Week 1: Musings on Intimacy in Worship

Intimacy: an essential and critical element in worship of our great God. I am a part-time worship leader at a medium-sized Lutheran church. I, with the help of the powers that be (namely God), design and create the flow of worship in our contemporary service on Sunday mornings and one of the biggest challenges that I find is in creating intimacy in the worship service. Time for intimacy. Time to open up the possibility to connect with God.

Often I feel like the service that I've created (with the help of God - herein known as WTHOG in all future postings) acts as a freight train coming down the tracks. We've got everything timed just so - when we sing song A, when we read the Bible passages, when the prayers are. We have absolutely no room for (heaven forbid) veering off in another direction. Part of the problem is that the worship leader is not the head band leader, so we all work together in a pre-planned way. But there is absolutely no spontaneity.

And that is my challenge because intimacy with God requires some level of spontaneity, some level of silence, some level of connection that cannot be forced upon a congregation member.

Hmmm...I've got to think more about this.