Because the 30 Hour Famine was canceled, I had the opportunity to attend an event sponsored by the UMC’s Central Pennsylvania Conference called Creating Worship With Deep Soul. The six hour event was hosted at Christ Community United Methodist Church and led by Marcia McFee.

While the six members of my congregation who attended gleaned some information, it seemed like the session was focused primarily on how to integrate “contemporary” worship ideas/tools into a church’s weekly services. Unfortunately, the discussion on worship design teams (the topic my colleagues wanted to learn about most) was barely discussed as Ms. McFee ran out of time.

There were a number of interesting things I learned, though (primarily because I’m not part of my congregation’s worship design team):

  • Whatever we do for worship, it must be spirit-filled and meet peoples’ yearning to be touched.
  • Worship with integrity is engaging, elicits a response and causes worshipers to be changed. It also offers something for people in each of the eight categories of multiple intelligence.
  • If we don’t witness various perspectives of our worship services, it is direct evidence to the dominance of a few.

The last bullet really caught by attention. No matter how many people are on a church’s worship design team, unless we’re reaching out to others and asking for their opinions on their worship needs, we aren’t doing enough to make sure worship is changing peoples’ lives.  After all, isn’t that what worshiping God is all about?