Friday, 31 July 2009
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You Have 90 Minutes: Put Together a Worship Service!
My inspiration for this post came from this blog, which asked the same question of their readers.
Hypothetically, you are the pastor of your church and you have to put together a 90-minute long worship service. How would you divide up this time? It's an opportunity to consider: What aspect of your service should take up the most time? The least? All the while, think about why you're making these decisions.
Here's the guidelines the original poster laid out:- How long should the sermon be?
- How many choruses?
- How many hymns?
- What is excessive?
- And, in every case, on what principle?
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About the Author
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- From: Winds_of_Change
- Name: Winds_of_Change
- About Me: Hi, I'm Amanda. I am a 22-year-old Catholic journalist attending the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. When I'm not reporting, I love to write about my faith. God has taught me so much over the past couple of years, and I am so thankful that I can have a relationship with Him! "For love of You, I'm a sky on fire. For love of you, I've come alive. And it's Your Sacred Heart within me beating, your voice within me singing out for love of You." -Audrey Assad.
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Comments (10)
5minute opening prayer and bible reading 10 minutes of social time for members & guests to meet the ones around them..... 10 minutes of prayer time part of whith members & guests praying together in small groups. 10 minutes of music of any kind mix it up 30 minutes of preaching/teaching 5 minutes of closing music 5 minutes to close in prayer and do announcements....5minutes for a closing song the rest of the time spent with an offer of counseling to anyone who would like it and the rest of the congregation can socialize with each other with actual church members being required to speak to people they do not normally socialize with. It is my ideal that on Sundays the church and guests would all have a meal together before going home too but that would take far more than 90 minutes
90 minutes of worship.
But no songs, and no sermon.
Principle: Some folks really need to learn to worship God without church-shaped crutches.
Mine would have clowns and a petting zoo.
@Pass_the_Aura@xanga - i like this idea.
@Pass_the_Aura@xanga - I wish sometimes we would just have prayer or worship or a sermon, I wish we would make it so simply, so intimate, so that we are not standing and sitting and moving and visitors are not wondering what is going to go on next. I wish we had dancing and art and that the beauty and joy and celebration of God and his Son and his kingdom was seen more, instead we see dryness, weeping, praying for the sick, ect a lot more often
I am a pastor and IF I were to have my way (which I don't) service would look like this:
10-15 minutes of worship
10-15 minutes of prayer (have congregation split up, an elder open prayer, and then another close prayer, the rest of the time, members pray together on their own).
10-15 minutes of a "word of instruction or encouragement".
so far 30-45 minutes .
Then, everyone would get up, we'd divide up into teams and we would go to different locations around the city working at womens shelters, homeless shelters, orphanages, distributing Bibles, prison ministrys, etc. The rest of the time members would stay and work and minister in the area.
For those who are unable to go out for whatever reason would stay and pray the entire time over the work being done.
IF you want to make a sermon come to life, practicing it is the only way.
But such as it is, most are unwilling to do this.
This becomes incredibly easier when you know your congregation intimately and know y'alls needs and how you all worship G-D best/poorly. You could do any number of things (including Theophilus166's idea of a petting zoo and clowns).
5 minutes of greeting the church at the start (letting the congregation greet each other, the pastor's "good morning, welcome to _____")
30 minutes of worship (both modern and hymns)
10 minutes for announcements
5 minutes for one more worship song
40 minutes for the sermon
My current church uses a good third of church service time (about 30 minutes) to go through announcements and prayer. It drives me crazy! And they have to pray about every single prayer request there is in the church body, naming the person being prayed for BY NAME, so it takes way too long.
15 minutes of worship through song (absolutely no "Heart of Worship" [principle:I find the song to be self-contradictory])
15 minutes of sharing each others prayer requests, praises, and praying for/with each other(probably something similar to deepestrecesses ' idea)- .[We ought to actively participate in each other's spiritual lives when we are in corporate settings]
15 minutes of "sermon"[someone knowledgeable in the Bible giving us Biblical instruction]
15 minutes of response time[an opportunity for further discussion about how to live out God's word and personal struggles in doing so, and additional prayer with each other/clergy]
30 minutes of fellowship and meal time, with communion incorporated into this meal.[some of the response time may combine with this time]
In my opinion corporate worship ought to be way more interactive and less stage/audience oriented. Rather than a bunch people staring at the pulpit until dismissal, the structure of the service should lend itself more to intermingling and developing a sense of spiritual community.
From reading the New Testament descriptions of Churches, I get the idea that communion wasn't so much the Lord's "snack" as we have made it today, but literally a "supper"...as in a meal that everyone shared. Thus my 30 minutes of meal/fellowship time.
But honestly, it would all probably end up lasting 2 hours.
i believe the sermons are too long sometimes.. the songs definitely need to be more longer.. i would love to hear more about that and what the priest as far as his opinions about the readings