Sidebar: Getting started
For congregations hoping to incorporate more of the arts in worship, keynote speaker Sally Morgenthaler offered these tips:
* Involve the young people in worship planning. Some participants reported that their congregations already do this several times a year, perhaps as often as once a month. They advise appointing a mentor – someone actively involved and experienced in worship planning – to help them plan the worship service. * In putting together a video presentation, ask: How can we package this in a way that will invite people to respond intentionally? “We have to fight the default to passivity,” Morgenthaler said. * Make a list of all the artists in your congregation who would have the technical know-how to put together a PowerPoint presentation. Then follow up by asking them if they would be willing to help produce one. * Tell the stories of the hymns and praise songs to help tie the story of the music in with the theme of the worship service. * Build a communal library of video resources in cooperation with other area congregations. * In putting together a piece of visual art, “it’s very important to picture a diversity that we may not already have.” Photos of people and representations of cultures should demonstrate the diversity you hope your congregation will reflect, rather than the one it currently encompasses. * If you are adding visual elements to the worship service for the first time, work with the musical repertoire you already have. Don’t try to change everything at once. If you are introducing a high-tech presentation for the first time and are uncertain how it will be received, aim for a universally appealing topic. “If you use pictures of the kids in your congregation, I guarantee you won’t have any problems with using video in worship,” Morgenthaler said.
Sidebar: For further reflection
Rebecca Slough, a professor of worship and the arts at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., and one of the workshop leaders at the annual Art of Worship program, invited participants to consider five questions in response to the presentations they heard over the weekend.
1. Speaker Sally Morgenthaler emphasized the importance of technology as a way to appeal to the unchurched. If one is focusing primarily on planning worship for the church community, does that change the way we would use technology? 2. In dealing with the arts, what role does Scripture play in how we plan worship? Morgenthaler had talked of beginning with an image or idea and selecting Scripture to fit. Is that how you would approach it? Why or why not? 3. In “reclaiming the whole person” as a way of knowing God, Mennonites have focused on the brain and the ear: on thinking and hearing. How might we use the arts more effectively in engaging all five senses? 4. There was a strong emphasis in Morgenthaler’s presentations on reclaiming symbols and rituals that have been rich with meaning in Christian tradition. “Are we willing to embrace in news ways the patterns of rituals?” Slough challenged the audience. 5. What would have to change in your own church if you were to do things the way Morgenthaler proposed?