Can teams plan worship? Yes—and no.

I have been planning (or trying to plan) worship for over 40 years. In that time I've seen some very dysfunctional worship committees.

Once, many years ago, a well-intentioned (junior) pastor thought it would be good to get some creative people in the room and just "think outside the box" (perhaps the scariest four words in the English language!). He attended several of the weekly worship planning meetings. Those in the room will likely never forget the first of them. The pastor brought a boom box into the room and played a recording that he particularly liked. His assumption was that the slightly off-kilter treatment of this particular artist would help make everyone more inventive.

From there it was all downhill. Sure, the committee came up with scores of really creative ideas. But these ideas made no sense when combined into the same service. It was like playing a game of Scrabble.

That creative team lasted one year. But they did finally come up ...