Worship 101
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Posted on May 15, 2012, 12:00 am
Topics: Worship, Worship 101
What about your worship space? Is it inviting? Does it reflect your congregation’s meaning of worship? Or is it “just a space?”
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Posted on November 30, 2011, 2:23 am | 12 comments
Topics: Worship 101, Worshiping Community
A friend commented on two worship services saying, "One was full of life, the other was not." It made me wonder where the life of worship comes from and how our worship services can be full of life regardless of the style. What brings life to worship and what drains our services
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Posted on February 23, 2011, 10:21 am | 7 comments
Topics: Worship 101
What we consider as normal has everything to do with our context. In conversations about worship I am increasingly trying to excise any statement that suggests a norm such as, “this song is familiar” or “everyone is doing x, y or z.” For every normative statement we try to make there will be examples where it is false...
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Posted on May 3, 2010, 4:32 pm
Topics: Worship 101, Worshiping Community
Put yourself in their shoes. The parents across the church aisle had no comment when reporters turned up at their door. Other church members had plenty to say (though not to those parents) about their son who died in a drug deal gone sour.
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Posted on March 5, 2010, 8:44 am | 3 comments
Topics: Planning Worship, Worship 101
In a recent seminary class, we were reviewing key moments in the history of the church. My colleague Scott Hoezee asked students to think about what church life would have been like in six different centuries. As students reflected on each of these different moments in history, it struck me that in each of them public worship would have been led almost entirely by a single pastor, with the help of a single musician...
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Posted on January 25, 2010, 10:33 am
Topics: Worship 101
Jamie Smith recently gave a lecture in which he said that repentance and assurance in worship are remarkable formative practices that are indispensable to the Christian life. He noted that on Oprah, we can find a form of assurance ("you're o.k.," "just be yourself"), while our shopping mall elicits shame or anxiety in all of us ("none of us measure up to the standards of the good life projected there.")
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Posted on January 12, 2010, 8:54 am
Topics: Worship 101
Henry Nouwen once argued that the three greatest temptations for Christian leaders are to be a) relevant, b) spectacular, and c) powerful (In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, Crossroads, 1987).
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Posted on January 7, 2010, 10:20 am
Topics: Planning Worship, Worship 101
Just as the types of prayers will include a great deal of variety, so should the methods in which we pray represent a variety.
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Posted on January 7, 2010, 10:15 am
Topics: Planning Worship, Worship 101
In the interest of making Scripture reading in worship more interesting, noteworthy, and formative, consider including more Scripture passages, not less. When this is done it's usually best to carefully examine the length of each passage. A larger number of brief passages may be more effective ...
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Posted on January 7, 2010, 9:56 am | 1 comment
Topics: Worship 101
At its best, intergenerational worship begins with an understanding of worship rooted in scripture and informed by the wisdom of believers in all times and places, and then asks how each member of the body of Christ can participate actively, fully, consciously in that
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Posted on January 7, 2010, 9:53 am
Topics: Worship 101
What is authentic worship? What makes it genuine, real or true? In order for worship to be authentic it’s vital for worship to reflect honestly the people who worship. At the same time, if we’re talking about authentic worship we must remember that worship is not just about us. In worship we gather before a triune God in the context of his creation and his church...
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Posted on January 5, 2010, 3:17 pm
Topics: Worship 101
In the beginning God speaks six times on six days, and then stops. God rests. But each of these days also has a night. And God rests then too! God doesn’t talk all the time. In fact, Genesis doesn’t even start with a word. Genesis starts with the formlessness of the earth and with the Spirit of God brooding over the face of the deep. Then God speaks. You might almost say that at last God speaks. “Let there be light,” says God. According to Genesis, God breaks the cosmic silence with a creative word.
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