With All Our Hearts
On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the followers of Jesus, His dearest friends, as they were waiting for the promise of the Father to be fulfilled (Acts 1:4) and they were “all together in one place”. (Acts 2:1) From that moment onward we have many accounts of Christ's followers gathering daily and weekly and we have not given up meeting together (Heb 10:25) to this day.
Our weekly worship services continue this rich way of life for our church family. They create a dependable and rhythmic opportunity for us to come and lift our voices in song, to express our hearts in praise, adoration, and honest vulnerability. We get to hear teaching and preaching that upholds the truth of God’s word, participate in communion, pray together, and have opportunities to respond to God’s invitations. All these activities are of utmost importance in the life of every believer. (Eph 5:19, Acts 2:43) It is also essential to a healthy church family life that we observe key faith holidays together, hear stories and testimonies of God’s faithfulness, celebrate new life, baptisms, and mission trips, and participate in meeting the practical needs of our members and the local community. We also have the incredible opportunity during our services to model to our children and teens what worshiping God means to those who follow Christ and set an example as parents, spiritual brothers and sisters, and crazy aunts and uncles J.
Because of the essential role regular gathering for worship is in our lives, the main ministry goal this year is simply: Continue to provide engaging* worship services and special services to our church family.
*A quick note on the use of the word engaging.
Sometimes the word engaging can be used to mean “pleasing or enjoyable, delightful or to one’s liking” (etc.). While we hope those words could describe our worship services, they do not reflect our motivation in planning them. What we truly desire is for our church family to have opportunities to engage with God. We know that Jesus is with us when we are gathered in His name. (Matt 18:20) And we know that we are entirely dependent upon the faithful work of the Holy Spirit. That is why we plan services prayerfully. We do our best to eliminate distractions while intentionally creating specific invitations for people to engage with the living God. We understand that we can only do this much in “providing engaging services”. The rest is up to our church family to show up expectantly and with a willingness to engage God and what He is doing each week.
So, what goes into planning for our worship services?
I am glad you asked!
This is how our ongoing and engaging Sunday (and holiday) services are put together:
Prayerful Planning
Worship sets (and team configurations) are prayed over before selection as well as the order of service. This is essential for making sure we are offering what we believe is the “best” for our church family each week. This includes the ongoing rotation of communion, testimonies (in person and video), baptisms, highlighting mission trips, and child dedications.
Creative Moments
A high priority for this ministry year is paying attention to opportunities to infuse creative moments into services that help bring personal engagement opportunities as well as make a bridge to connect our adults to the children. This is a major way we are pursuing creating a “Family Feel” for our Sundays.
Some examples of this creativity:
Introducing new songs specific to the kids, sometimes with motions.
Creative response opportunities (ex: writing a “Thank You” card to the Lord)
Fun sermon illustrations that include the kids (like salt the salt and popcorn)
Prayer Ministry at the end of services to promote times of healing, intercession, repentance, and salvation opportunities. This can include leaders praying over people or everyone turning in groups to pray.
Creative ways of serving communion (ex: Christmas Eve with an ornament gift)
Services that include full meals in between or a simple continental spread that creates a relational space for people to connect.
Prioritization
Because this is our weekly corporate time together, we choose to give service space (“airtime”) to highlight family life that corresponds to our aspirational statements and the direction the Lord gave us. By prioritizing this way, we continue our mission to build a healthy corporate group identity.
So, what does this mean specifically for me? For my family?
Please come on Sunday mornings ready and willing to engage with God, expecting to meet with Him and encounter the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit. Come and model what worshipping God looks like to the children present. Help us create an environment that is full of love for one another and that is unhindered in expressing our love back to God. We are so confident that we will find Him together when we seek Him with all our hearts. (Jer 29:13)