Last week I talked about the first part of my retreat at the New York State Ministry Council. The retreat was titled Reinventing Worship, and was put on by Brad Berglund, author of a book by the same title.
I thought that the second part of the retreat would include several other points, like those I highlighted in the last post. It really didn't, instead we talked about a number of examples that we can try in our churches. Essentially, they are different ways of doing things that we're already doing.
Too often, we do things the same way for so long, that they become a routine or habit, with no thought required to do it each week. But we can't enter into the presence of God without thinking! We have to open to Him, we have to be expecting to meet Him. These ideas are ways to open ourselves up to meet with Him.
A couple of small changes that we started this last Sunday involve finding ways to open ourselves up to experience real worship. First, we moved the announcements to the end of the service, at the time of the benediction. Worship requires preparation, and at the beginning of worship, we have to prepare to meet with God. Just as we begin this preparation, we are reminded of all the things coming up this week, most of which are already down, and we probably won't remember them after our time of worship anyway. At the end of worship, we come to a part of the service where we send people out again after encountering God. That seems like a better place for announcements.
The second small change we made was a change in the name of the prelude. We now call it "Pray lude." The idea being, again, that this is the time when we should be preparing our hearts and minds to encounter God. It should be a queit time of reflection.
Other minor changes may be made as we try to refocus ourselves on what worship really is, and how we can do it so that we can truly offer something that will please God...
Your comments on worship are appeciated. If you were there Sunday, what did you think?
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