Practical Worship Arts Suggestions for Corporate and Personal Worship

"Inspiration: Worship as Education, Punctuation and Liberation"

• We punctuate the moments that pass so quickly by calling to mind the events of the week, honoring the events as much as the God who strengthened us to move through them. Songs and prayers that, in addition to being relevant to a lectionary or theme scripture, relate to the previous week or weeks can be used. Examples include a favorite song of a person who has recently passed or a theme song of a group that is absent because of a mission trip.

• We liberate ourselves from words we speak each day by engaging meaningful movement, intended to help us think about their interpretations of love in the wonderful God-neighbor-self triangle. A call to worship can be a spoken welcome with an invitation to mirror the actions of the worship leader. The worship leader can raise hands to heaven followed by bringing hands together and down, one atop the other over the heart. The worship leader can extend arms forward, hands wide apart as if to say “Give me a hug,” followed by arms embracing self with each hand on the opposite shoulder. The ritual might end with a passing of the peace or other opportunity to greet one another.

• The sermon can be delivered using brief, scripted readings to punctuate the main points. A preacher might print readings on pieces of paper and ask different congregants to read them on cue. The congregational reader may read the paper, invite a moment of silence and then sit down. The preacher would regain the attention of the congregation and elaborate on the reading.

• Offer the worshiper a small take-away card that contains a few practical suggestions for living into the learnings for the week. What might happen if worshipers took cards to which they could refer throughout the week, on which were written a few questions? Questions could be as simple as “Do you remember what we talked about at church on Sunday? How has it changed your daily life?” Questions could also be far more specific, asking something like “How have you loved your neighbor?”

• Remind worshipers in the middle of the week of the previous week’s theme. Understanding that technological advances vary congregation by congregation, home by home, we might get a bit creative. In circumstances in which the preferred method is the mail, a card every once in awhile containing the lyrics to the key hymn might get the message running back through worshipers’ heads. In other cases, a Youtube link sent via email or Facebook event might be applicable. But don’t be afraid to get creative!

• Have a Sunday School group or choir of any age write the hymn lyrics in community for a theme every once in awhile. Use a tune in the public domain that is familiar to your congregation. • If you have multi-lingual congregants, the scripture could be read twice, each in a different language. If not, diversity could be welcomed by splitting one English reading sentence-by-sentence between a child and a retired person. If the scripture includes dialogue, one reader could read the narrator part while a different voice is assigned to each sentence in quotes.

• Fixed-hour prayer ideas can be as high-tech or low-tech as appropriate. Ask congregants to draft prayers that are 180 characters or less that will be texted at pre-determined times to all on an opt-in list. Alternatively, congregants could receive a “Prayer of the Day,” over which all participants agree to pray at a certain time or within a time frame.

• Skype an overseas missionary, and the locals in ministry with him or her, into a worship service. If live interactive Skype is not technologically possible on either end, ask your far-away friends to make a brief video to show in a corporate worship celebration. Alternatively, a phone call on speakerphone amplified by a microphone (or recorded message) with a photo of the group on an easel or in a bulletin could offer the opportunity to see and hear these cherished parts of the Body of Christ.

• In a corporate worship setting, highlight a story from Response magazine by dividing it into a few voice-parts and reading it dramatically as a Readers Theatre. In this genre of theatre, actors read from their scripts rather than memorizing their lines. They sit or stand stationary rather than using blocking, or movement on the “stage.”