Worship Planing - POWR Style...part 1

Planning…part 1

In the POWR model our first meeting or step in designing a worship service is planning. Normally, when you and I hear the words "worship planning" we think of putting a service together, the whole service. In some cases this is just filling in the blanks for where the hymns or song sets go. But our planning at St. Paul, and hopefully your planning elsewhere, shouldn't necessarily be about simply putting a service together, or filling in the blanks, it should be a creative process. After all creativity is what we're looking for here. And as I said last time, true creativity comes from an ongoing conversation and interaction with the community of faith.

So take a few minutes to sit down with your worship planning team (we’ll call them your POWR Team) and let’s do some planning!!

So what do I mean when I say planning?

Our planning in this model should really be thought of as brainstorming. So your meeting to “plan” is really about a group of people getting together to get ideas out and onto paper. Notice I didn’t say that it was about finalizing anything or even settling on anything, it’s just a time to get ideas down on paper. I find it helpful to schedule 45 minutes to an hour for POWR Team to plan, much longer and the planning becomes a chore.

So where should I start with my planning meeting?

Start with the text. The key to creative and relevant worship planning is to begin with the scripture text. Have your group read the text aloud, then meditate silently for a few moments.
I realize that this is easier for churches that use the lectionary. If that’s not your church, then ask your pastor or speaker to give you a heads up about the primary scripture text. Even better would be for your pastor or speaker to sit down and give you and your POWR Team a brief idea of where the sermon/talk is headed.

After reading the text and meditating, ask the following questions:

What words or themes were presented in the text?

What surprised you about the text?

How does this text speak to you, individually?

How does this text speak to our community?

What did you see when the text was being read?

How did the text flow? What was the movement of the text?

What songs/hymns did you hear in or through the text?

What is this text calling us to do?

As responses begin to flow, be sure to write down EVERYTHING. Sometimes the ideas or thoughts that seem to be out in left field are the ones that God is leading us towards. Again I can’t stress enough how important it is that we as engage our text first. This is because our services are built around the text.

Now look at your paper or whatever you were taking notes on, there’s a lot of ideas here, and more will come!! We'll talk more about what happens next, next time.

Jonathan

NEXT WEEK: Planning…part 2