Designing Worship Together: Models And Strategies For Worship Planning

by Howard Vanderwell and Norma Dewaal Malefyt

Book Overview

Much more than a "how-to" for worship planners. Drawing on more than two decades of collaborative worship planning, as well as numerous conversations with other worship planners. Pastor Howard Vanderwell and musician Norma de Waal Malefyt lay out a thoughtful, field-tested process for planning, implementing, and evaluating life-enriching weekly worship. Well over a dozen field-tested tools and a selected bibliography round out this invaluable resource...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566992966
• ISBN13: 9781566992961
• Release Date: December 2004
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Excellent guide for the challenging task of collaborative worship planning

This excellent resource is focused on the "why" and "how" of collaborative worship planning. The editor of the "Vital Worship, Healthy Congregations" series, John Witvliet, captures succinctly the driving themes behind the book in his Foreword (p. viii): Congregations, and the leaders that serve them, need a shared vision for worship that is grounded in more than personal aesthetic tastes. This vision must draw on the deep theological resources of Scripture, the Christian tradition, and the unique history of the congregation. Congregational worship should be integrated with the whole life of the congregation. It can serve as the "source and summit" from which all the practices of the Christian life flow. Worship both reflects and shapes the life of the church in education, pastoral care, community service, fellowship, justice, hospitality, and every other aspect of church life. The best worship practices feature not only good worship "content," such as discerning sermons, honest prayers, creative artistic contributions, celebrative meaningful rituals for baptism and the Lord's Supper. The also arise out of good process, involving meaningful contributions from participants, thoughtful leadership, honest evaluation, and healthy communication among leaders. Designing Worship Together makes a strong case for broadening the participation in collaborative worship planning as a mechanism for achieving these objectives, and explores process and organizational structures appropriate for enabling an aggressively collaborative planning, evaluation, preparation and reflection approach for Christian churches. The authors dedicate the first chapter of the book towards motivating (and understanding the challenges) of the "together" theme in the book. While many might guess at some of the obvious advantages of spreading the worship planning load--greater variety, sensitivity to the needs of a larger community, sharing the burden, etc...--the case is made very strongly, and the authors introduce some benefits the reader might not have considered. For instance, the intangible value of "ownership" or "investment" in the worship service stimulated by the involvement of others in the process may be unexpected. When worship is planned regularly by a small, paid staff, it can become simply a job--a burden--and it might not be immediately obvious that training and involving others can elevate the experience of all beyond that of a weekly task to an ongoing, joyful investment. Clearly, there are some challenges associated with collaboratively planning worship. The authors outline these challenges capably, and it may be the case for some local churches that, upon understanding and reflecting on these challenges, collaborative planning may be counterproductive. The authors include one very real, practical challenge which deserves attention: the availability of time. Time is a primary challenge in our society. In a manner never before seen, our time is