James MacDonald, founding pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel, shares in the video above how his team thinks about closing a worship service. “I am always amazed at pastors who put hours into their sermons and then kind of ‘wing it’ at the end,” says MacDonald on his blog (click through and watch if video above doesn’t load).
I think it’s great to be as intentional as MacDonald describes with the closing moments of a service. Think about movies. Have you ever been to a film that seemed really great–until those last 15 minutes ruined everything? (If you saw the recent sci-fi flick “Sunshine,” that’s exactly how I felt.) A great ending can salvage a weak middle section, but less so vice versa.
Now a worship service isn’t a movie, but it’s still an event that we experience in time, so those final moments carry a little extra weight. It’s worth it to give them a little extra attention.
Also, I thought it was interesting that MacDonald mentioned having a “list of closing songs.” Do any of you do something like that? How do you plan for the close of a worship service?
