Lance Winkler leading worship at the Church of the Resurrection. Photo by yours truly.
How do we who plan and run worship services make our services friendly? Welcoming? Engaging? After a conversation with a friend last week, I think I’ve put my finger on a helpful tip. It seems a little unintuitive, too, but I think it holds true.
Worship services tend to be what I would call “presentational”. You have a person on a stage who is presenting information to a crowd. The way this person speaks to and interacts with the crowd does a lot to set the tone of the worship experience, be it warm, humorous, empathetic, reverential, or contemplative. But the communication is still, almost always, one way. If you’re in a congregation, especially a larger one, you can still feel “talked to” rather than “talked with”, if that makes sense. Good worship leaders, of course, are able to pull people in to worship and get them to respond through singing, dialoging not so much with the person on stage as with God.
But it’s often easy for someone to still feel disconnected from the experience. So here’s my simple suggestion: Have conversations among the people up front, too. I know, I know. It sounds counter-intuitive. But if people are able to converse with each other at key transition times in a worship service, it actually helps to engage the congregation. And I think it’s because people feel like a part of a conversation rather than a presentation.
Think about talk shows. Jay Leno talks with guests, but he does it in a way that invites you, the audience member, into the conversation. He even chats with his band leader, who almost becomes a surrogate of sorts for the audience. If everything in a worship service is one-way presentational, no matter how engaging that presentation is, you can still feel talked to. But imagine this scenario: An associate pastor has been performing the role of “emcee”, saying welcoming words, maybe announcements, doing the tasks that move the worship service along. Instead of simply walking off the stage when worship starts, what if this person says, “Chris is our worship leader this morning. Chris, I understand you’re going to be teaching a new song this morning. Why did you pick this song to teach us?”
Then Chris has a chance to respond, and we get to see a different side of Chris than we’d see otherwise. The emcee then says, “Awesome, I can’t wait. Thanks so much for leading us this morning.” Then, turning back to the congregation, “Let’s join in as Chris leads us.”
It applies to the pastor, too. Some pastors only give the sermon. And while they can be very engaging delivering the sermon, it also establishes the pastor as The Professional Bringer of God’s Holy Word. A pastor involved in a casual cross-stage conversation earlier in the service (or by conducting an interview during the sermon) is suddenly humanized and more approachable.
Pretty easy, right? I know some of you are thinking, “This warrants a blog post?” But I’ve seriously seen lots of worship services that are all presentational. I don’t think it’s as intuitive as we might think. But I’m convinced that this simple little act can do much to make worship more meaningful, engaging, and warm for all involved. What do you think?
I got tickled at this line – “But I’ve seriously seen lots of worship services that are all presentational.” Maybe most of your blog audience is used to conversational leadership, but all-presentational is all I’ve ever seen. This definitely warrants a conversation with worship leaders at my church.
Hey, Lauren! Long time, no hear! Yeah, I’m not sure how your church runs things. Certainly more traditional worship services tend to be this way, but I see it often in contemporary environments, too. And some may not like it because it does add a certain informality, and that may not fit the style or goal of worship. But almost anyone today would say that phrases like “warm”, “welcoming”, and “inviting” are terms they’d want to describe their worship services. My suggestion certainly isn’t all it takes to make this happen, but it seems like an easy adjustment to make.
Funny, Rob, I’ve just been thinking about that the past couple of weeks, specifically the role of “sidekicks” on talk shows and how we could break down some of the wall between congregation and worship leaders through dialog. Thanks for putting it into words. We are who we are in relationship to others, so nothing is as humanizing as interaction, especially when it’s unscripted.
Yeah, I’m in complete agreement with you. I also think technology could open up a lot of doors to participation. In my experience, However, most church leadership really isn’t interested in this kind of dialog. Too often real people don’t respond the way we want them to, which really messes up our carefully laid plans. I’m thinking of a series I was a part of a couple of years ago when we acted as though we wanted to dialog with people outside the faith, but when the interviews we shot didn’t fit our preconceptions we discarded them. If we’re ever going to have these kind of experiences we’re going to have to learn to listen. Really listen. This isn’t always our strong suit…
Yeah, I think you’re onto something there. If we’re really there to worship, then we have to get everyone engaged. Watching someone else worshipping is not worship — it’s performance. I think your idea could help with that.
Something else that would help, imo, is making sure the people know that the worship leaders want everyone to sing with them. Sometime when there’s a solo verse in the middle of a worship song, it’s confusing as to whether we’re supposed to sing or listen. I think it’s important for the people worshipping to know that we’re being encouraged to sing praise to our God with the leaders.
Great thoughts about an important topic. Thanks for sharing!
I think you have certainly hit on something here. I’ve been assisting a church service the past couple of months for a fairly small congregation, and the pastor does this conversational style of leadership from up front, and it really does work. She asks the congregation for feedback mid-sermon, and responds to it. She talks to her tech guys, and her band, and to me, in front of everyone… and it does give everyone in the room a feeling that they are *part* of what is happening, not just observers. I hadn’t really thought of it much until reading your post, but that is certainly something I will keep in mind in the years to come.