Some musicians, not to mention some longtime church members, find the move to worship choruses in today’s churches threatening.
Organists, for example, can have difficulty getting the proper feel for choruses with a pipe organ, and they fear they will eventually find themselves on the periphery of the music ministry.
Others, raised on traditional hymns, find choruses repetitive and boring, the free-flowing praise format undisciplined and aimless.
At the same time, still others find the “hymn/announcements/hymn/offering” order of service disjointed and distracting. And some younger musicians don’t identify with the style of hymns and gospel songs, and they contend that hymns and choruses don’t mix.
All are legitimate concerns. Can they be allayed? Yes!
I’m not out to persuade anyone to adopt any particular style, but I believe we benefit by understanding and occasionally blending the strengths of diverse styles. If we become more comprehensively skilled, we are more valuable instruments for God’s kingdom.
Worship choruses won’t disappear in the foreseeable future, nor will the call for hymns. Finding balance, to appreciate both expressive praise songs and traditional hymns, is possible. Both can be included in an extended time of free-flowing worship.
What Is the Rationale for This Style?
Eddie Espinosa of The Vineyard in Anaheim Hills, California, likens free-flowing praise to sitting down to a leisurely meal around the family table where you linger and enjoy fellowship and warm conversation with one another.
He also likens it to a physical workout. Just as a sustained period of exercise benefits the cardiovascular system, sustaining worship for fifteen to forty minutes gives worshipers an uninterrupted, spiritual workout that strengthens them.
Both head and heart can be focused on the Lord. Extended worship allows time to offer the whole self (mind, will, and emotions) to God without distraction.
But leading such a worship experience requires a leader to understand the direction of the stream and how to channel the flow.
Five Phases of a Worship Workout
Eddie Espinosa and John Wimber, pastor of The Vineyard, developed a five-phase pattern for their “worship set.”
In their worship services, the choruses were short, and their worship set was long. Rather than singing songs in random order, they recognized the need to smoothly link the many choruses and provide a sense of progression.
They identified five different kinds of choruses and how they could be linked into a sequence. The five phases are (1) invitation, (2) engagement, (3) exaltation, (4) adoration, and (5) intimacy, with a summarizing closeout.
Espinosa finds scriptural support for the five-phase model in (NIV):
Invitation: “Let us sing for joy … shout aloud.”
Engagement: “Let us come before him with thanksgiving.”
Exaltation: “For the Lord is the great God … the mountain peaks belong to him.”
Adoration: “Come, let us bow down … let us kneel.”
Intimacy: “For we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”
You can also arrange your chorus and hymn repertoire into these phases. Here are some guiding principles:
- worship that has a goal and direction
- worship that respects the psychological dimension
- worship that reflects the character of God (both transcendence and intimacy)
- lyrics that point to function (singing “about” and later “to” God)
- mixing of hymns and choruses (richness, variety)
- smooth transitions (linking both pieces and phases)
- avoiding distractions (not “jumping around”)
- common tempos
- common words
- common keys
- adequate preparation yet open to the leading of the Spirit
Let’s look at each phase in more detail.
Invitation
The invitation phase is a call to worship. It accepts people where they are and begins to draw them into God’s presence. Most people need to wake up, warm up, and be energized before they’re ready for the spiritually strenuous work of true worship.
The usual feeling in the invitation phase is celebratory, upbeat, and praise oriented (but not necessarily so). It may be accompanied by hand clapping. The lyrics are directed to the people, not God, telling them what they are about to do.
The chorus “Don’t You Know It’s Time to Praise the Lord?” is a good example of an invitation song:
Don’t you know it’s time to praise the Lord,
In the sanctuary of his Holy Spirit?
So set your mind on him.
Notice how the lyric does the inviting and focusing without our having to resort to verbal scolding (“Can we have quiet!”) or exhortation (“Put the worries of the world away and give attention to God”). The music can do that without the leader’s having to lecture.
“The skillful leader woos the congregation into worship like the patient lover draws the beloved,” says Paul Anderson, a Lutheran pastor in San Pedro, California.
For a vigorous call to worship with hand clapping, the Hebrew chorus “The Celebration Song” would be excellent, whereas a more mellow call could be “Let’s Forget About Ourselves and Magnify the Lord and Worship Him,” or “Come, Worship the Lord.”
Traditional churches could use hymns during this phase and conclude with a scriptural call to worship. In the invitation phase, the leaders continue until they have made contact with the people and everyone is focused.
The invitation phase is particularly helpful for churches meeting in high school gymnasiums or other structures where worship symbols such as a Communion table, an open Bible, stained glass windows, banners, or other visual worship enhancements are absent.
Engagement
In the engagement phase, people begin to turn their attention directly to God, not to one another. Often the lyrics are addressed specifically to God.
A good example of this kind of engagement is the traditional hymn:
Come, Thou Almighty King,
Help us Thy name to sing.
A more contemporary song that can serve in the engagement phase is “I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord.”
Espinosa likens this phase to the engagement period before marriage, for the congregation is now attentive, serious, ready to fully focus on the wonderful attributes of the Beloved.
Exaltation
In the exaltation phase, the people sing to the Lord with power, giving meaningful expression to the lofty words of transcendence-words like great, majestic, worthy, reigns, Lord, and mountains.
Musically, we generally use greater pitch spans than in the other phases. The high notes bring out a dynamic response and project a sense of God’s greatness. If the people stand throughout the invitation, engagement, and exaltation phases, their response will be stronger.
Traditionally, hymns like “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” and “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” are examples of exaltation.
Contemporary songs like “Majesty” and “Our God Reigns” are also appropriate.
Adoration
In the adoration phase, people are usually seated, the dynamics gradually subside, the melody range may reduce to five or six notes, and the key words may be you, Jesus, and terms of personal worship and love, as in the chorus “We Worship and Adore You.”
In the exaltation and adoration phases, two sides of God’s character receive expression. Exaltation focuses on his transcendence (his wholly “Otherness”). The adoration phase focuses on his immanence (his closeness to us).
Intimacy
The last phase moves from immanence to intimacy. This is the quietest and most personal expression of worship, with God addressed in terms such as Abba. The choruses “In Moments Like These” and “O Lord, You’re Beautiful” reflect the tone of this phase.
This is the “kiss” of worship. One meaning for the Greek word for worship, proskuneo, is “to turn toward to kiss.” Kissing requires closeness, which comes only if properly prepared for in the preceding phases.
While the lyrics in the exaltation phase may emphasize the corporate “we,” in this phase they now take the personal dimension of “I,” as in “Father, I Love You.”
Sometimes it’s a good idea to change the wording of familiar songs to make them fit this intimate phase. For instance, “our” can change to “my” in the lyric, “Marvelous grace of my loving Lord; grace that exceeds my sin and my guilt.”
“Him/his” can be changed to “you/your” in “‘Tis so sweet to trust you, Jesus, just to take you at your word.”
Musically, this usually means a softer mood. Percussion may not suit the intimacy phase.
The worship set ends when the people stand for a close-out chorus or hymn-“My Tribute,” for instance-that leads out of intimacy and helps people adjust to the next event in the service.
Musically, I like big, summarizing pieces for the closeout. Textually, I prefer songs of dedication, aspiration, and exaltation, or songs related to the pastor’s theme or the next item of the service.
We don’t want to stumble or break our stride while running. Overall, think of the tempos the following way: invitation and engagement (running), exaltation (jogging), adoration (walking), and intimacy (stopping, silent communion, gazing).
Flexible Strength
If you think of emotional development, the five-phase progression has a balanced, graduated arch with a high point in the middle.
If you use the five phases as a handy frame to guide your worship thinking, feel free to be flexible. Employ it to guide the entire worship service before the sermon, or use it in place of a prelude. Use it at the beginning or at the end of your service. Or use it for an entire Sunday evening sing-along.
You can also be flexible about time. You can follow the same progression in either long or short worship sets, with any number of hymns or choruses in any one phase. Prayers or readings can be included between phases.
I’ve experimented successfully with short sets (ten minutes) toward the middle of the morning service that focus exclusively on adoration. It works especially well when the set emerges out of a time of prayer, or in the Communion service.
The exaltation and adoration phases seem to form the core of the model. A good place for Scripture reading is between these phases.
I suggest beginning conservatively when introducing free-flowing praise into a traditional service format in a conservative church. First include one chorus as a “response to revelation.” Extend that to two, then three continuous hymns/choruses. As your skill increases and the people become accustomed to the change, gradually lengthen the set.
One benefit of the model is it keeps us from jumping back and forth between categories in a worship set. Such jerking about is disorienting, results in a lack of direction, and distracts from the spiritual focus of the service.
It resembles a home decorated with clashing colors, furniture, and paintings. The five-phase model integrates the service and the people into a glorious house of worship.
“The glory of God is a man fully alive,” said Irenaeus, “and the life of man consists in beholding God.” I have found that free-flowing worship often helps a congregation behold God better than we have before, and Irenaeus is right: there’s life in that.
From the book Changing Lives Through Preaching and Worship, Copyright © 1995
