Planning and Flow in Worship (Part 1)
I just returned from our Annual Conference at Sky Lodge Camp in Wisconsin. I had the pleasure of conducting a workshop on the planning and flow of worship. I want to take a moment and share some thoughts from that session. It is important to note that I am approaching this topic from the angle of modern forms of worship. The principles, however, translate to all forms of worship.
For those of us who are using more modern music in our worship, we have an extra step as we plan for our worship. In days past, our denomination gathered Godly men and women together to examine our music. About every ten years, they would put together a hymnal for our use, that contained songs that were theologically deep and orthodox. They separated them out by theme, and indexed the for us. This made planning far easier. In addition only a very few songs were added from previous editions, and so familiarity assisted with ease of planning as well.
Today however, songbooks that are available for our use are no longer put together by theological watch-dogs who care for our spiritual growth, but rather they are put together by publishing companies who care for their fiscal bottom-line. We, therefore, must be diligent to select songs that are theologically appropriate, and not merely fluff with a strong melody line. Paul Baloche has written a book entitled “God Songs” that provides some helpful evaluation tools.
I'd like to clarify one last thing before we delve into our conversation on planning and flow - There is no such thing as Contemporary or Traditional worship. The worship wars we encounter in church are cultural and not Biblical in nature. These cultural worship battles have been going on as long as there has been worship. Take a look at John 4:20. One culture believed that the proper way to worship was to find a high spot on a mountain so they could be close to God. They stood in opposition and contrast to the group who maintained that worshp MUST be in Jerusalem at the temple. Today we have a cultural divide between the hymnal and the screen. Jesus, I believe, would say the same thing to us, as he said to the Samaritan woman. "The day will come when you will neither worship from the book, or from the screen. The Father is looking for those that would worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
Some would say that "Hymns are vastly different than the newer music. The new music is too repetitious. It doesn't have the same flow as a hymn." This partially correct. The flow is different between hymn and many modern songs. This is because they are different forms of music. The Hymn is stereotypically in a narrative form. It tells a story. The modern song is stereotypically cyclical. It has a meditative purpose. However, modern music is actually following a more ancient style of music. Chants, some psalms, and even music in the baroque period followed this form (think of Handels Messiah). There is place for both the hymn and meditative song in our worship service.
More to come...
For those of us who are using more modern music in our worship, we have an extra step as we plan for our worship. In days past, our denomination gathered Godly men and women together to examine our music. About every ten years, they would put together a hymnal for our use, that contained songs that were theologically deep and orthodox. They separated them out by theme, and indexed the for us. This made planning far easier. In addition only a very few songs were added from previous editions, and so familiarity assisted with ease of planning as well.
Today however, songbooks that are available for our use are no longer put together by theological watch-dogs who care for our spiritual growth, but rather they are put together by publishing companies who care for their fiscal bottom-line. We, therefore, must be diligent to select songs that are theologically appropriate, and not merely fluff with a strong melody line. Paul Baloche has written a book entitled “God Songs” that provides some helpful evaluation tools.
I'd like to clarify one last thing before we delve into our conversation on planning and flow - There is no such thing as Contemporary or Traditional worship. The worship wars we encounter in church are cultural and not Biblical in nature. These cultural worship battles have been going on as long as there has been worship. Take a look at John 4:20. One culture believed that the proper way to worship was to find a high spot on a mountain so they could be close to God. They stood in opposition and contrast to the group who maintained that worshp MUST be in Jerusalem at the temple. Today we have a cultural divide between the hymnal and the screen. Jesus, I believe, would say the same thing to us, as he said to the Samaritan woman. "The day will come when you will neither worship from the book, or from the screen. The Father is looking for those that would worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
Some would say that "Hymns are vastly different than the newer music. The new music is too repetitious. It doesn't have the same flow as a hymn." This partially correct. The flow is different between hymn and many modern songs. This is because they are different forms of music. The Hymn is stereotypically in a narrative form. It tells a story. The modern song is stereotypically cyclical. It has a meditative purpose. However, modern music is actually following a more ancient style of music. Chants, some psalms, and even music in the baroque period followed this form (think of Handels Messiah). There is place for both the hymn and meditative song in our worship service.
More to come...