Support the theme of your worship service

Way back when I was an active member of our church’s high school youth group, First Baptist in Glenwood, Iowa allowed us to put together a youth service. It was then that our leaders introduced us to the idea of planning worship, which until that point had seemed to be something that was automatic. We had to think not only in alignment with those elements that made up an “official” First Baptist worship experience, but also to consider the content of each element in the service to develop a theme for the service.

As the years have passed, I recognize that those few simple youth group meetings to plan worship with God and other people in mind rocked my world. How would we communicate our love and gratitude to Almighty God? How would we encourage our friends, parents and grandparents to encounter God in spirit and truth? And then, a question to consider I had never encountered before: What would be the theme, the “take away,” the thing they would remember very specifically from the service that, with God’s blessing, might encourage them during the upcoming week?

If you are a music leader and you’ve never had that discussion with your pastor, schedule coffee immediately and begin that dialogue. If you’re a pastor and have never talked about worship themes with the people who help you, maybe that moment is now. It’s a great way to discover what the people you serve think about worship in your local church service, and to explore what might help them better connect with God and the people who worship with them.

For some of us, the very idea of “planning” worship sounds like it would inherently exclude any activity of Holy Spirit. Not so. When the apostle Paul encouraged the early Corinthian church to pray both in the Spirit and with understanding, he described a sort of “worship paradox” – maybe “pendulum” would be a better word – that may never leave us this side of Glory. The point that Paul makes clear is that worship, with both the spontaneous activity of Holy Spirit and the ongoing effort to encounter and explain the Word and ways of God, should be the desired norm of Christian experience.

That said, I’ve been in plenty of worship services where the idolatry of schedule quenched any spontaneous activity – like the leaders were afraid God would show up or something – and on the flipside, I’ve been in plenty of situations where even rehearsing worship music was questionable because if you plan and prepare for worship, it must not really be sincere for you.

I find that neither extreme has been helpful.

I’ve helped put music together for worship services that cover many styles and traditions and theological underpinnings. I have found that people can flex with musical selections and styles if the theme of the musical selection supports the theme of the worship service itself. At that point, the music is there to help people praise in the spirit and with understanding, just as the New Testament indicates. Given the abundance of songs available for use in worship today, it should be possible to support almost any worship theme with thoughtful music selections that both welcome God’s activity during the service and in our lives, while enhancing our appreciation and understanding of God’s Person and character.

(Wow. That was a mouthful.) More later!

–Steve Wamberg