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Title

We’ve Never Done it That Way Before

Subtitle

Creative worship in small churches

Synopsis

Ours is a small church of around 200 people. We are one of four Baptist churches in our small town in the deep south. If you looked at us from the outside—with our red brick sanctuary and our stained glass window—you would think we were fairly conservative. But depending on what day you showed up you might find us lighting candles, drawing our worship, or holding rocks or nails or clay in our hands as we sing. You might find us standing and singing from hymnals or sitting in silence as someone strums a guitar. You might find us listening to our pastor speak or walking around to separate prayer stations scattered around our small sanctuary. Because, you see, our church has found the joy of creative worship.

This book describes some of the things I learned as I led our small church towards creative worship. It is full of our successes and our failures and I hope you can learn from both. This isn’t a step by step process of how we got to where we are today. It is an attempt to encourage small churches to try new forms of worship.

There are many books out there for people who have big churches. There are books for people with dozens of staff and more talent in their churches than most Broadway shows. But these books don’t do much to speak to you as a small church leader. These books don’t understand the unique challenges that you face. They also don’t understand the unique benefits that come from serving in a small church.

This book attempts to look at some of the reasons why creative worship is so important—even to small churches—and help you to integrate creative ideas into your worship gatherings. It offers ideas on what to do when you are the only one who sees the need and how to gather a team from people who are looking at you like you are crazy. It also offers a few worship ideas and even some complete outlines that have been designed specifically for the small church setting.

Table of Contents

Introduction: