Here’s how we design each service:
1. Engage. From the parking lot to the foyer to the opening portion of the service, we focus on engaging people as they come in. Recently, when we were talking about serving, we called the Sunday “on board” and had some massive power boats in the parking lot, a surf theme in the foyer and ran this video during the welcome. Let’s just say when we were done, everyone was laughing, engaged and ‘present.’
A high-energy worship song, a song from the radio, or even a bit of humor or sincere engagement by the host during the welcome can bring everyone to the place of attention.
Engaging is about finding common emotion and a starting point for the hour together. Often, it’s not just about what you do, but how you do it. You might consider building a sense of transcendence using lights and sound (the modern day incense), or with silence, or surprise, or humor or common emotion. The point is to connect with people where they’re at and engage them.
2. Involve. Hopefully by this point, most people are engaged in the experience. During the second part of the service, we focus on involving people.
This is where we do corporate singing (what many churches call ‘worship’). Unchurched people generally prefer shorter music sets (where else do you sing publicly these days?). We live with the tension of Christians who sing and others who don’t.
We do our baptisms during this window in the service, and the combination of a recorded video story for everyone being baptized and the live baptism is a powerful combination. People connect with story. Finally, if we do a popular song that sets up the tension in the message (like “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye in a series on relationships), we’ll do it here. We also take up the offering.
The point is that by the time we get to the message, people are engaged and involved.
3. Challenge. When it comes to the message, the process starts all over again. Whether Andy is teaching or I’m teaching, we almost always go back to common emotion. Andy did this incredibly well when he got everyone to think about how they compared themselves to others and the ugliness and futility that can create in all of us, regardless of what we believe.
Jesus would often do this, saying things like, “Ever lost anything significant, like a sheep or a coin? You search high and low until you find it, right?” At this point, everyone can relate. Then Jesus lowers the boom, “Or how about a son? That’s how your heavenly father feels about you.” The parable of the lost sheep, lost coin and lost son in Luke 15 show how powerful common ground paired with the Gospel really is.
The service ends with a challenge. Andy finished by encouraging us to only look to our heavenly father for a sense of our value.
If there is anything that offends people at all in the service, it should only be the Gospel, not the way we present it.
And you know what amazed me most on that recent Sunday? The process worked.
The service engaged me. At about 10 minutes in, I forgot what my issues were, and I was present. Listening. Open.
While no approach is perfect, I was so thankful that the way we designed the service “worked” for me.
And—let’s be honest—how many people do you think show up at church having already read several chapters of the Bible and having prayed and having a vested interest in seeing the church thrive (I am the lead pastor after all).
If you’re going to reach unchurched people, you need to be intentional about what you do with your hour on Sunday.
