Week 1: What Is Creative Worship
Welcome to the first week of classes at CWT U. My name is Josh Linman, I work the media team at Ginghamsburg Church and have also had the privilege of helping to launch the CWT community. I’ve learned a lot about creative worship over the past six months but even so I’m going to leave most of the teaching to some of the 50+ leaders I’ve interviewed for the CWT project (and even some members of the CWT). I will simply be helping you all apply some of what you’re learning from them.
Before we have any sessions on vision casting, team planning or evaluating though, we first have to try and understand what creative worship is.
Brainstorm
Take some time to define what you think creative worship is and post your thoughts below by using the comment box.
Here’s what some CWT members said:
“I believe being creative in worship is presenting the gospel in a way that it hasn't been presented before...” -Andy
“So, if you were to ask me what creative worship looks like ... it is a worship experience that connects people to the word and the mystery of God ... the grace of God ... the love of God.” -Mark
“Stained glass windows...There is nothing inherently holy or spiritual about them, but they were used as a creative medium to convey meaning...and they did...and still do. But I think it was never about the format (stained glass in this case) but more about the intention. At that time, those windows were as close as many would ever come to seeing great art...they were awe inspiring and literally filled the room with color and light- very experiential. Can we tap into the same intentions with other formats? Can we tap into the same formats with different intentions?” -Jason
Creative worship is not traditional worship or contemporary worship, it is intentional worship.
Far too often we become stuck in the ruts of routines in all styles of worship. We stop thinking about why we use the Apostles’ Creed at every service or why we always sing three songs to open a gathering.
Creative worship is about developing meaningful new experiences and rediscovering the meaning behind those ancient experiences...all in an effort to connect people to the good news of great joy God has for them.
Brainstorm
What was your favorite creative moment in worship last month?
To close I want to share some of my favorite creative worship ideas from the CWT site:
A New Way to Sing the Doxology
Call to Worship: Drumline Style
When cell phones are okay in worship
A new service announcement ala Geico
God’s Holiness Song Medley
Secular Psalmists
The Power of Stories
Coming Next Week:
Casting a vision for creative worship, discovering the answer to your “Why?” question.
Subscribe to this conversation and other Creative Worship Tour community content here.
Before we have any sessions on vision casting, team planning or evaluating though, we first have to try and understand what creative worship is.
Brainstorm
Take some time to define what you think creative worship is and post your thoughts below by using the comment box.
Here’s what some CWT members said:
“I believe being creative in worship is presenting the gospel in a way that it hasn't been presented before...” -Andy
“So, if you were to ask me what creative worship looks like ... it is a worship experience that connects people to the word and the mystery of God ... the grace of God ... the love of God.” -Mark
“Stained glass windows...There is nothing inherently holy or spiritual about them, but they were used as a creative medium to convey meaning...and they did...and still do. But I think it was never about the format (stained glass in this case) but more about the intention. At that time, those windows were as close as many would ever come to seeing great art...they were awe inspiring and literally filled the room with color and light- very experiential. Can we tap into the same intentions with other formats? Can we tap into the same formats with different intentions?” -Jason
Creative worship is not traditional worship or contemporary worship, it is intentional worship.
Far too often we become stuck in the ruts of routines in all styles of worship. We stop thinking about why we use the Apostles’ Creed at every service or why we always sing three songs to open a gathering.
Creative worship is about developing meaningful new experiences and rediscovering the meaning behind those ancient experiences...all in an effort to connect people to the good news of great joy God has for them.
Brainstorm
What was your favorite creative moment in worship last month?
To close I want to share some of my favorite creative worship ideas from the CWT site:
A New Way to Sing the Doxology
Call to Worship: Drumline Style
When cell phones are okay in worship
A new service announcement ala Geico
God’s Holiness Song Medley
Secular Psalmists
The Power of Stories
Coming Next Week:
Casting a vision for creative worship, discovering the answer to your “Why?” question.
Subscribe to this conversation and other Creative Worship Tour community content here. Join This Conversation
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Permalink Reply by Josh Linman on -
We also have some great member uploaded creative worship ideas in our photo library. Check them out here.
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Permalink Reply by Tim Powers on -
Creative worship is worship that helps people experience God through their five senses. It employs a variety of artistic expressions and goes way beyone the tired old traditional vs. contemporary worship "wars." It employs the best expressions from the entirety of the Church in all its multi-faceted expressions--Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Pentecostal. It is what the late Robert Webber called "Ancient Future Worship."
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Permalink Reply by Margaret on -
Creative Worship to me involves finding meaningful ways of sharing and expressing God's love for us, God's grace, and sharing the message of the Gospel. It can involve ancient, historical practices (chant, traditional hymnody, prayer, bible study) or new innovative ideas (modern music, video, art, dance, multicultural resources). What may impact one person, may not impact someone else, so we need to try different things to reach as many people as possible.
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Permalink Reply by Naomi Banta on -
Creative worship is intentional, thought provoking worship that magnifies God in ways that makes someone sit up and take notice instead of going through the motions.
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Permalink Reply by Josh Linman on
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Great answers. Tim you are right that creative worship does go beyond traditional vs. contemporary. Margaret you said it well that what may impact one person may not impact someone else - so we need to try different things and we need to be intentional. Naomi, creating moments when people sit up and take notice instead of going through the motions is definitely the goal. Thanks for sharing.
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Permalink Reply by Sam Wolf on -
What is creative worship?
• Worship from the heart, not just singing words, but a connection from your heart to God's. This brings God's creative power to work in your life.
• Worship that is displayed by using the gift that God has placed in you
• Worship that moves on your soul - mind, will, & emotions - so that it opens up your heart for God to speak to. This movement on your soul could be a dramatic song, a pondering question in a monologue, a charge from God's Word in video, an off the wall skit that makes a point, or a unique way to present the truth of God's Word in a message.
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Permalink Reply by Josh Linman on
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Hey Sam, that for adding your thoughts. All your points are valid but your second stuck out to me. In a lot of our communities there are many people talented in music, drama, graphic design, video production, painting, etc. but we don't harness their gifts to communicate because...well I don't know why not -- is it too much work to get these people involved, too risky to move beyond our well worn path and take the road less traveled?
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Permalink Reply by Mark Pierson on -
Love some of those video clips. very nice. Thanks for uploading them Josh. I agree with Tim when he described creative worship as that which helps people experience God through all their senses, and said that it goes beyond our usual category boxes. AncientFuture (first coined and used by Leonard Sweet) is an excellent way of thinking about this. Margaret said similar things in a different way. My contribution would be to say that I think worship is always creative in one way or another. While God is the only true creative who creates ex nihilo (out of nothing) we are made in the image of God and so reflect God's creativity in all that we do. We do it by rearranging already created things in new ways, rather than creating ex nihilo. So anytime we do that in worship, I think we are being creative and curating creative worship.
I think its sad that often only very unusual worship gets labelled 'creative'. Even more sad that only a few people get labelled creative and even more so that most people think they aren't creative. Sure some people may be better at that than others, but many more people can curate creative worship than realise they can. It shouldn't be restricted to a special group. In my experience there is no one who can't make a creative contribution to a worship event. It depends on how we nurture that kind of participation as a value in our church.
On Good Friday I curated worship titled "Dead Man Waiting" that required trucking a ton of crushed ice into a sanctuary lit with blacklight. I don't consider that any more creative than my friend who that day had her congregation tear out newspaper headings as a prayers in her otherwise straightup Methodist service. Neither were primarily about creativity. Both were about pastors figuring out ways to help their communities at worship engage heart soul mind strength with God.
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Permalink Reply by Linda Sines on -
Refreshing and challenging insight and perspective, Mark. Thank you so much for the breath of fresh air! Both of your conversations today are a blessing. cREDo!
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Linda,
I think I have deleted a comment of yours by mistake!! My apologies. You can do what Stephen does. Talk to him about what is needed, or trawl around on his website. I think environmental projections would go great at a RED event. Its an easy…
Nice stuff Cyndi. I like the thinking you have done around what you do, before you do it! Not enough people make that kind of close contextualisation to their congregation. Nice.
Thanks, again, to Eric Herron for his "Show and Tell" post! Glad I could be a "guinea pig" for this new way to connect with others on the site. Anyway, I mentioned that I created a PowerPoint presentation to go with the Genesis 1 creation story. It…
Thanks for posting this, Eric! I can't wait to see what other folks are up to!
This makes me think about what my high school jazz teacher said: "It is the silence between the notes that creates the rhythm."
Saying this was one of the ways he motivated antsy, immature, 16 yr. old jazz musicians to stop playing so many notes wh…
You've trained my eye to find your subtle inspiRED messages : )
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