“The service should be centered around the sermon”.
I’ve heard that several times. And I agree. But I’d like to tweak it just a tad. I think rather than saying the service should be centered around the sermon we should say the service should be centered around the main text for that day. This helps us to see that every aspect of the service is governed by the Word—even the preacher.
Because I’m a nerd, I like to think of it as similar to building something with LEGO. You’ve got a bunch of different LEGO bricks which serve different functions. You employ different bricks depending on what you want to build. Some bricks are obviously going to be used every Sunday (the sermon, the offering, etc.) but even the way they are used will be different.
Right now we have a small group of folks working with me to plan our services. We try to plan about a month at a time. I begin by studying through the passages and giving the team the text, the theme, the tone, and the aim of the sermon. We then come together and bring our various ideas for what bricks would work to match the text, theme, tone, and aim for that week. We then work on putting the bricks together to assemble our new creation.
A couple weeks ago our text was Mark 6:45-56. As I studied this passage I felt the main theme was to highlight the provision of Jesus’ presence. Our aim, then, was to be comforted and exhorted by the incarnation. I felt that the tone of the service should be one which moves from reflective to celebratory.
In order to do this we knew that we had to shake the order of service out of its typical couple songs, offering/special, sermon, invitation order. We needed to build something a bit different. On this particular Sunday we started off our service with our special music—a beautiful rendition of It Matters to the Master. And we didn’t take up the offering until the very end of the service when we simply placed baskets at the front of the sanctuary. We did this because we wanted our service to close by signing I Stand Amazed in the Presence of Jesus the Nazarene. On this particular Sunday we actually had two songs of response instead of the traditional one invitation song.
Putting together our services this way has been helpful because we are a church transitioning from two services (one contemporary and one traditional) into one service (which is blended). We don’t analyze songs based on whether they are contemporary or traditional. We consider a song based upon content and how it matches the tone for that week. We’ve had some weeks where we have had two or three hymns and some which we’ve had one. I believe for the most part our congregation is responding well to this.
Comparing this process of putting together a worship service with building something with LEGO has been helpful to us, and I thought it might be helpful to you as well.
How do you do it?
