Jump to     PRACTICES Spiritual Types and Worship Identifying and Using Peoples’ Gifts Worship Planning Questions

Worship Planning

by KRIS JUDD

Worship is an encounter with the mystery of God that leads us to reverence and awe. It is far more than a program or “order of service.” Worship transforms and invites people to respond to Christ’s mission—the same mission that first invited them into new life in Christ. Without that invitation and response, the church has no reason to exist.

Worship is to praise God, to form disciples, and to shape and renew congregations for mission. Worship awakens our senses to the mystery and transforming presence of God. In worship, God’s love for us is affirmed and we are compelled to share invitation and compassionate ministry with others, and to extend God’s purposes of peace and justice.

In worship, as we experience the presence of God in community, we are drawn closer to God and to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Worship plays a powerful role in developing disciples and forming community. Services of worship should create space where seekers feel welcomed, inspired, and invited to deepen their relationship with the congregation and with God.

The Pastor’s Role in Worship Planning

Planning worship is a shared ministry. The pastor—as the one responsible for leading the congregation in its mission—plays a key role in influencing and shaping worship in tangible ways. Pastors should make sure that worship planners:

• Understand the identity, mission, message, and beliefs of Community of Christ.
• Understand the vision, purpose, and missional focus of the congregation.
• Be aware of and use the gifts of the people.
• Understand how to make worship meaningful for multiple generations.
• Understand that people are ministered to in a variety of ways.

The pastor serves as a spiritual guide who reminds leaders of the need for both flexibility in planning and careful preparation. Pastors should ask worship planners to keep a focus on Christ and Christ’s mission. The pastor and worship planners should ask questions such as:

• What is God doing in our communities and how do we join God in this action?
• What breaks God’s heart and how do we respond?

The first question leads to expressions of gratitude and awe; the second to commitment and compassionate action. Worship then moves members from the sanctuary into areas of mission within their communities.

Pastors should commission worship planners to consider the congregation’s communal journey with God as part of the worship experience. To do this, worship planners can ask themselves:

• What challenges has the congregation faced and overcome with God’s help?
• How has the congregation grown into the calling they now sense?
• What is God’s invitation to the congregation as a body, planted in a specific place at a      specific time?
• How well is the congregation responding to God’s invitation to participate in the mission of Christ?

Worship has been called “the work of the people.” People are created to worship. God calls the people to worship, receives the people’s worship, and enables the people’s worship. Worship awakens our senses to the mystery and transforming presence of God. In worship, God’s love refreshes and sends the church to invite others to share in sacred community, provide compassionate ministry to abolish poverty and end suffering, and extend Christ’s mission for justice and peace.

The pastor should encourage members and friends to engage in daily spiritual practices such as prayer, scripture study, and meditation. People who have prepared to encounter God in their personal disciplines will be more prepared for congregational worship.

Openness to the Holy Spirit is necessary for worship planning. Some planners think that strict adherence to a written order of service can restrict the awareness of the Spirit among the people. For others, sole reliance on the mysterious and sudden appearance of the Spirit can limit the Spirit’s movement experienced through preparation. Faithful worship planning honors both approaches. Pastors share this expectation with planners to create a well-planned but flexible worship experience that connects disciples to mission.

The church has been well-served when worship planners utilize the “Isaiah model” (see Isaiah 6:3–5 NRSV). In this model, a service of worship helps the congregation move through a four-step progression of: praise, confession, proclamation of the word, and commitment. Without “labeling” these four steps, there are multiple examples of the Isaiah model in Worship Resources, produced by Community of Christ each year.

Worship and Gifts

It is important for pastors to support worship planning that considers the various ways people experience God’s presence. Some people experience God’s presence most readily through intellectual and logical means in which the mind is stimulated. Others are touched primarily through their hearts as they are moved by feelings experienced in word, drama, and music. Still, other people worship most readily by encountering the mystery of God in silence, smell, image, or meditation. There are people who worship best by doing, hearing, and seeing the work of God unfold in acts of service. Knowledge and awareness of these spiritual types within the congregation is very important. Awareness of how worshipers experience the holy through their minds, hearts, hands, or in mystery can impact planning worship so all, not just some, find meaning in the congregation’s worship. (See “Spiritual Types and Worship” in the practices following this article.) In working with worship planners, pastors should encourage the use of word and song, silence, smells, sounds, drama, visuals, and movement (according to the gifts in the congregation and community).

God has blessed all congregations with members who have a variety of gifts. Some gifts are easily identifiable and visible, while others are not. There is no limit to what gifts and abilities can be used in the worship experience. Pastors focused on Christ’s mission actively encourage the gift-development of all members, and provide training and mentoring as needed. (Pastors don’t have to “do” the training themselves, but can arrange for it. If you need help with this, consult with your mission center leaders.)

Congregational worship should vary in its style and elements from place to place, based on each congregation’s gifts. No congregation should feel pressure to conform its worship to include elements or styles that they simply do not have the gifts to do well.

Worship and Mission

…the gospel does not wish to meet our needs so much as to redefine them. The gospel does not intend to “connect” to our world, but to change our world.

—Anthony B. Robinson, Transforming Congregational Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003, 45)

Pastors should regularly encourage people to invite others to join in the congregation’s services of worship. This means that worship must be characterized by genuine hospitality. Tammy Lindle’s book Hospitality: Sharing God’s Welcome (Herald Publishing House, 2006) provides excellent ideas to help congregations assess their friendliness, improve their welcoming spirit, and learn ways to make worship an inclusive experience for all. Creating a congregational culture of hospitality needs the pastor’s consistent and recurring encouragement.

All disciples are called to invite others to a relationship with Christ and community. Pastors encourage planners to include the element of authentic invitation in each worship experience. Worship invites people into a new or deeper relationship with Christ, extended participation in congregational life, and membership in Community of Christ.

Worship without response to the needs of others may be self-serving, an end in and of itself. With worship planners, pastors create opportunities for service once the service of worship has ended. For example, as a response to the invitation to share in compassionate ministries, pastors and the congregation might continue in worship following the service by making light meals and feeding the hungry after church. Or, the pastor and members of the congregation could spend time in fellowship with people who are homebound or live in a nursing home. Pastors and others can walk the neighborhood surrounding the church in prayer and conversation with neighbors. The movement is from worship to service and from service to worship.

Help Is Close at Hand

All pastors should make sure that worship planners are aware of Worship Resources available each year from Herald House (www.HeraldHouse.org). Worship Resources contains helps for preachers, suggested music, and World Church themes. It also contains scripture foci that, if followed, will introduce the congregation to a wide selection of scripture, increasing the congregation’s scriptural literacy.

Worship motivates and permeates public action, for it is an encounter with the God who both calls his people out of the world and sends them into it.

—Lois Barrett, Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004, 113)

God’s people participating in Christ’s mission in the world hear and respond to God’s call experienced in worship. Under the leadership of the mission-focused pastor, the congregation finds itself embraced, encouraged, gifted, nurtured, and sent in mission on behalf of Jesus Christ. Worshipers who adore and experience God can enter further into Christ’s mission of evangelism, compassionate ministries, and peace and justice for all of God’s creation.

This article has asked several questions. Here they are again:

• What is God doing in our communities and how do we join God in this action?
• What breaks God’s heart and how do we respond?
• How can the pastor nurture and sustain transforming worship?
• How does congregational worship intersect with Christ’s mission?
• What challenges has the congregation faced and overcome with God’s help?
• How has the congregation grown into the calling they now sense?
• What is God’s invitation to the congregation as a body, planted in a specific place at a specific time?
• How well is the congregation responding to God’s invitation to participate in the mission of Christ?

		Spiritual Types and Worship
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OBJECTIVE
To help people plan worship that blesses everyone by honoring various spiritual types.           

Each person connects with and understands God in up to four modalities: head, heart, mystic, or kingdom builder. No one type is better or more spiritual than another, and each of the four modalities or types brings with it gifts that can bless the individual and congregation. Unfortunately, the gifts are not given equal opportunity to be shared in most worship experiences. Worship planning done with an awareness of spiritual types, can enrich the experience of all worshipers because elements are included that help all four “types” of people be aware of the Spirit that seeks to bless, enlist, and empower all for mission.

PROCESS
Using Discover Your Spiritual Type by Corinne Ware (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 1995), have members assess their spiritual type. Have the congregation discuss this together. Talk about how people can share the gifts and blessings that are associated with each type.

Identify the dominant type(s) within the congregation as well as the ways in which each type typically experiences God’s presence. For example, individuals with strong “head” spirituality will find meaning and connection through intellectually challenging sermons or scripture study, while those who are kingdom builders may appreciate elements that focus on action in the community. Mystics may long for more periods of quiet reflection during worship, while those connected to “heart” spirituality may want rousing songs and passionate testimonies. Have individuals share from their typology what elements or forms of worship speak to them.

Share this information with all worship planners, encouraging them to reflect in their planning the types that are present in the congregation. Invite those with less commonly expressed types to assist in planning worship experiences, including those that take place outside of the regular location or time of Sunday morning.

		Identifying and Using Peoples’ Gifts
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OBJECTIVE
To help pastors and worship planners identify gifts for worship within the congregation.

PROCESS
The pastor and worship leaders meet for a prayerful conversation about gifts in the congregation that might be utilized in worship. Using the congregation directory or membership list, prayerfully consider each person and the gifts they may have to share in worship.

Step One:

Reflect together on the following scripture:

I give thanks to my God always for you [friends and members of the congregation] because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift…

—1 Corinthians 1:4–7 NRSV

Step Two:

Offer a prayer of thanksgiving.

Step Three:

Prayerfully review each name, ask these questions and make notes:

1. What gifts could this person offer in worship?
2. What gifts could this person develop to enrich the congregation’s worship?
3. Are pastoral care ministries needed for healing or reconciling past concerns or for providing encouragement or appreciation that could result in this person offering her or his gifts?

Step Four:

1. Make a list of people and their gifts.
2. Refer to the “gifts” list to assign persons to invite those identified to share their gifts in worship.
3. Assign persons to provide the ministry needed for pastoral care or for expressing appreciation and encouragement of people’s gifts.

		Worship Planning Questions
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OBJECTIVE
To assist worship leaders, planners and presiders in preparing and planning worship which addresses the needs of worshipers to praise God, be formed in discipleship and experience congregations in mission.

PROCESS
In planning worship, consider the following questions and elements as you plan and prepare for your congregational or small group gathering. This can be used in conjunction with the service outlines offered in the annual Worship Resources. Remember to keep the theme and scripture in focus as you use the following worship planning questions:

Worship Planning Questions for Mission-focused Worship

Calling: How will people be invited to worship? How will hospitality be extended before and
during the worship experience? Will symbols or signals be used to call people together? (Bells, music, etc.)

Gathering: What scriptures, songs, poems, or readings will be used to invite people into the presence of God? What songs or scriptures will be used to express praise and awe?

Centering: How will confession of our inadequacies and our dependence on God be expressed? How will the message be shared (sermon, dialogue, interaction with the congregation)? Will there be sacraments experienced? How will the congregation be informed of their meaning? How can the Disciple’s Generous Response moment address God’s generosity and offer opportunity to respond? Will video, songs, readings, or dramas be used to help bring the theme and message to life?

Sending: Will a benediction or sending forth be used? How will the people know they are sent forth in mission?

General Considerations: Have the gifts of all been considered while planning? Are there special needs (those with hearing or visual impairments) that should be considered? Have the diverse spiritual types (the kingdom builders and the mystics are often overlooked) been considered in this worship experience? Will God be glorified and praised? Will the church be reminded of its identity, message, mission, and beliefs? Will we encounter God? Will we be transformed once again? Will we be reengaged for the mission of Jesus Christ?