Growing in WorshipA Media Ministry Prospective

Impact this generation with the Gospel by using

culturally relevant methods of communication

Being Prayer-Centered

• Multimedia can complement your prayer ministry and help people pray more strategically and enthusiastically.

• Project on screen a list of congregational prayer needs, pictures of people you are praying for, and/or Scripture texts to pray over certain situations can help people stay focused during a prayer meeting.

• Add backgrounds or still images to enhance a worshipful atmosphere.

• Powerful videos are available from para church organizations such as Prayer for the Persecuted Church, AD2000 and Beyond, and Wycliffe Bible Translators or perhaps your own denomination.

Being Worship-Centered

• Multimedia can be the means to inspire worship with beautiful scenes from God’s creation projected on a large screen

• Resources such as slides, backgrounds or Worship DVDs are available. Video clips, drama and creative readings also add to the multimedia experience.

Being Accessible

• Have monitors in the foyer which give basic information about the church’s beliefs, activities and building.

• Use video as part of the worship service to increase emotional accessibility.

• Tools such as sermon illustrators and drama increase the level of comfort and understanding for this generation of churchgoers.

Having a Defined, Measurable Purpose

• Multimedia can help communicate your mission statement to the congregation.

• A well-produced video presenting your mission statement and goals can generate excitement about your vision.

• If you don’t have in-house production capabilities, contact a local video production company for more information on having a video custom-made for your church.

Be Relational

• Use video to promote the different cell groups in your church - have actual footage of the group and its activities.

• Use sermon illustrators to promote discussions within small group settings.

• Man-on-the-Street segments are especially great discussion-starters!

Using Team Leadership

• There are many valuable audio/visual products on the market for leadership training.

• For example, check out injoy.com for a variety of leadership materials and Bethany Cell Church Network (bccn.com) for cell leadership training.

Reach out Locally and Globally

• Multimedia as a evangelistic tool• Thief in the Night series of the 70’s • the Jesus Film. • to attract and connect with our postmodern

generation• Global missions can be greatly enhanced with video

resources, videos showing your own missionaries at work, or use the many resources available through organizations such as The Voice of the Martyrs, The Caleb Project and The William Carey Library.

• In either case, the power of video can translate into more powerful prayer, giving, and personal involvement in world missions.

Team Planning and Worship Development

 • 1. Study your people.People have needs; they also have ideas and worship preferences. Find out where they hurt, and help them discover or rediscover God at the same time.

• 2. Ready. Fire. Aim.Take a shot at new stuff in a small way. See if you hit the target, and then aim accordingly.

• 3. Create a vision for your worship.Know where you are going and how to get there.

Proverbs 28:18. Make your vision work by teamwork. Create ownership, and multiply the buy-in through vision casting.

Kinds of Worship Services

Charismatic "Praise and worship movement“ upbeat encounter seeking

Boomer "Charismatic-lite." stops short of full charismatic worship.

Gospel Revivalist Old Time Gospel Hour style

Seeker reaching the unchurched

Pedagogical Teaching and preaching focused

Word & Table hymns with heavy theological content and weekly communion

Cowboy/Casual half band-jam and half square dance

Emerging reflective worship style/postmodern

Blended attempts to produce a worship format

with something for everybody.

• 4. Reignite your passion for God.As the Church of Laodicea reminds us, if we have no fire, no passion, we leave of bad taste in the mouth of God (Rev. 3:16).

• 5. Never kill an idea before it’s written down. Brainstorming – if every time you hear an idea you immediately give it a thumbs-down, it cultivates timidity within

your team. • 6. Don't Count on Success But Never

Expect Failure God doesn’t ask us to be successful.

He just asks us to be faithful. • 7. Do something each month in worship

that frightens you.If you want to grow, prepare to risk

• 8. Think about one person in the crowd and plan a worship service that allows that person to worship.Minister distinctively to one person in the body, and chances are

the ripple effect will transform the entire church. • 9. Don’t try to turn Smallville into Willow

Creek in one month.Jesus is patient with you. Be patient with your people. Lead them through the process, and help them understand the reasons for change.

• 10. Don’t be afraid of emotions, but don’t try to manufacture or manipulate the worshipers’ emotions either.Our obsession should be to bring people into an encounter with God.

• 11. Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain. When we lead in worship and plan worship in a team, perhaps the quickest way to sabotage the work is to give vague vetoes and blame it on God.

• 12. Maintain your standard.Want to have an impact? Discover the obsession for ministry.

• 13. Read your plan out loud.Most people will not read your plan. They will hear your plan.

• 14. Exile the left brain when beginning your work. Create without assessing what you are doing while you are doing it. After your artistic work is done, then begin the tough, painful left brain work. It’s important late and fatal early.

• 15. Keep toys close to you.When you have the opportunity, play! Have some fun as a team.

• 16. Don’t just sit there. Write something. Make a goal to write something everyday. Just keep the pen moving!

• 17. Set small goals and reward yourself when you achieve them.Let everyone on the team in on small victories and achievements. As in the story of the 10 lepers, don’t be like the nine who received transformation and forgot to thank God.

Have few secret victories.

• 18. Avoid lip worship.Lip worship is worship that is totally auditory. Don’t just say worship, do it!

• 19. Avoid tip worship.Tip worship is worship in which the driving force of worship is life application with little Bible.

• 20. Avoid rip worship.Rip worship is when we load the Body down with guilt and shame. Our duty in worship is not to rip the congregation or to use worship as our personal bully pulpit.

• 21. Avoid flip worship.Flip worship is done without acknowledging what a vast and important responsibility worship leadership really is.

• 22. Avoid hip worship.Hip worship is totally (as the old saying goes) from the hip. Things unexpectedly happen—but shooting from the hip will do little toward developing trust in the ensemble.

• 23. If you’re in it for the money, go home. “The Pastor is not a CEO”

• 24. Be prepared to record ideas while driving.Carry a notebook to record ideas when you are going through your day. Take a micro-cassette player with you.

• 25. Once you’re through reading, then you’re through growing. What book is next in line after you finish the one you’re on right now?

• 26. Prevent right brain freeze.Pull yourself out of the ordinary and jump start your creative thinking.

• 27. Early planning gives you more room for improvement.In ministry you’ll usually lose when you employ a no-huddle approach in worship.

• 28. Write ideas without thinking of the method you’ll use in the final process.Great team planners see the message first.

• 29. Weave your worship and plan your pauses.When transitions aren’t attended to, the flow becomes jerky and predictable. Reflective times can be insightful and emotive but they should not be awkward.

• 30. Prepare well.If a worship team is prepared, then the platform people are liberated from the tyranny of self-consciousness and escorted into the presence of God along with those who worship.

• 31. Realize that worship is difficult.Worship is a lifelong work of art. It is truly a process, not a destination. We are being transformed from glory to glory to glory.

• 32. Use technology while keeping in mind that only you can prevent lousy workmanship.Leaning on bells and whistles to replace perspiration is a formula for failure.

• 33. Become an addict.Become addicted to glorifying God.

• 34. Every now and then, do a postmortem of the worship experience.

What did we do well/badly? Where could we have improved? Learn from mistakes, and as a team, talk about how best to avoid the mistakes. Ask these questions: 

• Did it work?• How could we have improved?• Did we offer people an opportunity to be transformed?• What feedback did you receive? • Are we in a rut or on a roll? • Did we, as leaders, worship? • Did we improve the mix by using more than two or three

communication strategies?• Pray, asking God to continue transforming people through the

experience, worship, and truths that we experienced.

Online Resources

• Check out these sites for countless ideas and resources… mycreativeteam.org

Network211.com