Building Momentum, "In Worship"

More thoughts...

1. Teach on worship.
2. Eliminate all but 2-3 pulpit announcements.
3. Outlaw dead space. Make sure people are prepared when it is their time to go.
4. We called it "traveling music." Instead of dead space, use some transition music.
5. Become the best, kick-butt preacher you can be. We are competing with everyone on TV, the internet, and the self-help industry. We have to make it worth people's while to listen to us. Feed their soul with the richest of truth and in the most enthralling of manners. Channel a combination of T.D. Jakes and Henri Nouwen. Ok, now I'm kidding, mostly.
6. Recruit and train first class musicians. God is worth our most excellent effort. Putting money here is usually well spent. In planting a church, the worship leader/musician is often a more important position than even the pastor. Sorry, it's true. :-O
7. Sing mostly what people know. People can only handle so many new songs in one service. Usually, it's about one.
8. Make sure everything connects back to the theme. We can make our churches disjointed in the flow as well as the logic. We are shepherds. Shepherd their hearts and minds.
9. Start with a bang: something upbeat, that everyone can participate in.
10. Find the spiritual-emotional flow of your service/people, i.e. get in touch with the movement of the Spirit.
11. Leonard Sweet said post-modern worship needs to follow the E.P.I.C. pattern... experiential, participatory, image-based, and connective.
12. Make it as multi-sensory as it can be.
13. Throw cheeseburgers to the balcony (I confess, I did that once.)
14. Keep them guessing.
15. Creativity, creativity, creativity... God said it was good.

Feel free to share your ideas...