Making Sunday count

If you can do only one thing to help your church grow, try to make the main service as good as you can. 

good = what works for ordinary people

The purpose of common worship is to provide a tool to help our worship connect with common people.

Are we trying to mould people so that they fit the liturgy? How about moulding the liturgy so it fits the people!

We want worship that works, for the congregation and for those who come to a missional church.  Worship must inspire and feed and make people want to come again.

We cannot keep going on loyalty alone, we need to connect with people.  "I yearned for a connection ... But not with the church God because that was way to dull!"  Are we desperately trying to hold onto what's dull for many people?  

Two principles for missionary worship

1. User friendly worship
When you put a service together it needs to be a combination of things that put people at ease whilst being accessible and allowing for God's presence.  It needs resonance - bringing everything together to have a profound effect.  It also needs to be apt - appropriately led in servanthood.

Are our services and sermons resonant?  Are they apt?
Are services and liturgy welcoming?
Do they work for everyone in the church whatever their role or none.
Is this true for all people and for all services?

2. Worship enrichment
There should be a joy in worship, a celebration.  Being a Christian is an amazing, fantastic experience of life, let's bring that into our services.  Sometimes there's struggle in life and we need to reflect that, this has colour of a different sort and of equal importance.  It doesn't matter what the enrichment and emotion is, but it needs to be obvious and felt and vivid.

The Lord is here
His Spirit is with us!

How amazing is that?
What an awe inspiring privilege to be a part of worship where the Lord and Spirit are alongside us.

Church services are theatre; with no audience and lots of cast; let's make it as entertaining as a show.

The job of a worship leader is to offer up what works for the people, not what works for the leader.

Why use stuff that people don't like?

There is much that is traditional and makes worship rich and colourful.  But there's much old stuff that isn't tradition, it's just luggage.