Second of Three Parts
How do you extricate the Sunday-morning service from the proverbial rut where blessing and koinonia get bogged down in boredom?
Here are some of the things that helped us come alive:
Variety. We tried not to structure any two services alike for as long an interval as possible. This meant, among other things, reshuffling program elements every week. One week the sermon came first in the program, the announcements and offering last. Another week the invitation was injected near the beginning—right after a few songs and stirring testimonies—and the doxology served as benediction.
The shifting around was not an end in itself. Ideally, every service had specific purposes, and placement of program items was decided upon accordingly. I often spent hours preparing an order of service so that it would “feel” right (smooth transitions, proper blend of informality with order and dignity, meaningful participation, the most apt songs and Scripture for services built around such themes as love, joy, and peace).
The service one week might be designed to draw us into deep heart-expressed worship of God. Next week’s might be a lighter, joyous service with lots of music and plenty of what-God-has-done-this-week sharing. Two or three times a year I preempted all but ten minutes for special sermons (an annual Book of Romans survey; a study of how Bible prophecy lines are converging in our time). Other services were more smorgasbord in content.
Despite all the planning we tried to hang loose, too. On occasion we sensed that the Holy Spirit was leading us in an outpouring of prayer and sharing, thus canceling the bulletin’s agenda and postponing until another Sunday a sermon hammered out in sweat and tears.
Participation. We abolished class distinctions between pulpit and pew, and created opportunities for the people to participate in the services.
1. Scripture reading. Members took turns reading the selected Bible passages. Sometimes I handed out slips of paper with references to be read aloud during the service. Verses on a certain theme might thus be read by ten persons, young and old alike, from six different versions. Periodically we gave those in the congregation a chance to quote a favorite verse and to relate briefly (I imposed three-minute time limits) why it had fresh personal significance.
2. Prayer. We banned long, globe-encircling pastoral prayers. These tended to make even the most righteous among us drowsy and to further the cause of spectator-styled churchmanship. As individuals we prayed throughout the week about the matters that concerned us all, so I felt no special urgency to go through the entire list in pulpit prayers.
We instead encouraged short conversational-type prayers in most services. This enabled many—half the congregation on occasion—to respond to our calls for “a sentence of worship or intercession.” Young people joined in these sessions freely; some prayed aloud for the first time during them. Soft organ background music added just the right touch. Often we interspersed the prayers with appropriate choruses (words were printed in the bulletin).
Important tend-to-it-now needs received our united, concentrated attention in prayer, and this tended to cement us together spiritually.
3. Interviews. Much of the excitement we felt in our services can be traced to informal interviews of long-time members, visitors, and pulpit guests. We tried to interview at least one person in all but a few services.
When major trouble broke out on the Berkeley campus, we interviewed our students who attended the university: “What’s happening? What are the Christians doing?” When Christianity became the Number One issue on campus, we called them back to ask the same questions.
We interviewed hippie converts from Haight-Ashbury, ex-Black Panthers who had received Christ, a Jesuit seminary professor newly turned on to Christ, our high schoolers who were spreading the Gospel among their classmates, members who had gotten spiritual victories during the week, those to whom revival had come at a weekend retreat, witness teams back from outreach projects, members with an interesting past or unusual conversion experience, Christians whose work provided insight that might benefit us (police officer, doctor, college professor, newspaper reporter).
Interesting Christians I met at Saturday-night activities and meetings were usually interviewees next morning (a Hollywood actor-singer, a youth-work executive from Australia, a street-Christian evangelist from Seattle, a serviceman home from the war).
Our services drew a constant stream of visitors—we were an urban church in a port city that attracted tourists from all over the world. Our ushers cued me in when they turned up an interview prospect (a Philippine evangelist on his way home, a pastor from Guatemala, a Christian businessman from Hong Kong, a student leader from a Christian college).
With few exceptions our people loved it, because the blessings usually came down in sheets.
After severe racial disturbances in our city, I chatted in the pulpit with a husky black bus driver. A close friend, he was a committed Christian who worked among ghetto youths. Radicals had threatened to kill him because of his witness. As we talked, the love of Jesus gushed out of his heart. There were many tearful embraces after that service. I was surprised at the number of members who commented at the door: “I needed this, pastor. I had prejudice in my heart when I came in here this morning. Praise God, it’s gone now.” Another surprise: we had placed plates at the door for donations to the ghetto youth work—and we received the largest such offering in our history!
We always interviewed guest missionaries and seldom scheduled them to preach. It enabled us to learn far more about their work and about them. For these sessions we moved the pulpit aside, sat in easy chairs on the platform with a microphone between us, and chatted away. After a few minutes of questions from the congregation we closed in communal prayer, motivated by what we had learned. The missionaries, incidentally, nearly always remarked that it had been their best meeting ever, and that they had received personal blessing.
Potpourri. There were other things, too. A special welcome-visitors program. A do-your-thing-for-Jesus service (members recited their poetry, displayed art and photos, showed how skills could be used by God; I preached on consecration of abilities). A ten-minute evangelism laboratory (trainees shared the Four Spiritual Laws with neighbors in the pews). Periodic news briefings on the worldwide Christian scene. Introduction of new Christian music in sing-alongs. These and other features helped to unjam the Spirit’s frequencies, tuning us in to life.—EDWARD E. PLOWMAN, assistant editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY; formerly pastor of Park Presidio Baptist Church, San Francisco.
