I sat in a pew near the center of the sanctuary and reminded myself that this was not a performance that could succeed or fail, but a worship service prepared with prayer and careful thought for the glory of God.
This was our first Sunday in a small Covenant church in downtown Pasadena where my husband Mel was the new minister. Since I had a background of study in liturgy and worship and had experience planning services for a church in Portland, we entered this ministry with the understanding of the pulpit committee that I could best help Mel and the church by coordinating the Sunday morning worship service.
The church was filling up quickly. The balcony and main floor were already full, and chairs were being added to the aisle. Since the attendance had been around 225 a week during the previous month, I felt a sense of excitement about the crowd.
Any pride I might have had about people coming because of Mel was quickly dispelled when an elderly lady behind me began to talk to the young couple on her left. “You’re new here,” she said. “Just visiting?”
“Yes, we’ve come to hear Mel White.”
“Well, I don’t know what the fuss about him is, although the young people here seem to like him. He’s a filmmaker from Fuller Seminary, you know, and nothing good has come out of Fuller since Wil-bur Smith.”
I looked around the sanctuary. The room was box-like, with high ceilings and no windows. The stained-glass windows were covered from the inside for acoustical reasons. The carpet was an orange color, and a simple wooden cross hung center front above an enormous pulpit. I had a “the situation is hopeless” feeling when I first saw the room, but Mel reacted differently.
“This is a great room for media,” he said. “The lights can be immediately dimmed. Film and slides and overhead projection can be used in morning as well as evening services.”
Mel wanted a sense of celebration on our first Sunday since the church had been without a minister for four years. His theme was, “Celebrate, You’ve Been Pardoned.” Two large story-banners, created by one of Mel’s students, hung on either side of the cross. They depicted Miriam and two women picking up their tambourines (timbrels) and dancing to celebrate the crossing of the Red Sea. A line drawing of one of the banners was printed on bright yellow paper for the bulletin cover.
Outside, ushers wearing large buttons with “Celebrate” on them, instead of their usual white plastic carnations, greeted the people. A large paper banner with “Let’s Celebrate” hung from the bell tower, and a brass ensemble played hymns on the front steps.
I prayed that people were entering with that sense of anticipation I have felt when going to church. I am a convert; not the kind that grows up in the church and one day makes his parents’ faith his own, but the kind converted mysteriously, from a vacuum into faith. Converts to Christianity sometimes have more enthusiasm for church because we have not learned to be bored. We know that the creative Father, who made a world so full of color, light, sound, texture, and beauty, created his people with tremendous capacity for thought and feeling, and that he wants them to worship him in a manner not boring to them or to him.
That first Sunday, no one was bored. Previously, Sunday services had varied little since the church began years ago. Worship services included a prelude, the opening hymn, the invocation, a second hymn, the Scripture, special music, the sermon, and a closing hymn. I tried to keep to that familiar format, but used elements that looked different. Mel gave an excellent sermon; the music and prayers were moving; and I stood to leave feeling that ” was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’ “
I realized not everyone would respond to the service as I did, but I was unprepared for the letters that arrived the following week.
Many were full of criticism:
“I have worshiped here for twenty-five years, and in one Sunday service you’ve made it a different church. I felt strange, like I didn’t know anyone.”
“I’ve always sat in the third pew on the left and now someone’s been in my seat.”
“This service was nothing but a circus.”
“I don’t get a blessing from having a woman serve me communion.”
“Mel didn’t preach long enough; our other preacher preached forty minutes. Mrs. White put so much in the service we didn’t get enough preaching.”
I realized all church leaders receive criticism, but I was encouraged when other friends in the ministry, such as Lloyd Ogilvie of Hollywood Presbyterian and Bob Munger of Fuller Seminary, shared with me some of their experiences with criticism.
There were also positive, heartening letters:
“Thank you for making worship such a positive experience again.”
“For the first time in many years, I felt like the entire service was a unified worshiping of God.”
After several months the positive notes began to outnumber the negative ones, although the negative ones never ceased completely. We learned a lot from the negative letters: perhaps the most impor-tant lesson was to inform the people of what we were trying to do, and then get as many of them as possible involved in preparing the worship service. That turned out to be the key to our worship program.
Developing Lay Task Forces
After the first service, we began a plan to involve the congregation in the worship planning. In the past, the plan for the service had been the exclusive domain of the senior minister and the minister of music. Two people usually cannot continue to be creative in planning any weekly event year after year, and we wanted to infuse some new people into the process.
Mel, our minister of music Roland Tabell, and I invited interested persons to attend the first worship workshop on a Saturday morning. There was a surprisingly good turnout of about thirty-five people. Mel presented his texts and titles and discussed his sermon themes for the next twelve weeks. Also, he cautioned that the worship task force was to support the theme, and he needed to reserve the right of veto on any idea with which he was uncomfortable.
The volunteers divided into special interest groups to brainstorm possibilities for the various themes. Groups discussed music, drama, environment, art, and liturgy. During the weeks and months that followed, more groups were formed, some for special events.
Another meeting was called for all those who already contributed to worship, such as the head usher, custodian, secretary, chairman of the deacons, head greeter, and nursery workers. We asked them to do three things: 1) describe what they were doing at present, 2) tell what would make their task easier and more rewarding, and 3) share what they dreamed their role might become.
I took on the task of trying to incorporate the new people into the old system and adding new task forces. I did not change anyone’s job description, but attempted to take hopes and dreams and rewrite them into measurable goals, trying to avoid the temptation to make my goals theirs. Environment for Worship
After the choir, the largest task force was the artists. The church had always used a few artists, but it was amazing the number who asked to participate in that task force. Banners, common in the early church, were reintroduced into the worship setting: colorful Christian symbols, words of praise, biblical passages, and story banners all were flown on different occasions from the steeple outside the church, in the foyer, and in various locations throughout the sanctuary. Different banners were developed around a preaching series or seasons in the Christian year. (Most evangelical services could be greatly enriched by just looking at the church calendar.) One set of four banners, which was occasionally reused, stated and reinforced in colorful symbols the main goals of Pasadena Covenant Church: the worshiping church, the witnessing church, the learning church, and the caring church. These symbols were used in identical form for our church logo, bulletin covers, brochures, and our newspaper ad. The banners transformed the bleak sanctuary.
Often, as on that first Sunday, bulletin covers and banners were coordinated so that the seasonal or series themes were reinforced. More than fifty people, including children, designed bulletin covers. Although a few of the covers were multi-colored (and thus expensive to print), most covers were simply done in black ink duplicated on a piece of colored stock. The cost was not much greater than purchased covers. Everyone looked forward to re-. ceiving the bulletins, and many saved them.
Sometimes unsolicited art was a wonderful surprise. A chrismon is a banner with Christian symbols on it, and the Covenant women made several small ones with beautiful Christian symbols stitched on felt to decorate a lovely tree at Christmas. This became a tradition. We used an advent wreath on the communion table, and lighted one candle each Sunday as part of the service during the Christmas season. Each week a different family brought a nativity scene to be placed at the side of the advent wreath; the variety lent an ethnic element to the decoration.
We tried many other things: still-life costumed dramatization of scriptural scenes in the foyer, seen by worshipers as they arrived; slide projections to change the sanctuary environment; balloons (outside the church) to celebrate the Spirit at Pentecost; even plants and flowers—all added to the worship environment. One Sunday one of our artists had a last minute inspiration and spent the night creating a beautiful sweep of white paper doves descending from the cross out to the congregation.
What was accomplished? Besides the value to individual worshipers and those who contributed to worship, two effects resulted from the worship changes:
First, the attendance increased. From 1965 to 1974, Sunday morning worship attendance at Pasadena Covenant had declined from more than 600 in attendance to an average of fewer than 300. When we inaugurated the new worship system in 1974, attendance immediately stopped declining. From approximately 250 in worship services early in 1974, we averaged more than 450 by 1975. By August 1977 (typically the lowest month for worship attendance), we averaged 810 people in worship.
Second, the growth was permanent. After Mel resigned, the experimental worship was continued successfully by his successor, and worship attendance remained stable. The worship committee and most of the worship innovations have continued and improved.
What We Learned About Worship
1. Worship practices must be established with the congregation, its history, and its composition in mind. Most people attend worship seeking comfort from various degrees of pain. I’m afraid we sometimes offended or confused people when we imposed our tastes on them. On our first Pentecost Sunday, I asked a baker to bake an enormous birthday cake for the church’s birthday. It was served on the patio with coffee and punch following the service. The youth had stamped and filled hundreds of red helium balloons with “Celebrate the Spirit.” Three musicians, two singers with guitars, and a flutist strolled through the crowd providing music. People weren’t prepared. One called it “a circus.” Many stood around the edges of the celebration. (Who eats cake before lunch?) The next year, I decided to skip the party, but many came to me and said they missed it. The third year Mel warned the people ahead of time; we sent birthday party invitations and did a lot of “taste cultivating”; this time it was a celebrative event that everyone enjoyed.
2. People are more willing to accept change if they understand the process. Probably the most effective tool for teaching the congregation about worship was the explanation Mel gave before the services began. He carefully explained the meaning, history, and/or use of various parts of the service. Somehow, we settled into a place where people truly worshiped during the services, and the little surprises were not shocks.
3. I am convinced of the necessity of task forces. With a trained leader, a task force strengthens and encourages individuals and gets the job done. The artists were an example of this. As they ministered to one another, they ministered to the church with bulletin covers, banners, and other environmental arts, and used their creative talents in diverse projects such as drama and songwriting. It was important to make clear to each task force what was expected from them and what they could expect from me. It was a tremendous help to know that many were working and praying for the services with me.
4. When the door is opened a small crack, creativity fills the portal. It became difficult to incorporate so many ideas and still keep the services simple and appropriate. Sometimes we had a cover, song, or drama that Mel had to work very hard with to incorporate as a significant expression of the theme. Creativity is risky. I had to remind myself often that our product is people, not perfection.
5. Many services require that the people sit and listen for an hour or more, occasionally standing to sing or pray. As the minister looks over the order of worship, he or she notices the tasks of leading and divides them with the worship leader. More important, the minister should notice what the congregation is doing. Movement and variety are important here.
6. People who are interested in implementing creative worship services in their churches should begin by approaching their minister about a task force. If he feels threatened, they might ask to plan only occasional services—say, one Sunday evening a month—as a beginning. One service, tastefully done, will build enthusiasm for others. Don’t dump a ton of ideas for worship on a minister. One minister I know said, “I have lots of ideas and enough guilt about not having time to carry them out. Present me with a fait accompli.”
At the beginning of our ministry at Pasadena Covenant, I received an angry letter from an older member of the congregation. He was bitter about the worship changes, which he felt had been forced on him.
Near the end of our ministry, the same member wrote another letter. This one was grateful. He apologized for the first letter and said he had changed his mind completely about the worship service. “The service has become an exciting time of worship for me. I feel myself come alive for God on Sunday mornings.”
It has been said that “The greatest sin in the world is to be boring.” Perhaps it should be restated, “The greatest sin is to be bored.” Worship is our active response to God and his goodness. We must take action to create worship services that reflect not only our knowledge of God, but our desire to enjoy him forever.
Copyright © 1981 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
