Poster Script

Slide 1

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David Foster Wallace spoke volumes with his commencement speech. I don’t know how true it is for others, but what i have discovered is that we planned our worship on auto pilot. I am sure many folks worship on auto pilot as well and that is worth a discussion as well. But for today I am goin to take a look at how I discovered that planning on auto pilot is deflates or take the air right out of worship. Certainly the most important things are often the hardest to see. What the hell is water?

Slide 2

I discovered that most of our planning was on auto pilot. That is we had no real intention about what we were doing. Our motto could have been, “let’s just throw this out and see if they like it.”

I have discovered that what we called “planning” was just figuring out what made people happy.”

As we discussed earl in the semester, with the missing communion elements, don’t do it if you can’t do it right. You can only do it right it you plan to do it right. As Smith wrote, he wanted to have us think about “a new intentionality about worship and worship planning”

Intentionality means that we must know our community and congregation. As Teresa Fry Brown taught us “exegete the congregation.” Gibboney and Barbara Day miller both agree.

So I submit one of the definitions of Good Worship: “Good worship is well planned communication within the context of the day and community. A poorly chosen hymn or song, a sermon of poor exegetical content, and/or poorly delivered, a poorly chosen or performed anthem, an inarticulate extemporaneous prayer, all result from poor planning.” You can’t have good worship without good intentional planning.

“Good Worship” is a process and like a web page it is never finished.

Slide 3

So what do we need to be intentional about? Every facet or liturgical unit. The “feel” the sounds, even the smells! Worship is a total embodiment experience, or should be, and that should be planned for.

What are we doing that gets in the way? Will our planning cause liturgical whiplash?

What is the ethos? Are we mixing styles that work against each other rather than flowing together.

Are the ethos and the telos working together?

What is the goal, the telos of what we are doing?

What is the ethos, tht is what is the charcter or stylr

Don’t forget movement. I have learned that movement was a neglected part of our planning.

You must continuously evaluate.

Why are we doing this?

What effect is the use of media having, and is this what we want?

What has been its effect?

Have we included the liturgical units that we consider make good worship? Are we being true to the tradition?

Word

Sacrament

Consider: “People are not hungry for more worship services, for more hymns, sermons or anthems. They are hungry for experiences of God, which can come through worship; in the most primal sense, this hunger is what beckons people to worship (Wallace—we all worship don’t be fooled). The anticipation of the holy that is almost palpable, even in the tiniest of church on the most routine days.” Tom Long Beyond The Worship Wars