Directing College-Age Hearts in Worship: more than music.
By Joe Barsuglia
When you start a college worship gathering there are two sides the pendulum can swing.
(1) Develop a band that sounds like David Crowder, copy all their song arrangements, and have a speaker like Louie Giglio. (2) Make due with limited resources or speaking giftedness and allow worship to happen in a more organic/holistic fashion.
There’s these two sides and about everything in between. Since you need an abnormally talented group of musicians (most college ministries won’t have any) and thousands of dollars to swing heavy on side one, I will leave that magic up to you and concentrate on side two.
Often we fail to realize how the Christian community worshipped Jesus before Matt Redman and David Crowder, and yes even before our deceased friend, Rich Mullins. Where would we’ve been without, "Our God is an Awesome God"? For the first 2000 years of Christianity the forms of worship did not require so many frills. Granted, Christians always used art, architecture, orchestras, organs, stained glass, tapestries, choirs, candles, sculptures, icons, incense, and bread and wine for the glory of God. But only in the last few decades have our worship gatherings been so desperately dependent on electricity to function. We must realize that technological frills are not adding absolute necessities to biblical worship. While technology, video, great bands, subwoofers and multimedia can be utilized when creating a meaningful worship experience, we must be able to worship without them. What happens when the power goes out?
As a college worship leader I loved to use video and multimedia, so I’m not media bashing. Media can be great. If God can speak through an ass (Num 22:28), he can obviously use anything! However, I want to share some ideas for worship, outside of the expensive and involved technology that many ministries believe may make or break their worship gatherings. These are a few methods I have used that have been effective and I’ve led college-age people through these both with and without a band. It is relatively easy to pickup a guitar and lead songs, but there’s more to worship than music.
Reading Creeds Together
Creeds have always been part of the backbone of the church's gatherings. Not only do creeds define our doctrine, reciting them gives us a sense of identity, and both global and historical unity. Creeds help us reflect on the essentials of our faith and help even us not-so-deep theologians get a grasp on the core essence of Christianity. Editor of Creeds of the Churches, John Leith comments on how the creeds help our faith, "A commitment that does not serve God with the mind is always dangerous and irresponsible. Indeed the articulation of faith in intelligible words not only clarifies faith but becomes itself the means of deeper commitment of heart and mind" (p.2). Historic creeds can help get college students thinking with their heart and mind about what it means to believe in orthodox Christianity.
Readings:
Creeds of the Churches, Edited by John Leith.
Ancient - Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World by Robert E. Webber.
Credo. Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. by Jaroslav Pelikan
The New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy. by Colleen Carroll.
Group Spiritual Direction & Formation
Individuals such as Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, David Benner, and Larry Crabb have gone to great lengths to bring back the invaluable ancient practices of spiritual direction and the Christian disciplines to the present church. These writers have given a road map toward the question of the "How?" of sanctification, for individual believers and corporate celebration.
Much of spiritual direction is individualistic in nature. It addresses the believer and their relationship with God and how to seek and listen for God. However, with a little creativity you can use these concepts in a group setting. Here are a few examples:
A) Group Lectio Divina
Lectio Divina means divine reading and came out of the 4th century, Benedictine spirituality. It came from the monastic life where monks would come to the Scriptures as a channel of meditative listening and soulful communion with the Living Word, Christ. It is often an individual exercise but can be translated into groups. You could have one person read one portion of scripture, multiple times very slowly with the sole purpose of listening, allowing the words to ruminate in your soul, and as an avenue of having communion with Christ in and through His words. I have done this with the Lord's prayer - allowing a minute for silent mediation after each line and allowing the words to lift your heart to Him.
(B) Group Silence
Silence can be a powerful tool in the lives of busy college students. We go from class to class with our cell phone headsets and mp3 players and then we plug them into our cars, all because we don't like silence. God speaks in the silence as we know from Scripture. (Ps. 4:4, 46:10). It will be awkward at first, but sort of like Elijah, (hopefully minus fire and earthquakes) we will be able to hear the whisper of God (1 Ki 19:12). I recommend checking out Rob Bell's Nooma DVD, entitled Noise. He nails this concept. www.nooma.com
Readings:
The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives by Dallas Willard.
Celebration of the Disciplines: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster
Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of the Christian Faith, by Richard J. Foster
Creative Ministry: by Henri Nouwen.
Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina by Michael Caey.
(C) Group Fasting
We often think of fasting being limited to an individual act. We can fast from anything as a means of sacrifice as long as the goal is intimacy with Christ. Why not fast and pray as a group for a day or a night? You could pray for the salvation of your community, the spiritual renewal of a specific country, global missions…millions of things.
Readings:
Hungering for God: Desiring God through Fasting & Prayer by John Piper
Responsive Readings & Litanies
Responsive readings and Litanies come out of hymnals. If you go to a dead church, responsive readings can be dead, but with a passionate group it can be a great interactive way to read/pray through scripture. If you can’t get your paws on some old hymnals it‘s really easy to make your own. You simply split up paragraphs of scripture, like the psalms for instance, and put it into response format. You can even create litanies which are prayers broken up in a similar fashion. Like this:
Leader: "Oh Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord all the earth!"
Response: "Sing to the Lord and bless His name; tell of His salvation from day to day."
Leader: "Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!"
Response: "For great is the Lord; and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods." _from Psalm 96:1-4
Keeping Communion Central
We often fear that if we celebrate communion too often, it will get mundane. In 1 Cor. 11:17-33, Paul is assuming that the Church takes communion as often as they get together. He says, "As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor.11:26). So in communion, we are proclaiming the gospel message – which can never be over proclaimed.
Dan Kimball speaks about the necessity of Communion in the emerging church:
"Before the Reformation, the Eucharist was central to worship. In many modern churches today, communion has turned so predictable that it has lost its beauty. The wonder and remembering of what Jesus did has faded away. There is a rising longing among emerging generations for the Lord's Supper to once again be a central part of worship" (Kimball, p.94).
Communion is a beautiful expression and a necessary part of our faith. It ties in our senses with the story of Christ's body broken for us. Communion was such a vital part of the apostolic church, that early Christians were being accused of cannibalism. (Letter of Theophilus to Autolycus, Book 3, Chap. 15). As a Protestant or Evangelical, you may think Catholics are anything from Christians to heretics, but they write some great books on communion, which you can sift through and find some gems of truth to glean from.
Readings:
With Burning Hearts: A Meditation on the Eucharistic Life, by Henri Nouwen
God is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life, by Joseph Cardinal Ratizinger
Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations, by Dan Kimball.
Sharing our Story.
It’s no wonder that in support groups individuals find healing and comfort through sharing and disclosing their life stories with one another. As shepherds we can really learn a lot from this format. Not that church should be a self-help club, but that through open dialogue and sharing where God has impacted our lives we can celebrate the movement and activity of the Holy Spirit as a family! Try having one person from your group share their life story each week. We did this in our college ministry. Our college pastor Chuck, use to take breaks from speaking and we would have, "Real Life Stories" where most of the service was listening, and seeing God's work alive in that person's life.
In sharing our story we can see His story. God brings His children from death into resurrection, in Him. The gospel is imbedded in our life story and people see Christ in our story, we just need the courage to share it. As we share our stories with one another, "your" stories become "my" stories and "your" stories become "our" stories. We can then look back at "our story" and see how our story became a part of His redemptive story (Rom. 8:18-19).
Try to say that ten times fast!
In Dan Allender's new book, To Be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future, he writes:
"It is your privilege to listen to your own story so you can live boldly for the sake of the Greatest Story, the good news of Jesus Christ. God reveals himself to you–and to others–through the story he has written in your life.”
This is a refreshing way to understand the Christian catch phrase, "sharing your testimony". Eh?
Readings:
The Safest Place on Earth, by Larry Crabb
To Be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future, by Dan Allender
Group repentance & Individual confession.
This can be done silently and individually obviously, or can also be done in a written way as a group. For example, write out a prayer of confession and read Psalm 51 as a group.
Reconciliation with one another.
This expression of worship comes out of Matt. 5:23-24.
"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift."
If you apply this in your college gathering, it is unbiblical for individuals to have resentment and not forgive another person, then bring sacrifice of worship to God.
As a worship leader, this was something that constantly gnawed at me. I would look at our group and see people I knew hated each other singing about the forgiveness of God and yet unwilling to forgive each other. This can be a powerful lesson if you really emphasize the spiritual unity that Christ prayed for (John 17:20-23) and mention this to your group before you enter into worship. At our college service, I would say, "We all need to be reconciled and have peace with each other in this room before we bring our worship to God. If you need to get on your cell phone and call someone, or walk across the room and ask for someone's forgiveness, Jesus says to do this before you come and worship Him."
Readings:
The Emotionally Healthy Church: A Strategy for Discipleship that Actually Changes Lives, by Peter Scazzero (This book is indirectly related to the topic and will be very useful as a leader)
Praying for global missions & sponsored children.
In addition to fulfilling the Great Commission in our backyards, we can pray for our missionaries. Most people in our college group were only vaguely aware of who our missionaries were. Taking time to pray for your missionaries will help develop cohesion between the younger and older generations.
Our college group always sponsored a few third world children - as a group. This allowed us to collectively be obedient to the call of Scripture to care for the poor, not just as individuals, but as a family. College students can tend to be flaky and in debt, so if you adopt a child together it helps insure that you have income and letters being written to your children.
It is also great to be aware and pray for the parts of Christ's body who are suffering worldwide. Through the Voice of the Martyrs bookstore online you can get videos that show what it is like for believers in different parts of the world to follow Christ. Operation World has resources available about the statistic and religious demographics of every country around the world. Our college group began to learn about one country every week and helped create a passion for missions.
Asking questions.
Oh boy do college students have questions! From the patterns of praise in the Psalms and the rest of Scripture, we see that asking questions and lamenting are necessary parts of worshipping God. David's Song: "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?" (Psalm 13:1). Jeremiah's Lament: My strength has perished, And so has my hope from the LORD" (Lam 3:18).
This is crucial. We must create an atmosphere where pain, depression, questioning, and wrestling with God are not only tolerated but cared for, addressed, spoken to, and embraced. I recently heard a pastor speaking on the concept of joy. The impression the pastor gave was, in order to be obedient to Scripture we should be joyful and excited, otherwise something is wrong with our relationship with God. While I believe there is truth in this (Phil. 4:4) the premise is against the model of praise we have in Scripture. Why would over 1/3 of the poetry in the Bible be songs of lament? It’s not the model of humanity that we see in the Psalms. How did we get from Sola Scriptura (Latin for Scripture alone) to Sola Exulto (Joy Alone)? We come to God in sorrow and in joy. Both are equally valid spiritual states. College age people need to know they have this freedom. We live in this fallen world that groans for redemption and our souls ache for heaven. Maybe true joy in church looks more like one sick hospital patient caring for another sick soul. Jesus says, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" (Matt. 9:12). Our churches are useless if they are only happy people friendly. A few thoughts...
“Beneath cheerful fellowship, many people suffer desperate loneliness, bitter self-hatred, and a chronic awareness of not measuring up that only gets worse with increased efforts to do right.” Larry Crabb, Finding God, p.16
“Sprinkled throughout our congregation are good people who have been paralyzed by feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness, insecurity, and self-doubt, insignificance and guilt, which are what cripples most of us who are trying to follow Christ... Desperate people don't do well in churches. They don't fit, and they don't cooperate in the furthering of their starvation. "Church people" often label "desperate people" as strange and unbalanced...Allow others to see your brokenness, and you will be reprimanded for being too open; hear the music of faith, and you will be warned of the danger of emotional instability.”
Mike Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality, Various pages.
On a corporate level, lamenting and asking questions can be difficult to facilitate but it’s important for times of worship that some part of your meeting gives voice to this part. Practically, you could have people write down questions they want to ask God and then talk about them and see what Scripture has to say, without prematurely jumping to any answers. More than finding the answers our purpose should be communion with each other. In the midst of true relationship our questions begin to dissipate.
It’s also good to wrestle and really feel in your gut the pain that is felt throughout the world, because as the phrase goes, "What breaks His heart should break our hearts." In this context of questioning and lamenting we cannot speak about death without speaking about resurrection, so Biblically we must stay balanced between the tension of sorrow and joy, suffering and peace. We must remember that Christ was, "A man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering" (Is 53:3).
Praying for the sick.
Can anyone tell me why churches don't do this anymore? We read in James, "Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven" (Js 5:14-15).
This could be a field trip to a hospital or maybe even asking the elders to come to your college meeting. Caring for the sick, the widows, and the orphans in your congregation is a biblical mandate. What better group to lead the pack than the college group?
Here are some more random ideas:
- Pray and hike out in nature. Listen to God in nature.
- Finding the background story behind why a hymn was written and then talking about it. i.e. "It is Well", Horatio Spafford.
- Share worship poetry with one another.
- Have a love feast- potluck. Thanksgiving for the family of God.
- Wash each others feet and read the Biblical passages on this.
- Turn down the lights and sing some simple songs acapella, just your voices.
- Use simple object lessons as they relate to your teachings and allow people to touch the objects and be creative. i.e. Water- cleansing, flashlight in a dark room- light of the world, clay - potter/clay, salt - salt of the earth,.
- Join hands when you pray as an expression of solidarity.
- Get prints or overheads of some ancient Christian paintings and Talk about their meanings, story, and symbolism. i.e. Caravaggio, "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas", "The Sacrifice of Isaac", "The Conversion of St. Paul" Rembrandt, "The Return of the Prodigal Son", Michelangelo, "Pieta".
- Do written exercises where everyone writes down responses to Biblical concepts then shares. i.e. Ask people to describe the first moment they believed the gospel and then share.
- Make a mural of artifacts, photos, thoughts and poetry of your group and hang it up in your place of worship.
- Watch a movie clip and talk about what ideologies or even theologies are being taught.
- Have people share a time when they doubted God's existence and a then atime when He was undeniable to them.
- Read a bunch of the names of God out loud and meditate on them.
- Write letters to Christians who are in jail for their faith. See Voice of the Martyrs, Prison List.
- Take a familiar worship song and read all the passages of Scripture in context that it came from and discuss.
- Have people bring in recordings of songs that make them think about God or life and talk about why?
- Make sack lunches drive to an inner city. Give a homeless person a meal and instead of unloading the gospel right away, try listening to them and getting to know them as a person.
- Take worship outside to the beach, or the mountains, or under the stars.
- Stay at a monastery.
- Have missionaries come speak.
- Use the Celtic Daily Prayer book or the Book of Common Prayer together. Both excellent resources.
- Talk about what you would like to change about your college gatherings, and then do it.
- Read through the picture of heaven in Revelation and close your eyes and visualize. Then explain the background of some of the words that John uses and read it again..
Worship is more than music.
Joe has led worship in college ministry for 6 years and has a tremendous heart for people to truly encounter God in worship.
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