Combined Worship at Wesley East Maitland 29.7.12

We took the opportunity of the normal 5th Sunday practice of a combined happening, to gather a small team of young people and leaders to plan worship as they envisaged it! We met with about 3-4 weeks space BUT started with a BLANK SHEET...

'Givens', venue, who we would expect to attend and what they were used to or could cope with were noted, then people were asked to share:
What is worship?
What would make that meaningful or significant for you?
What would you like to see happen?
What themes do you sense emerging?

Of those ideas what will we do?
A theme of "Imagination.God.Life" emerged and the challenge of including:
Lego, computer games, Harry Potter, contemporary music, imagination, and a U2 song
[which could have been teased out further to include how those would reflect the gathered group but some clear themes emerged.

We wanted to include a video vox pop around:
What books, movies, stories inspire?
What is it about them?
How might they teach/reflect the nature of God?

We took the risk of inviting some musicians to set up so the band included violins, piano and vocal with others who may join in future [that was the hope]

Using Macbook Keynote [a much better alternative to Powerpoint]here's roughly what we did:

Pre worship music
[1] A single slide with 30sec 'A Hopeful Transmission' Coldplay to catch attention
[2] Announcements & Concerns
[3] A Call to Worship for [3] Voices
[added soon]
[4] Communal Song "Dreams & Visions"
[5] Greeting/Welcome/Words
[6] LEGO Prayer with brief words:
LEGO was used as a symbol of 'building blocks' oflfe and belief' but participants were invited to collaborate and build a symbol of this through discussion together, then bring those to a front table... some brilliantly simple symbols resulted.
[7] Movie Clip Collage 2min 40

[8] Communal Song "Faith, Hope & Love"
[9] Scripture reworked Hebrews 11:1+ and Luke 13: 18-21
[10] Reflection on 'Imagination.God.Life'
[11] Communal Song "God Version 1.0" including Offering
[12] Prayers for the World choosing from 80+ photos stuck on the side walls
[13] Communal Song "Here I am Lord"
[14] Spoken Sending Out
Followed by opportunity for all planners/participants to shake hands at the door

In my role I'm available to work with other groups and places to develop capacity to put together linear experiences like this, alt.worship or other styles etc through workshopping, discussions and curating across the UCA in the Hunter!!!