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Location: Cultural Watercooler
Discussion: Interactive Worship
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 shameonyoko |
Interactive Worship
Aug 10 2007, 4:13 PM EDT If your church uses "interactives" as part of your regular worship program, you know it can become increasingly hard to be creative and unique in the experiences you offer. Most of the interactives I have seen and/or heard about in the last few years include some kind of writing component. Whether we are encouraging people to sign something, write down prayers, draw, etc. . . . it seems that writing is usually a component of interactive worship. Not that I think this is a bad idea by any means but I would love to talk with one another about what interactives we are offering that don't include writing--we have done our fair share. Interactive worship is a regular part of what we do at Westwinds and creative, unique interactives are a value to us. What interactives are you all doing in your churches that don't include writing? How are we encouraging people to get out of their seats and participate? I would love to start a conversation where we spit out ideas for interactives that don't include writing. Do you find this valuable? |
 nerdyworshipguy |
RE: Interactive Worship
Aug 10 2007, 10:49 PM EDT Great discussion! Our church has experimented recently with live texting. We've run polls, gathered questions, and received feedback all within our service. Some was more successful than others, but it all added a new dimension to an often one-sided conversation. We are looking for more ways to add these interactive pieces. I'd be interested in hearing more. Do you find this valuable? |
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shameonyoko |
RE: Interactive Worship
Aug 11 2007, 11:20 AM EDT Live texting is a great idea. Let's keep going. To further seed the conversation, here are some things we have done: We set a table with bowls of clear glass marbles. In the middle of the table was a giant fishbowl with floating candles. As people made decisions to move toward Christ, surrender, confess sin, trust in Christ, etc. they dropped glass marbles in the floating candle bowl. As the marbles filled the bowl, the candles raised higher. We built a pathway throughout the auditorium with white rock--about 2 feet wide and weaving through the whole room. We encourged people to grab from a pile of red rocks and as they were praying they layed the red rocks on the pathway to mark the people they were praying for to become followers of Christ. We set up large basins of water and large basins of wine. In a confession interactive people washed their hands in the water to confess their sins and then washed their hands in the wine to signify Jesus' willingness to forgive them. We scattered thousands of strips of paper around the auditorium with words that people sometimes use to describe themselves in their relationship with God. People wandered throughout the auditorium and chose a "word" that described them and where they are in their journey. They were encouraged to hold on to that word throughout our message series as long as they felt it still described them. If God was changing their mind and their heart at all, they had the freedom to trade their word in for another. This was one of my favorites. I loved watching people get up at wierd times to look for another word. In the catholic tradition, we have a candle altar with a few hundred candles. We encourage people to lignt candles as a visual representation of their prayers. Okay, our conversation is underway. Come on everybody . . . what are you currently doing to encourage interactive worship that does not require someone to write anything. Do you find this valuable? |
 jeffcoleman |
RE: Interactive Worship
Aug 17 2007, 5:17 PM EDT Spinning off of our church name "East Lake" we use the term Ripple Effect a lot to describe someone moving forward with Christ. In the back of our auditorium we have a stone pool similar to your candle pool. But folks are encouraged to take a rock home with them even while they are praying and wrestling through an issue. Once they feel they have moved forward or God has spoken to them they come back and drop the stone in the pool. Also, you may remember the way the Iraqis dyed their fingers representing participation in the free elections. We used that idea to represent new identity and freedom in Christ where folks came forward to someone with a stamp pad and had their finger dyed red while the person helping spoke over them, "the blood of Jesus has made you new" etc. Do you find this valuable? |
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shameonyoko |
RE: Interactive Worship
Aug 17 2007, 6:53 PM EDT Great ideas! I love the dyed fingers idea a lot. I am going to think about how we might incorporate that kind of thing some time. I love the tie in with the free elections. Good thinking. A few months ago, we signed a creed together for our community initiative that we called the "We Creed" and we stamped our "We" logo on our arms and hands to show we signed it. One guy actually took it one step further and got it tattooed on his arm the next week. We interviewed him in church as he sported his new "We" tat. It was insane. We are now embarking on a new thing we are calling "Causemology" where we are leading people through 8 week waves where they do something for their church, something for their soul, something for their relationships, and something for their world. The logo for Causemology is really amazing. We painted it on a wall in the church and already two people are getting it tattooed on themselves. I love the interactives where people actually get their hands dirty or something leaves a "mark" on them--temporary or not. Do you find this valuable? |
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nerdyworshipguy |
RE: Interactive Worship
Aug 18 2007, 3:44 AM EDT I just finished readying Emerging Worship by Dan Kimball (nice piece about Westwinds by the way), so this has been at the front of my mind. I have a follow up question...I'd like to hear also about if any of you been a part of a church where multi-sensory worship was not a part of the 'norm' and how you took those first steps at 'interactives'. I think a lot of our people would respond well to it, but we also have a core that wouldn't get it. How do you balance connecting with the postmodern mind as well as the modern mind. Can you and should you? This might should be a different post...if it is, we can move it. Do you find this valuable? |
 clayc3466 |
RE: Interactive Worship
Aug 21 2007, 8:49 PM EDT Last month we dove into some interactive worship, if not for the first time, definitely more involved than at any other time in the life of the church. We had three "stations" for people to visit and participate in at any point during the service. We had a prayer station, a communion station and a "cross" station for people to go to. The cross station included a big basket at the foot of a big wooden cross. Here people wrote notes to Christ and also it served as the place for people to give their financial offerings. This was a big step for our church, and I was a little nervous going into it. What if nobody moved out of their seats to participate? But they did. People were moving from the word "go". The other pastors hanging out at the prayer stations had a steady stream of folks. It was just flat cool to see. A couple of things we did to help people. One, we changed the seating to allow for more aisles. Two, I spent a couple of minutes explaining the stations and -- I believe this was critical -- told people that are new or just seeking that might be weirded out by the whole thing that they were off the hook. You don't have to participate -- but at least watch the people that do. See how God is working in their lives. Do you find this valuable? |
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shameonyoko |
RE: Interactive Worship
Aug 22 2007, 5:54 AM EDT Yeah, I think we could probably benefit from another section on transitioning to different worship styles and methodologies instead of discussing it here. Good questions. Let's continue talking about this in the Philosophy and Methodology section. Do you find this valuable? |
