designing the service
Written by Aron Strong on June 12, 2008 – 5:27 pm -Paul Haugen and I were talking about producing weekend services today. Specifically, we were talking about doing the service “out of order” and why we never really do it. There’s several reasons I won’t go into at the moment (if you want to know them, leave a comment and the discussion will be on!), however the reality is people had a hard time when we’ve done this in the past.
This thought was echoed today when I read this blog post by Stephen Denny. He says in his post:
“We have a deep psychological need to be consistent with previously taken positions, even when those positions no longer hold any relevance.”
We all simply have a hard time with change, with going outside of our preconceptions and giving other’s perceptions a chance. Mostly, if worship isn’t up front, the people who know they can come late and still hear the message miss part of the message.
I’ve had some great discussion with others on this topic before, but I wanted to distill what I want out of a church service; and what I love programing into them. Here it is:
A church service should draw seekers while exciting believers by delivering what people need and expect in completely unexpected ways.
The deal is if you’re going to do unexpected things, you have to do it consistently. People have to know we always are changing things up. Random change causes trauma. But if you expect change and experience it consistently, you know to expect something unexpected. That’s exciting!
AND if you are excited and moved in unexpected ways through those changes consistently, you’ve created a culture that is more flexible to fliers and risks and more forgiving of flops. The danger is that we all have an inner compulsion to settle in. When we give in to that pull, than we become a consumer instead of a participant. The focus shifts to having my expectations met instead of coming ready for a fresh experience. And, in my opinion, that’s when the church can begin to loose touch with the culture. You’re busy meeting expectations, not creating fresh experiences.
Let me clarify: I’m not saying Clovis Hills is not creating fresh experience simply because we don’t switch the service order. I think we do a lot of things right in that regard. I’m just using this one example to illustrate how I connected to Stephen Denny’s post and my discussion with Paul.
For me it’s all about reaching seekers, thrilling believers, getting what you expect in unexpected ways. This is the core of my passion in designing a church service.
Where do you fall on the spectrum? And how do you think Clovis Hills doing in creating fresh experiences?
Posted in the church |
