In responding to God, we should be open to using every expression of beauty and genius, which are reflections of his own nature.
—Howard Stevenson
When I came to First Evangelical Free Church, the congregation began every service by singing the first verse of “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” Shortly after I joined the staff, I asked and received permission from Pastor Swindoll to change our opening hymn.
It wasn’t long, however, before I began getting notes written on bulletins asking me why we didn’t sing “Coronation” (often misspelled “Coronashun” or “Cornations”). Although I can see humor in the situation now, at the time I felt threatened. I didn’t know how widespread the objections were.
The experience pointed up the uneasiness, even fear, people often feel about change in their patterns of worship. We all love progress, but we’re reluctant when change is imposed upon us!
“You would think that of all places, all communities, it would be in the church where we would most welcome the creativity and freshness and adventure of new things,” says Eugene Peterson in Running with the Horses. “But instead that’s the very place we are most threatened.”
Why Change Isn’t Always Welcome
Why do people resist change, especially in church? Habit and heritage are two big reasons. We all like to settle back in the old chair, even though there might be a broken spring or two; it’s where we feel most at ease. And we all have notions about what worship should be. Often the ideas remain from childhood. Frankly, most of us are as defensive in our Christianity as in any other area of our lives. When someone suggests changes in the worship service, the common response is akin to the apocryphal seven last words of the church: “We’ve never done it that way before.”
People who invoke the seven last words sometimes have a point. Worship leaders should be like baseball umpires: the more unnoticed they are, the better the job they are doing. C. S. Lewis wrote, “The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of: our attention would have been on God.” We dare not let the means of worship intrude on the experience of the sacred.
People also especially treasure the music of their formative years, whether the popular music of their youth or the worship patterns of their most formative years spiritually. It’s these experiences of the sacred that indelibly stamp themselves on people’s minds and create worship memories that we tamper with at our peril. People often voice their strongest feelings over worship music; it touches their roots, their emotions.
I’ve talked to many church leaders about adding creativity to worship, and they say, “But the people in my congregation come from an old German Baptist background …” or “Ours is a little farming community, and if we were to do anything like what’s been suggested, they’d hang me from the nearest limb!”
As worship leaders, we have to recognize that creativity poses a threat. Daring to try new things always carries a risk. I like the two Oriental characters for the word crisis. In both Japanese and Chinese, they mean “threatening opportunity.” That’s how I view the challenge of using creativity to bring the worship experience to people in new and refreshing ways.
Why Creativity Is Worth the Risk
I believe creativity in worship is indispensable, in spite of the dangers. Worship is a verb, as author Robert Webber reminds us, a response to God, and it requires active participation. In responding to God, I believe we should be open to using every expression of beauty and genius, which are reflections of his own nature. Whether the “Hallelujah” chorus or “Worthy Is the Lamb,” prayer or Scripture, testimony or proclamation, the elements of worship —creatively employed in praise of God—give us yet another glimpse of the face of God.
Worship is a relational response. In some ways ifs like marriage. I’ve been married to my wife, Marilyn, for more than thirty-six years. The more routine and predictable we allow our marriage to become, the more we begin to take our relationship for granted. But if every morning we share together some new expression, gift, act of love, or experience, our relationship will keep growing.
Similarly, when worship becomes predictable, it can become ordinary and lose its impact. By using creativity in challenging yet nonthreatening ways, worship can enliven people’s relationship with God. Most Christians want to remain open to every part of God’s person; creative worship helps them sustain their hunger to know God more deeply.
How to Do It Wisely
How do we move away from stiff, inflexible, and colorless worship? How do we utilize creativity to help people live, again as Eugene Peterson described, “zestfully, exploring every experience, pain and joy, enigma and insight, fulfillment and frustration as a dimension of human freedom, searching through each for sense and grace”? How do we add such creativity to worship without turning people off?
1. Stay within the boundaries of trust. Worship leaders need the trust of the people to whom they are ministering. Our congregation has come to know our style of worship. Although we’re always looking for fresh ways of approaching worship, we work with components people are used to and in ways that will not shock them.
The church, after all, is a community of faith. Creativity should enhance, rather than disrupt, that community. It should underscore the feeling that we are all here to share the love and grace of Christ, and that there is more that binds us than divides us.
One boundary is the congregation’s sense of dignity. This may be different from church to church, but all congregations have a point beyond which it is unwise to go. Determining that point comes from intuition and careful experimentation. Once people know we respect their sense of dignity, they will move with us into the unknown, daring to risk even the unusual.
One recent Sunday our Chancel Choir sang and clapped a special rhythm to Alien Pote’s anthem, “Clap Your Hands and Sing.” When we finished with a strong, exciting conclusion, I invited the congregation to give a “clap offering” to God as an expression of joy and praise, and they did with pleasure.
Then, one of our associate pastors came to the platform and surprised me with the suggestion that the entire congregation learn, right then and there, the clapping rhythm of the anthem. Then, as he mentioned items of thanks and praise, everyone, under my direction, clapped for joy to the Lord.
Risky? Different? Daring? Yes. This experiment was outside our usual boundaries, but still within the bounds of our congregation’s sense of dignity. Because we had demonstrated over the years that we would stay within those boundaries, the congregation enthusiastically participated.
Another boundary I call the “quantity quotient.” People can take only so much newness. Too much is an overload. We must operate in their comfort zone, even as we push the border of that zone further and further out. I never plan more than one unusual worship expression per service. And I always give people permission not to participate, although that very permission usually helps them feel comfortable about participating.
2. Mix the old with the new. Whenever we introduce something new, it’s good to come back to something familiar. Even great choral masterworks, although traditional, will challenge the listening tastes of many of our people. So I will balance such a presentation with choral offerings that most of our people appreciate more naturally. In the same way, a highly contemporary musical will need to be counterbalanced with a familiar solo or hymn.
3. Don’t manipulate. Creativity can effectively engage people with the genuine emotion of the gospel. But we should not use emotion to manipulate. The object isn’t to create euphoria or bring tears. Nor should creativity be employed for shock value. Rather, it should fill worship with an air of spontaneity, freshness, and adventure in responding to God.
Emotion isn’t an end in itself. It is a by-product of genuine worship. I was once at a worship service in which the leaders began by telling us to clap and move with the music. They hadn’t led us to experience joy or celebration; they just wanted us to express the emotions. Instead of being a means of expressing joy, the techniques seemed to be their means of trying to produce joy. I felt manipulated. People are happy to respond when they’ve been given something substantive to respond to and an appropriate way to express their response.
Most people will resent it if they sense we have used a moment inappropriately, and they will be especially sensitive to innovations at intense moments in worship. So I don’t use those moments to get them to do something they would otherwise resist, like clapping or raising their hands. If I want to introduce such elements, I must find ways to prepare people for them. It’s best to leave alone the intense moments of worship until people have accepted the innovations I’ve introduced at other times in the service.
By the way, creative worship isn’t always focused on emotion. Worship uses the whole range of human responses, from the highly rational to the highly emotional, and many things between. A good worship leader utilizes it all.
4. Remain sensitive to people’s response. Then there are times when we try something new and it doesn’t quite come off. For example, our “Praise in Motion” group, a ministry using modest dance and body movement, has met some resistance when we’ve included it in worship. Although some people loved it (I personally am a great fan), we backed off for a while. We worship leaders need to be sensitive to how creativity is applied. We want people to remain open to innovation in worship.
Because creativity in worship is a high-risk endeavor, we must be especially sensitive to how people accept even the smallest changes. Before and after every innovation, I ask these questions:
—Does this heighten “spectatorism,” or will it involve people in worship in new and meaningful ways?
—Is there a danger of fostering a “Can you top this?” syndrome with this worship experiment?
—Does this take people too far out of their comfort zone?
—Is this innovation an acceptable risk? If it bombs, can we recover gracefully?
5. Get affirmation of colleagues. In developing and implementing creative worship, it helps to have the affirmation of colleagues. This is crucial, of course, if you work with a multiple staff. At First Evangelical Free Church, I am close to our pastoral staff, and they help me face that adventure. They must feel included in the new things we do in worship.
But even solo pastors know key people both inside and outside the church they can consult with new worship ideas. Such people can give suggestions, and they can wave red flags at the occasional bad idea. (It does happen!) And, heaven forbid, if things should go wrong, insiders who have endorsed the idea can take some of the heat.
Above all, I remind myself to be patient with creative worship innovations. Good ideas don’t need to be implemented immediately; they will still be good ideas in six months or a year. We need to lay the proper groundwork, think them through carefully, and get all the advice we can. Chances of improving worship through creativity will rise dramatically with careful preparation on all fronts.
Putting Creativity to Work
Creativity is more than changing the Scripture and responsive readings or the numbers of the hymns. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, a working axiom of mine for worship is: “The lower the predictability, the higher the impact.” And there are many ways to achieve that.
Lessening the distinction between the platform and the people is a good place to start. Sometimes we begin worship with quiet choruses and no visible leadership—an empty pulpit. I remain seated on the pastor’s bench and simply lead out with my voice, with the choir supporting me from behind. Something like that suggests we are waiting upon God in worship, without the interference of human personality.
Also, some areas of our worship center are not directly visible from the platform. So from time to time I take a hand microphone and seek the eyes of the people in those areas. Or I move a step or two down the platform to lower the sight lines a bit.
There are many ways to involve people in worship. Our asking children to come forward to sing, read, or pray brings adults to attention. Sometimes we arrange for as many as four or six people to stand in the congregation and read a declaration of God’s goodness, majesty, or mercy. Another way is to give the congregation a simple but meaningful part to recite in a reading. For example. Psalm 136 has the recurring refrain, “For his lovingkindness endures forever,” that people can recite.
I’ve also had the congregation join in by saying, “Alleluia! Alleluia!” at my signal as I’ve read the hymn text by Fred Pratt Green, a portion of which goes like this:
When in our music God is glorified,
and adoration leaves no room for pride,
it is as though the whole creation cried,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
How oft in making music we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia! Alleluia!
And did not Jesus sing a song that night
when utmost evil strove against the light?
Then let us sing for whom he won the fight.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Using fresh vocabulary can also inject some creativity into worship. Sometimes I desperately yearn to say something with a novel and expanded vocabulary. Books of poetry and creative prose help me do that (see the bibliography).
One Easter we read a paraphrased version of 1 Corinthians 15 from a book called Epistles Now. Someone began reading, “The high point, the constantly recurring theme and the grand climax and the great symphony of the gospel is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The ideas are nothing new. We know what’s being said, but we hear it in a fresh, delightful way.
We took a similar approach not long ago when Chuck spoke on “Changing Times and Changeless Truths.” I used a topical Bible to create a Scripture mosaic from Psalm 11, 2 Timothy 2 and 3, Malachi 3, and Hebrews 13 (Living Bible) as a responsive reading.
Also, many responsive readings can be given to a readers’ theater, a group of people who practice and present a reading.
In addition, one can use hymns as prayers, as many people have done with the Psalms. For example, “Immortal, Invisible,” and “Be Thou My Vision,” work well as prayers.
Even the sermon can be adapted in different ways. On occasions, we’ve divided the sermon into portions and then sung songs between them. Once the choir sang the Bach motet “Jesu, Priceless Treasure,” which focuses on Romans 8, and we had five-minute sermons between the chorales that so powerfully stated the text.
On another occasion, two of our pastors preached a dialogue sermon on the person and character of Jesus Christ. Back and forth they spoke, one about Jesus as God, the other extolling Christ’s humanity.
Once Chuck and I moved the sermon up a bit, to allow the congregation to respond in song for ten or fifteen minutes afterward.
The possibilities are nearly endless. The point is: put creativity to work.
The Worship Leader as Catalyst
Worship leaders are really catalysts. We help release something that is already in people. At my church I have a variety of means to do that—a choir, a pipe organ, people who can read interpretively, handbells, people who do signing.
But no matter what a church’s resources or how creativity is applied, the aim remains constant: to help worshipers sense, in a new way, the majesty of God.
Copyright © 1990 by Christianity Today
