After 100 E-mails asking for more information on how our church plans and creates our “experiential worship” moments, I felt it was time to publish the second installment of “God Moments” that we feel God has used to really reveal himself to the people of our church.

And once again, rather than explain the theoretical premise of the “experience” versus the “presentation”, my style is just to give you the practical. Here are some things our church is doing to provide the churchgoer with an experience of God and His Community.

Experiential Worship is Interactive:

1) We were in a series on “Great Experiences of God”. During the message, the Teaching Pastor examined the story of Isaiah’s dream in Isaiah 6, where the angel comes down, takes a coal from the fire and touches the coal to Isaiah’s lips to purify him. The Teaching Pastor challenged the people to use today as a marker event when they would purify themselves of their own sin. He had each person write down those sins they daily struggled with and fold that piece of paper in half. In the same idea of purification that Isaiah felt, we ended the service by having everyone come forward and place their piece of paper into a candle flame, burning them away (and then throw it directly into a bucket of water.) Then each person could come forward and receive ashes on their forehead in the sign of the cross, representing God’s purification.

2) One of our most successful interactive services has now become an annual event. Several years a go we developed what we call “Create-Your-Own Christmas Eve Service.” This is a family based service that offers a little rowdiness before the more traditional service later in the evening. As each family enters the auditorium, they have the option to sit in one of five areas and take on one of five roles. They can sit at the top on one side and be angels (in which case they get a halo). They can sit at the top on the other side and be a star (in which they get a flashlight.) They can also sit closer to the stage and be a shepherd (candy-cane staff), a wiseman (Burger King crown) or a sheep or cow (sheep ears or cowbell). As the Narrator tells the Christmas story with a few “volunteer actors” from the audience, each section must listen for their name. Whenever the Christmas story mentions angels, that whole section says together ”Glory to God in the highest”. Whenever the stars are mentioned, all the flashlights begin to twinkle on the ceiling. And so on and so forth. It is a great way for kids to learn and remember the story of the birth of Christ.

3) During a service on Community, we ended the service with a worship time where we had half the audience stand and sing along with the Worship Leader while the other half knelt and prayed for the standing half. Then we simply switched the two sides. It is a beautiful thing when God’s people are lifting each other up while lifting God’s name up.

4) We are trying to provide more opportunities in our worship for people to create independent thoughts to God. One step we took, was to have people say the names of Jesus, in the Bible, out loud, completely at random and independently. To make this safer for them, we filled the screen on stage with all of the names and just invited them to read them out loud at will

5) Another of our most impactful services was one that we COMPLETELY STOLE from another church. It is just that good of an idea. Our service was on being Jesus to the poor. During the preceding weeks we had called the larger homeless shelters in Chicago to see what it was that they really needed. They said what they really needed was shoes. (Actually, first they said underwear, but you will soon understand why that was not a viable choice.) The service ended by challenging people that if they were really serious about having a Christ-centered hurt for helping the poor, then they should use today as a marker event representing how they would live the rest of their life. To do that, we invited them to come forward, take Communion, and then remove their shoes and leave them on the stage and walk out to their cars barefoot. (This was in early December, but luckily no snow.) The best part was that no one knew this was coming, so everyone was wearing their best “going-to-church” shoes. So I am sure that homeless shelter got the best 1600 pairs of shoes they had seen in a while. Well it didn’t stop there. Besides all the shoes we collected, people were taking off their coats, hats and gloves and leaving them.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you stood back and said, “Oh my goodness. This is what the church is supposed to be?” Well, that  was it for me! It was heart-pounding.

Experiential Worship Brings an Idea to Life:

1) What has probably been our greatest experiential worship moment ever was in the midst of a series entitled “The Last Words of Christ”. This was a series leading up to Easter that examined all of the words Jesus said from the cross. When we arrived at “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” we were stumped on how to possibly communicate to the audience what anguish and pain Jesus was going through when he said those words. After much discussion, we created what we called a “suffering rave”. We began to roll very fast moving video of Jesus on the cross, interspersed with graphic clips from the movie “Stigmata”. (If you have never seen “Stigmata”, it is full of images and sounds of the mails being driven into hands and feet and the blood drawn from a crown of thorns trickling down a face.) We also included images of current execution devices, dice, clothes, cat of nine tails, brass knuckles and scars on skin. All of these images and sounds were rolling over a continuous “Rave” geometric background. At the same time, we had a techno rhythm track running to back it up. On top of the music we had sound clips of a hammer on nails & the crowd mocking him. The coolest part was that we interspersed all of those clips with Jesus whispering “Father, forgive them.” Then, each time he said it, it got louder and louder.

We also handed out a packet to everyone as they walked in containing a short piece of vine with thorns, a large 10-penny nail and a piece of rough wood. During the rave, we asked everyone to take these items out and touch them with their hands and then later close their hand tightly around those items. It truly created a full-sensory experience of the pain of the cross. Not one that could in any way express the true pain Jesus endured, but it presented the crucifixion in a way that brought fresh insight into the story we have heard for so many years.

2) A couple times a year we have a DJ scratcher join our band for a Sunday. First of all, the guys are really good. We let them solo just like the guitarists. The first time we did it, at the end of the first Praise Chorus, the crowd went nuts, so I added, “Psalm 150 says, “Praise Him with the timbrel and harp” and I think it is implied to Praise Him with two turntables and a microphone.” It was a great teaching moment on praising God with whatever gifts He has given us.

3) We were trying to find a way to communicate “connecting with others” in a service on community. We ended up deciding to do the entire service in “the round”, with the band and speaker in the very center of the room and all of the chairs encircled around them. What better way to communicate a connection with others in the church, than worshipping together while you are looking at a large segment of your congregation.

4) On a service probing the relationships of creation and evolution, we were faced with three major areas of thought by people in our area of Chicago: evolution, theistic evolution (intelligent design) and creationism. We want to compare and contrast each of these in a visual way. We decided to set up three separate video projectors, illuminating a different section of the front walls. On one, we created a video loop representing the idea of evolution (i.e. animals to portray natural selection and species). On the next , we created a loop to represent theistic evolution (i.e. Leonardo DaVinci’s schematics drawings over footage of the revolving earth). On the third, creationism (i.e. we used a Christian video of computer imagery of creation).

All three loops ran throughout the entire service. We overlayed the words for PowerPoint on each screen. When we arrived at the message segment of the service, the Teaching Pastor would walk under each image and talk about it, while pointing to the other areas of thought. The best part came when the Teaching Pastor closed by talking about “the whom, instead of the how”. At that point all three screens simultaneously switched to a picture of the earth being held in God’s hands. It was very effective.

5) To communicate another message, we pre-taped three sections of the teaching “on location”. For the introduction, one of the Teaching Pastors introduced the topic from in front of the church building. Then, in the middle of the message, another clip was used where another Teaching Pastor talked about the story of Paul and Silas in chains from in front of a nearby prison. (For your information, they don’t like you to get too close to a maximum security prison fence with a video cameras.) Then, for a section of the closing, another Teaching Pastor talked about reaching the world from Chicago’s North Avenue Beach, with people streaming behind him. It gave great perspective to the message.

Experiential Worship Takes People to a Place They Have Never Been:

1) On a message in the series of “Great Experineces with God”, we looked at the story of the Dedication of Solomon’s Temple. (1 Kings 8 & 2 Chronicles 5-7) We talked about how, during this one time in history, Israel seemed to truly come to worship God with the anticipation and awe that He deserves. They brought every offering and gift to worship that they could.

To teach our congregation about what it meant in the OT to approach God, we found a computer generated video that moved from one room of Solomon’s temple to the next. We explained what each area meant and who was allowed to go there. At each area, we sang songs reflecting how God was praised there. We began on the “Portico” (porch) where the entire people of Israel gathered to sing praise to God. (We sang “Be Glorified”). The video then moved into the temple to the “Holy Place”. There you could see the lamp stands and the table of the bread of presence. Here we talked about cleansing ourselves as we approach God. (As we took Communion, we sang “Be Still” and “All I Can Say”.) Then the video moved slowly past the curtain into the “Most Holy Place”. There you could see the Ark of the Covenant. There was complete silence in the room. Then the people quietly began to sing “Let My Words Be Few”, followed by “O Lord, You’re Beautiful”.

Towards the end of the celebration, we sang a version of “Maybe I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney. At the end of the song, it goes into a big fanfare section of “Amazing Grace”. At that point, we had three trumpets blare a fanfare from the balcony as our orchestra entered from the back of the room and begin playing along with the band on stage. The orchestra circled the audience and stood facing them. At the conclusion of that song, we played “Crown Him with Many Crowns (the Lamb Upon His Throne)”, followed by “Shout to the Lord”. You talk about “surround sound”. It was awesome.  

2) During our service on “Praise Wars”, we were emphasizing the global aspect of worship. During Communion, the band was vamping on the song “We Fall Down”. We had five people from our church who grew up in other countries come forward and begin to sing that song in their native tongue. On the video screen above them, we had a map of their country with facts about the population and percentage of people who are currently Christian. I don’t think you can ever hit the global-impact of Christianity enough.

3) During a series on “Great Experiences with God”, we looked at the story of when God came to Elijah at Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19) and told him to watch for Him, as He would soon pass by. God was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but He was in the whisper. During the worship, we sang really loud songs, followed by really quiet songs, ending a capella with scripture of what God said to Elijah.

Being a church that tries to provide the Christ-follower, as well as the non-Christian an opportunity to know God better or to hopefully meet God face-to-face is NEVER about being “hip” or “generational”. In fact, I would say it is more about the idea of “ancient-future” than anything. Style does not matter. When God inspires you to provide an experience of Him, it can be in the context of the great hymns of faith or the newest worship songs. It is also not about size. We create these experiences for 3500 people a weekend, but they are just as viable in a church of 100. (Sometimes that is easier. Definitely cheaper!)

It is about healthy risk. Healthy risk that leads to a better understanding of who God is or a healthy risk leads you to a place of deeper worship.