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Worship as Cinema
Blockbuster weekend?

Every Monday morning you can read in your newspaper about the stats on the weekend's biggest movie "winners" based on gross cash income at the box-office. Ten million? Great! Twenty million? Cool! Thirty million? Whoa! Some people go to movies based on those film's relative status in the market place.

While I have a fair amount of discomfort with church marketing, occasionally I ask my consulting clients, "What was your perceived 'market share' this past weekend? What are people saying about their experience of your church services? What's the buzz about how compellingly you told your story?"

Movies usher us (no pun intended) to places we didn't expect to go, and a well-planned service of worship should probably do the same. Does yours? Here's a list of action items that film producers must work through to achieve memorable films. Do you do some of this work for your church services? Would you like to increase your "market share?"

Classic Story:
There is no story as compelling as God's Word. There is no human emotion or troubling dilemma left out of its vibrant chapters. Producers always have to start with a really good story—not a problem for us!

Great Screen Play:
Preacher/teachers are like screen writers. It's their job—nay, sworn duty—to stay true to the story while assembling the scenes in just the right order, allowing everyone to follow the story line.

Meticulous Story Board:
Someone, often the music person, has to lay out the bits and pieces of the script in order to help everyone stay on task and get the story told.

Casting:
If you really want to have an engaging product, you have to have the right players. Work to people's strengths and allow the gifted to do what they're really good at, not what they just have an interest in doing.

Production Schedule:
Create a schedule and keep to it. The Holy Spirit can also work within the allowed time limits. "The HS doesn't desire to be linked with your poor planning," I was once told.

Rehearsal:
Leave space for required preparation. "Sloppy" is for smearing on bar-b-q sauce, not preparing a compelling worship service.

The Shoot: 
Get your technical "ducks" lined up way ahead of time—not the day of. You can apologize for a faulty microphone one week, but never the next.

The Editing Process:
Be willing to do two kinds of editing—before reuse in the next service, and "on the fly" when things aren't going as expected.


The Critical Review:
Make sure your debriefing process has the desired effect of making each successive service better.

Creating meaningful worship is not rocket science, but it just might be good movie making!

Blessings

Doug

—Doug Lawrence, internationally recognized speaker, author, and advisor, helps churches assess and improve their skillfulness in creating engaging worship experiences by utilizing his more than 35 years of "deep trench" worship leadership in prominent mainline churches. You may reach him at dlawrenceconsult@mac.com. Or, if you wish, call 1-650-207-8240 for assessment information and scheduling.