Greetings, friends! Lately I’ve been talking with churches in my one-on-one consulting sessions about “the percentage factor.” I begin with a question, “What percentage of worshipers at your church are ‘pew sitters?’” In other words, what percentage of people come to worship and this is their only connection to the life of the church–that brief time on Sunday morning (or whenever your worship is)? The answer is consistently over 50% and often in the over 75% range. My next question then, is this, “What are the implications of this for the time, energy and resources that we spend on making worship vital, meaningful, well-done and disciple-forming?” The conversation that follows is usually what I call a “come-to-Jesus-moment” of truth-realization about how we spend our ministry time and effort.
As many of you know, one of my main messages is moving from “plug-n-play” worship planning (weekly, last-minute, thrown-together, stress-producing) to “intentional design” that makes the effort to offer sensory-rich worship where the message can be seen, heard, touched and experienced in every part of the worship experience. Yes, this takes a plan-ahead strategy that requires staff and teams to carve out time to devote to a creative and collaborative process. It means that we might spend more study, reflection, resource-gathering and preparation for our leadership of worship. But when you realize that worship has such a high impact in terms of the percentage of people it touches, spending more time and energy not only makes total sense, it is, I believe, a faithful response to the commission to transform lives and transform the world.
The Fall is often a time of revisiting our priorities and strategies for ministry. I encourage you to talk with your staff and worship team about “the % factor.” Does worship planning feel rushed? Do you just hope things fall together and run smoothly on Sunday morning? Do you wish you could feel more spiritually grounded as a leader, rather than feeling like you are managing last-minute details before worship begins?
How much time do you spend making "special" services of the liturgical year (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Christmas Eve, etc) creative and meaningful? My guess is that you spend more time on those than on any one weekly worship experience. And yet, every week is when visitors may appear, wondering if they will find meaning and connection at your church. Every week is when people decide whether or not to come back next week or to get more involved in other ministries of the church. Consider the number of opportunities that 52 weeks in the year provides, and again the percentage factor comes into play. Are we making the necessary effort to provide life-changing experiences throughout the year?
No matter whether you are a small, medium or large church with a staff of one or 25, explore ways to hold worship planning time as sacred (not to be constantly rescheduled when other things come up), make it a priority to set regular dates to retreat away from daily duties in order to contemplate the directions for worship ahead of time, find ways to share ministry tasks with empowered and trained lay persons so that worship/sermon preparation can gain more focus and time, and find ways to get regular support, inspiration, continued education, resources and ideas (one easy way is to subscribe to the Worship Design Studio online). You CAN have more ease and creativity around worship planning.
If you take "the % factor" seriously, you can change your congregation's culture of thought about the priority of worship planning on the list of things the staff must care for. You CAN get excited again about your worship tasks and leadership. You CAN actually get to worship when you are leading worship... really. Your church CAN begin to "buzz" about the Spirit that is moving in and through vital worship where you are! My prayers are always with you on this journey.