WorshipHelps

Everyone wants heightened spirituality, but don’t know what it takes to get there. Most pastors and worship leaders have such a hectic schedule that it is impossible to slowdown enough for quiet time or solitude. Yet the Apostolic Fathers of faith placed a high value on it.

If leaders have a problem with carving out quiet moments can you imagine what the congregation is feeling? Jonny Baker and Doug Gay’s Alternative Worship: Resources from and for the Emerging Church, provides a “ritual” that contextualizes the spiritual practice of being in the desert that can be used as part of a worship service, small group gathering, or as teaching illustration.

Items needed: Removed Van seat, a boom box, selection of CD’s (ideally instrumental), a video projector and VCR. Video tape a drive down the highway, even being stuck in traffic, or driving through the city.

Description: Traveling in a car is the closest thing for most people get to solitude. “Setting up this ritual will hopefully help people to reflect positively on the space they have next time they are driving alone in the car” (Baker and Gay, Alternative Worship, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 2004, 86)Continue reading...

Here is an idea to strengthen you experience of baptismal renewal. Take a walk!

This may not sound very revolutionary, but any movement at all in my congregation carries the threat of something going awry. Our large mainline congregation typically restricts its movement to arriving, standing, sitting, and departing. Now we are about to take a walk together past the baptismal waters as a sign of remembrance and renewal.

We are about to reflect together upon the story of Peter walking on water. His first steps brought the threat of sinking. Our steps bring the threat of tripping over someone’s walker or stepping on a neighbor’s foot. – As the pastor receiving Monday morning quarterbacking, I’m not sure which is scarier!

Placed in the context of Peter’s walk, our congregational journey will be just a token of the faithful risk we are called to share. Members will bring their offerings forward as they physically move toward the front of the sanctuary. (I’m told there are some African communities where this act of offering is the most joyful and powerful part of the service!) Upon placing their offering (and their heart!) before the Lord, they will pass the baptismal waters and be given opportunity to touch the water and remember God’s claim on their lives.Continue reading...

A couple weeks ago I baptized my nephew at his home church in Chicago.  Per his parents' request, we used freshly imported water from Lake Michigan.  Let's just say that we certainly followed the ancient advice to use "living" water.

His parents were eager to do this because their families -- on both sides -- have deep connections to the "Big Lake" as home. In the service, I pointed to the appropriateness of the link the water made between family initiation and initiation into the larger family of God.

But more than that, I suggested that using water from this natural resource -- so dominant and precious to us in the midwest -- highlights the deep connection between the grace of God offered in baptism and the responsibility we gratefully take on as Christ's disciples to care for the world in which that grace is manifest.  It says something damning to us if the water in our backyard streams, or rivers, or lakes is so polluted that we cannot in good common sense bathe in it, or in good conscience call it "living" water.  Perhaps my nephew Samuel will grow up, in service to Jesus, to be a biologist who concerns himself with the health of Lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron, Ontario, and Erie.

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Ron’s story about baptizing his nephew and the connections of baptism to our care for creation show how multifaceted the layers of this sacrament are. All of life, for those of us born of water and the Spirit, is wet. In other words, every moment of each day is grounded in baptism. Even if we are not following the will of God, those moments are redeemed in God’s grace, which is one aspect of baptism (cleansing from or forgiveness of sin). This is why confession or at least a reflection on how we “missed the mark” or sinned is a part of the compline prayer. The ancient “compline” prayer, or prayer at the close of the day shapes our sleeping and rising in the death and resurrection of Christ. This image is one of baptismal life; continually dying (repenting and turning from ways that separate us from Christ) and rising to new life each day.

Throughout the worship service there are several moments each Sunday where we can engage water in ways that help us understand and live more deeply into our baptism. Here are a few examples:

During the gathering of the people you can pour water into the font or baptismal pool with words that accentuate our inclusion into the family of God such as:

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you m ay proclaim the mighty acts of the One who called you out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)Continue reading...

Dr. Steven Taylor is the founding pastor of Graceway Baptist Church in Ellerslie, New Zealand. He has a PhD on the Emerging Church and a Masters in Theology in communicating the cross in a postmodern world. Steve recently did a course at Fuller Seminary entitled “Communicating the Biblical Text in a PostModern Culture” in July.

He argues that to communicate the biblical text for today’s context requires one to “incarnate, indwell, our culture.”  Taylor goes on to use the phrase “DJing” with respect to the community.  A record DJ learns the historical stories (old records) and uses them authentically in contemporary culture and integrates them into the community's stories.  There is too much to summarize here, but do look for his book “The Out of Bounds Church: Learning to Create a Community of Faith in a Culture of Change” from Zondervan.

Taylor cites Bono of U2 as a person who effectively DJs today.  According to Taylor, Bono is in fact a worship leader for over 40,000 people; Bono recontextualizes the biblical text and leads concert goers into a time of community worship and prayer. Taylor plays the “Vertigo ‘05” DVD and shows us how Bono is leading worship.  This intrigued me to the point that  Dr. Taylor and I discussed this further after the workshop. The following is from Steve’s article “7 Things I learnt from Bono about Worship Leading.”

1.    Connect uniquely. In the Vertigo DVD, Bono speaks about Chicago and his memories of Chicago. He makes a unique connection with context, day, and time.
2.    Engage through familiarity. Bono includes songs that resonate with previous experiences and previous encounters.
3.    Use repetition to call forth prayer. Bono uses the repetitive “Hallelujah.” It is easy to sing. The simple repetition enables the audience to sing with the band.
4.    Secure a 5th (visual) band member. U2 now has a 5th member of the band to add a visual layer to the experience. A wise worship leader will look to add not just singers or musicians, but a “visual” person to their team.
5.    Create hope by drawing the best from the past. Bono tells the audience in the Vertigo DVD, “We as a band are looking to the future. We’re taking the best of the past and moving forward with hope.”
6.    Plan participation. Bono can draw one boy from the audience to sing to, one woman from the audience to dance with. He uses repetition to call forth prayer and encourage congregational singing.
7.    Invoke passionate practices. Bono invites the audience to hall out their cell phones and to text “Make Poverty History campaign.”  A worship leader turns singing into action. He turns entertainment into justice.Continue reading...

A Book of the Names of the Dead is a very meaningful ritual for All Saints Day. Find a large beautifully bound book with blank pages. Sentences of scripture related to saints and the resurrection might be written in the margins. Or, you can purchase this book from Liturgy Training Publications. A few weeks before All Saints Day, place the book in the church and invite people to write the names of loved ones they wish to remember. Read the names aloud during the distribution of communion at your All Saints Day service. This ritual reminds us that one aspect of the Lord's Supper is the communion with all the saints. When we eat and drink, we dine with our loved ones and all the saints who have gone before us. Instead of reading the names during communion distribution, you could included the names in the prayers or read them at the font in connection with baptismal remembrance.

On Thanksgiving Day many churches offer a very traditional worship service: Psalm 100, a litany of thanksgiving, “Come, You Thankful People, Come.” On a day when we look back with gratitude at God’s good gifts to us, it makes sense to make use of the work and wisdom of our forebears and to worship using that which is tried and true. Other congregations seek innovation: pilgrim puppets behind the pulpit, prayers of thanks colored (not written) in crayon on scraps of paper and dropped in the offering plate.

Our culture craves novelty, which may explain—but doesn’t necessarily commend—our thirst for it. A more laudable urge is to offer in our worship not a stale tradition, repeated out of habit, but something original: our creative expression, our prayers and words and music, our very selves. We want to offer something fresh and new. But must it be an either/or choice?  Many congregations are very successful in their efforts to examine the tried and true traditions (often more true than actually tried), identify the best in them, and then freshen them in ways sensitive to their contexts.  Here are a few ideas...

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Call to Worship
Psalm 100 is just the right Scripture to use as a call to worship on Thanksgiving Day. It’s familiar, and it summons God’s people both to worship and to give thanks. But the elevated diction of most psalm translations, and the formal quiet out of which calls to worship are often spoken, can diminish the psalm’s affective energy. To generate enthusiasm, some congregations bring out their best thespian/liturgist to lead the reading with strong voice and grand gesture. But the right song might work as well—if not better—to encourage rather than coerce the congregation into eager, participative praise. For example, teach and then sing the song “Come, All You People” (it can be found in the hymnal supplement Sing! A New Creation) at the very start of the service, and let the energy leak into the responsive reading of Psalm 100 as a call to worship. Let it leak by maintaining a soft percussive pulse, and maybe a low bass drone, throughout the speaking. Then reprise the song afterward, and the service will have begun with faithfulness and vigor.  (See the music here, hear it here.)Continue reading...

The season of Advent is the beginning of the church year. If you follow the lectionary readings for this season you will find that they are accounts of prophets proclaiming the coming of God’s kingdom and anticipation of the coming of the messiah. We re-live this anticipation through these texts, our music, and even the way creation enters more deeply into darkness until the passing of the winter solstice.

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History and Symbolism

The Advent wreath has its roots in northern European pre-Christian practices where people sought the return of the sun in the darkest time of the year (at the winter solstice) by lighting candles and fires. By the middle ages, Christians used fire and light to represent Christ's coming into the world. Using this same symbolism, the Advent wreath developed a few centuries ago in Germany. The advent wreath signifies waiting and hopeful expectation, looking forward to both Christ’s birth and to Christ’s coming again at the end of time. The circular shape of the wreath represents eternal life. The evergreens signify the faithfulness of God and the lighted candles reminder us of the light of Christ in the world.Continue reading...

In some monastic communities, monks go up to receive the ashes barefoot.  Going barefoot is a joyous thing.  It is good to feel the floor or the earth under your feet.  It is good when the whole church is silent, filled with the hush of people walking without shoes.  One wonders why we wear such things as shoes anyway.  Prayer is so much more meaningful without them.  It would be good to take them off in church all the time.  But perhaps this might appear quixotic to those who have forgotten such elementary satisfactions.  Someone might catch cold at the mere thought of it.

-- Thomas Merton

1. Remove your phone case and power down your device.

Mighty God, source of power and love, in these moments when my device powers down, I give you thanks for the power you give to me to serve and the energy to live this life.  Remind me to rest when it is time, give me solid sleep.  Help me wake with joy.

2. Polish with a microfiber cloth.

With this cloth and its small fibers, remind me that each choice I make is like a small fiber, woven into the cloth of my life.  Empower my decisions, Lord; help me to be brave and kind, wise and trustworthy.  Bind all of us and our choices together into a cloth that makes this world safe for everyone.

3. Next, reach for a branded disinfecting wipe.

These wipes are full of weird chemicals, O Lord, and I don’t know how this cloth will bio-degrade.  But it is a sign of the wonders of this creation – of materials and inventions, science and industry, and for that I give thanks.  Give wisdom to researchers in all fields and help us protect people, planet, and prosperity for all.

4. Let your phone air dry for a minimum of 5 minutes.

Lord, you are more wondrous than wifi – you connect us in ways that we cannot see.  As my phone dries, I pray for all of my contacts in that phone.  Help them to know my affection and respect for them.Continue reading...