (unless someone submits one while I'm typing this). Thanks for forming this, Mike.
All of us worship leaders are very comfortable contributing to a worship service and do so [extensively] every Sunday morning. We work with teams of people sharing music, scriptures, a sermon, administering sacraments, etc. But what inevitably seems to happen is that a group of "us" is presenting the service to a group of "them". "We" are the ones who've done the planning, who know what's happening next, who know when the lights are going to come down for the video clip,...who have the service under control.
I Corinthians 14:26 says, "What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church."
So how can we live out this verse and let everyone who comes dynamically shape the service? This verse sounds messy. Is this even possible, especially at larger churches? Plus, let's be honest, some of those slick presentations can be very effective. Music and video and drama all working in sync can have powerful impact on people's hearts and minds. Can we have our cake and eat it too?
I'll dive in and be the first to respond to Mike's invitation (unless someone submits one while I'm typing this). Thanks for forming this, Mike.
All of us worship leaders are very comfortable contributing to a worship service and do so [extensively] every Sunday morning. We work with teams of people sharing music, scriptures, a sermon, administering sacraments, etc. But what inevitably seems to happen is that a group of "us" is presenting the service to a group of "them". "We" are the ones who've done the planning, who know what's happening next, who know when the lights are going to come down for the video clip,...who have the service under control.
I Corinthians 14:26 says, "What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church."
So how can we live out this verse and let everyone who comes dynamically shape the service? This verse sounds messy. Is this even possible, especially at larger churches? Plus, let's be honest, some of those slick presentations can be very effective. Music and video and drama all working in sync can have powerful impact on people's hearts and minds. Can we have our cake and eat it too?
posted by Nathan at 12/02/2005 09:46:00 AM
1 Comments:
Wow, this is a great topic to start with. Thanks, Nathan. One of the things our staff has been talking about a lot is how to be transformed into an "equipping church" - how to "give ministry away" to the point where, as paid ministers, our primary job is more to spend time mentoring and building into other people who actually do the ministry, rather than doing it ourselves. That seems to me like a wonderful idea.
At the same time, in examining my area of ministry (worship and arts), I know that part of why I was hired was for some of my specific musical and artistic gifts... I don't think the church wants me to stop leading worship, writing songs, etc. But I do know that we have an abundance of talented people, all who have the potential to contribute to worship services in a powerful way, so I do need to figure out the best way to let their gifts be given.
But I guess the question is "What does that look like in practice?" I do have to say that I'm not sure if that 1 Corinthians verse is really prescriptive - in other words, I'm not sure it's saying that worship services necessarily should involve everyone bringing hymns, teaching, etc. I read it as more descriptive of what's going on in that particular church, and Paul is warning them to keep things in order. But I don't think order means that we, the "professionals," should just be planning and carrying out the elements of worship all the time. It's certainly easier to do it that way, but I do think that most churches probably have a hard time finding the right balance between excellence and order on the one hand and the opportunity for the community to really offer our worship together on the other hand.
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