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:
This short introduction will explain some of my own journey as a worship leader in a small church. It will describe some of the specific problems and advantages of leading creative ministry in a small church.
Chapter 1: Why Worship?
This chapter explores in brief the greatness of God. If your view of God is small then your worship will be small. God is truth that leads to deeper mystery and answers that lead to more questions. When we begin to see this deep, mysterious, wonderful God our natural response is worship.
Chapter 2: Why Worship Creatively?
The Bible is full of examples of people worshiping through more than just singing and preaching. The rituals of the temple were bathed in images and actions that turned people’s eyes and hearts towards God. Traditional small church worship lacks much of that luster. We have forgotten how to worship God like the Psalmists who cry out to God not only in good times, but in bad. Creative worship invites people to honestly deal with God. It also invites people who may not be “moved” by singing or preaching to dive deeper into worship.
Chapter 3: The Goals of Creative Worship
Creative worship is not only about trying something new. It is not only about trying to get a young “hip” crowd into our church. Creative worship invites people to stop being spectators and start being worshipers. It presents the gospel in a way that doesn’t just relay facts, but that changes lives.
Chapter 4: It’s Personal
If you are going to lead creative worship you will need to practice creative worship in your own personal worship. This chapter outlines the deep need for personal creative worship space. It also gives practical suggestions such as drawing, journaling, guided prayers, body movement and dance.
Chapter 5: Find a Team
In any book like this there is an obligatory “find a team” chapter. In small churches finding a team of leaders can be difficult. This chapter offers help on finding a team in a small church. It also outlines the model for worship arts teams that we use at
Chapter 6: Integrating Creative Worship in Your Church
This is the most important chapter for small church leaders. How things are introduced into the “regular” service will have a big impact on whether or not the church will embrace the creative worship or start “having meetings” to fire the worship leader. This chapter outlines a slow approach to adding creative elements. I also share some of my personal experience of adding creative elements into my church.
Chapter 7: Dealing with Descent
“We’ve never done it that way before!” If you work in a small church you have heard that before, maybe about something as simple as what type of tablecloths you are using. When it comes to “changing” the worship service things can get very heated very quickly. That is why this chapter offers practical advice on how to deal with descent. I offer some of my success and failures and the lessons I learned from both.
Chapter 8: Sustaining:
Making the transition from “special event” to integrated worship
It is hard to make real shifts in worship in small churches. The people who are involved are normally involved in several other things and creative worship takes time and energy so it is easy to just let it slide into the background. This chapter outlines a plan for taking creative worship from the “special event” status and placing it as a regular part of your worship gathering.
Appendix One: Creative Worship Ideas
This is a collection of creative worship ideas that can be dropped into any worship gathering. This will include some personal worship ideas as well.
Appendix Two: Complete Worship Outlines
This appendix will include 4 complete worship outlines. One of them will be for a small group and three of them will be for the whole church. They will all include something for at least four senses and complete instructions on using them in a small church setting.
Biographical Sketch
My name is Shane Yancey. I am 32 years old. I am married and have a young son. I have a degree from
I have been a youth pastor for around ten years. I am currently serving at
Over the course of those five years I had many struggles and victories, but many in our church fell in love with creative forms of worship and expressing their heart to God through more than just singing.
Right now I am leading a creative worship arts team of around twenty people. We lead worship through hip-hop style dance, visual arts, drama, poetry, and new forms of music. We also try to include ways to move the audience from spectators to participators. I have to say that one of the greatest thrills of my life has been when we had four youth dance to the song “Shackles” by Mary Mary and I had senior adults come to me and tell me how much they enjoyed it. I don’t know if I have moments like this just because I have a really great church or not, but I believe that God led me through a process that brought us all to a place where we can worship God creatively in our small church. That is why I started writing this book, so that I could share some of those principles with others.
Shane Yancey
334-695-1873
SS: 405-31-6895
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