Most modern worship services have a fairly predictable arc:
- Opening Worship Set — music moves from high energy celebration to more moderate reflection
- Creative element — solo, video, drama, or all of the above
- Sermon
- Response time — congregational singing or another solo, sometimes combined with an altar call
And frankly, that is the general pattern we follow most Sundays at Good Shepherd.
Except yesterday we reversed all that.
We started mellow. So mellow that there was no one on stage leading worship. Instead, we had words projected on the screen while Chris Macedo led us in singing from the sound booth in the rear of the Worship Center. It was a lot of fun to watch people looking around the room, wondering where that voice was coming from.
After the mellow start, we weaved in some teaching, prayer, response, more teaching, and then slightly more energetic singing.
It all built to a raucous celebration at the end when Chris — now on stage and surrounded by full band (with horns) and choir — said to the church: “let’s blow the roof off this place.”
And we did. To the tunes of “Lord, You Are Good” and “Say So.”
It was a lot of fun . . . primarily because it was so unexpected.
Who knows what arc we’ll follow next time?