Question:
Hi all,
I'd like to pick the brains of those of you who are worship leaders AND have responsibility for starting services (that is, "starting the meeting"). I'm in that position myself and I'm looking to do something a bit different with that part of the meeting. From the mic, I welcome everyone - especially visitors and new folks, I usually share some brief thoughts to encourage everyone to make the most of the worship time, I might pray, I might read some scripture, I might teach a new song... but I'd love to do something different. I'm plain out of ideas for what else I could do to open the meeting. What suggestions do you have?
TIA
Tarby
Answer:
one of the things I've done (which I stole from Matt Redman!) was to start without any kind of anouncement but to have Amazing Grace on the screen and just start singing it unaccompanied. Gradually people joined in and by the end there was an amazing sense of God's presence which really set us up for the rest of the service
I'll have a think of any other things I've done and come back.
God bless, Rich
Answer:
welcome everyone, briefly, pray, then play a bomb worship set, then have everyone introduce themselves to eachother, having the congregation greet eachother ( have them stand up out of their chairs and walk around), then have the congregation introduce any new commers then yeah yeah yeah thats how we do it
Answer:
Normally I start with a song while announcements are still being projected. We start cold without any talking. I do something upbeat here, something that usually would not be a great congregational tune OR something that I would like the congregation to hear before I ask them to sing it. After that song, "Welcome to Faith Fellowship. Please stand if you are able and join us in worshiping our Lord!" and wham....into the worship set.
Answer:
At my church, they just start playing. Maybe just the chours of Blessed Be Your Name, or the intro, then the outro of a song. It gets everyone's attention, and sets the "mood". Then they usually say, "Meet someone new next to you while everyone else comes in."
($0.02)
--Katze
Answer:
a cool thing we did last week was throw a countdown timer up on the screen. we walked onto the stage with about 30-45 seconds left on the clock and started the set right when it hit "0". I do have to say that I personally felt really energized by having that happen.
Answer:
Sometimes we'll just play an intro that we made up which is not too loud and ask the congregation to get out of their seats and go around and greet eachother. Somedays we'll do things like "Pinch anybody who is wearing red." Then we get into the set and they return to their seats on their own and everyone is in a good mood.