Your ideal worship service-- announcements, songs, prayers

Interesting poll. We play what most would consider contemporary worship ie we have the following insturments: bass guitar,electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, flute, keyboard, and piano. We sing 4-6 modern Worship choruses and our worship leader always picks out an old hymn each week. Prayer in our church isn't exactly scheduled our worship leader sometimes just opens the service in a prayer and then doesn't pray again. Then sometimes he prays 2-3 times during worship. We close our service with an invocation.

 

Why be typical?

 

Now that sounds good. Is it potluck?

Joseph Botwinick

 

I suppose that the part of the service that makes me want to carve my heart out with a spoon is the announcements. That portion seems to wreck the flow of the service as well as the fact that I have seen so many times the one making the announcements (pastor, deacon, elder of the church, or staff) will sometimes stand at the pulpit and ask "Is there anything else we need to announce". If you have to ask the question then it has no business being announced. It gives such a hoky feel to the service and makes me that people really don't care about worship, they are just there for the event. We ask people to bring their best, dress their best and to give their best and yet we cannot be professional enough in the pulpit to allow the service to flow with the Spirit without chopping it up with mondane annoucements.

If I have offended in my venting of my opinion, I sincerely applogize because that was not my intent.

 

We make announcements at the end, generally after dismissal while everyone is still standing around.

 

Agreed announcements kill the flow of the service (have experienced them before, during,and after the service). No time seems right during the service.

One more question perhaps: Is is ok to clap/applaud a soloist/group after a musical selection in a worship service? Does it show appreciation to God or it it feeding the flesh?

Always an awkward moment in our church!

 

I have mixed feelings on this. while I think it's OK and not the end of the world if it happens, when it happens when I'm directing the choir or singing a solo, I feel like crawling under a rock, getting off the stage or podium as fast as I can.

 

Having worked with this issue for a number of years, I arrived at three conclusions:

[1] that it is necessary to verbalize some things, because not all of our members were visual learners and did not read with full comprehension, and because there was usually so much information in the bulletin they needed a prompting to help them know what to highlight;

[2] announcements needed to be prepared just as other elements in the service were to be prepared, and so nearly always either I or my assistant pastor would make the announcements (among the deadliest times I can recall were those when a lay leader insisted on giving an announcement, and droned on with all kinds of detail, and when on Youth Sunday some teenager would merely read stuff exactly as printed in the bulletin);

and [3] there was a natural spot for greeting visitors and making announcements after we had had an invocation, opening hymn, prayer of confession and assurance of pardon, and another praise hymn. Then we needed a breather for these items, after which it was time for a devotional hymn and the extended, intercessory prayer of the day -- a mood change.

 

A service isnt' a service unless a handbell choir plays.

I have to say this because my cousin is a handbell choir director, composer, and arranger, and I used to be his best ringer.

 

I agree -- announcements can KILL a worship service - especially if they are thrown in during the middle of the service. We normally have announcements at the beginning of the service, after the greeting but before the invocation. I like this a lot better. Of course, the downside is that the latecomers miss them.

 

We have put our announcements at the end too right before the benediction. It just interrupted the flow of worship when it was inserted in the middle of the service.

 

we have announcements right before the service begins. We try and make this necessary evil as palatable as possible...

Several staff members make announcements...not just one person. If one guy makes all 5 or 6 announcements, folks quit listening anyway.

We use our projection systems to our advantage...running announcement slides before and after the services. We are also installing TV monitors in our foyer, in which announcements will run non-stop.

We also will try and creatively announce stuff, using drama, humor, interruptions, and the like.

Of course, none of you should listen to me. I'm probably fired--before last Sunday night's service, I interrupted announcements to show baby and childhood pictures of our pastor, who turned 40. Had his family bring the cake up & everything. Oh well.

 

My favorite horror story about this thread: one year we had done a very solemn Maundy Thursday service, essentially a Christian version of the Seder, and had finished in darkness around the tables, contemplating the question raised by the disciples, "Lord, it is I?" (who will betray you). I had let the group simply sit in darkness for a minute or two, and then rose to speak a concluding word and benediction, with the expectation that everyone would leave in silence. But I had no sooner finished than one member jumped up, grabbed the microphone, and bleated out, "Now don't you all forget that next week we are going to .....[some recreational event]." I felt like swatting her!

 

We have announcements at the start of service pertaining to that day. All other information
is running through the projectors before service
begins, while folks are arriving or getting out of Sunday School and also info is in the weeks bulletin. Like rbell said above, sometimes we get creative and shake things up a little.