60 ideas for creative worship
Part one: Numbers 1-20
This piece was originally called '101 ways to make worship more interesting', but unfortunately I got to 60 and then lost the piece of paper with the rest on. It's a mixture of practical ideas, resources (online or otherwise) and principles.
The inspiration for most of the ideas has come from three years and ten months as a church youthworker, sharing ideas with friends and people involved in alternative worship and bitter experience of what has and hasn't worked when putting together innovative services.
Where possible I have tried to credit other people's ideas. I may well have failed to do so in some cases, in which case please correct me. So... here we go:
1 Decide that worship doesn't have to be based around singing.
2 Invite people to wander round 'stations' situated around the building rather than just sitting in the pews.
3 Stick a huge sheet of blank newsprint (usually available free from your local newspaper printers) on the wall and get people to scribble prayers or anything else on it.
4 If you have a sermon make it interactive in some way so it's not just one person speaking incessantly.
5 Share a meal together.
6 Colour photocopy a work of art and put it on the OHP.
7 An idea for a ritual. Hang a large sheet from the ceiling. Encourage people to make a tear in it to symbolise the barrier between God and people being broken down (fits well with Luke 23:45).
8 Take a look at the Visions website. In particular look at their images section, plenty of inspiring stuff.
9 Give people candles to light.
10 As a confession give people paper to write things down on. Then put them in a shredder.
11 Get everyone to say a psalm out loud.
12 Have a variety of resources for prayer (maps, news reports, etc) in different corners of the room for people to wander between and pray for different topics.
13 Another confession idea. Give out large dissolving tablets (Sterilising tablets are the cheapest and biggest) and invite people to write on them then dissolve them.
14 Try one of the experiential prayer exercises on the embody site.
15 Get people to write down prayers on small pieces of paper. Photocopy these onto acetate, probably reducing them as well. Cut these into slide-sized pieces and put them into slide frames (available from a photographic shop). Then at the next meeting project the written prayers with backing music.
16 Record a video before the meeting of people's opinions on a particular subject.
17 Hang Bible verses, words, whatever, from the ceiling.
18 Make a photostory of a Bible account using your friends as willing participants.
19 Find someone with a particular skill, making pots on a wheel or building a wall and ask them to do their thing during the service. (Wall idea from 'Grace' (I think) at Brainstormers.)
20 Take a look at the Small Fire discussion board for discussion of alt. worship ideas.
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