Random Eggs of Kindness

This weekend, one of our worship interactives at Westwinds is designed to breathe life into the community of Jackson and surrounding communities.

Hundreds of Easter eggs will be in the auditorium. Each egg is filled with a charge for the week. Each act is inexpensive and many are free.

Resurrection means life. Quantity and quality. These not-so-random acts teach us what it means to be a worshiper, a giver, a friend to our communities, a benefactor.

Each egg will also contain a Westwinds "Come Dirty" card to leave when appropriate or pack inside a gift, etc. "Come Dirty" is our motto for the year--our campaign to invite our living community to join our church community.

We will be collecting follow-up stories on video to share with the church and I will post some of them here. Here are some of the things people will find when they crack an egg:

Buy a few kids books from the local bookstore. Give the books to a school library.

Recycle your soda cans. Hand the money you make to someone in line behind you.

Order food from a counter inside and pay for a person’s food in the drive-through.

Buy lunch for a random person in a restaurant.

Bring coffee to an office in town just for fun.

Buy coffee for the person in line behind you.

Send a gift certificate to your neighbor.

Make cookies for your neighbor.

Send an anonymous thank you card and gift card to a person. Say it’s from “someone from Westwinds Church.”

Leave 10 dollars with a cashier. Tell them to use it to pay for anyone’s groceries that went over their budget.

Help load someone’s groceries in their car and return their cart for them.

Buy some $5 gift cards from MacDonald’s. Hand them out to people who need them throughout the week.

Drop off some cash at Goodwill or your local thrift store. Tell them to use it to pay for clothing for people until the money runs out.

Buy a meal for a young couple or family sitting next to you at a restaurant.

Buy shoes or clothes for a family in need.

Bake cookies for a neighbor or teacher, just because.
Help an elderly person with yard work or grocery shopping.

Visit a nursing home and bring cupcakes.

Sit and visit with a few of the residents at a nursing home.

Volunteer your time at a local homeless shelter or a crisis nursery.

Donate a day of your time to the organization of your choice.

Donate some grief books to the library or a local support group.

Leave an extra large tip for your food server!

Leave a bouquet of flowers on someone’s front door step.

Bake goodies and take them to the police station, fire station, or hospital.

Pay a local teen to mow an elderly neighbor’s yard.

Buy a baby’s blanket and take it to the hospital nursery. Premature babies can always use tiny booties and caps.

Buy a balloon bouquet and ask the nurses the children’s hospital to deliver them to a child.

Make a memorial donation to honor your loved one and a friend’s loved one.

Take a box of doughnuts to an elementary school for a classroom.

Adopt a street or just pick up litter in the neighborhood.

Leave your change in the soda machine for the next person. It's a nice surprise.

Write to management at places where you get especially good service and commend them (specify names!)

Volunteer to read a book to children at your nearest library.

Pay for a small child's candy at a convenient store.

Buy a toy for a child in the store and ask the clerk to deliver it after you’ve gone.

Bring coffee to workers on a construction site.

Buy a case of sodas for your UPS driver.

Put a gift in your mailbox for your mail carrier.

Wash the windows in an elderly person’s home.

Invite a family from your neighborhood over to dinner.

Buy a bottle of wine or a gift basket for a neighbor.

Buy a gift for your favorite bank teller.

Deliver chocolates to your bank tellers.

Buy a gift for your favorite barista, waiter, clerk, etc. and deliver it to them.

Anonymously send flowers to a single mom and tell her someone from Westwinds is praying for her.

Send an anonymous gift certificate to a single mom.

Anonymously send a gift to a single mother and tell her someone from Westwinds is praying for her.

Deliver coffee and donuts to a car dealership. Tell them you are praying for them in these rough economic times.

Deliver a dozen donuts to the office at an elementary school. Thank them for loving kids.

Deliver donuts to a classroom.

Buy a gift certificate for a community leader. Send it to them anonymously with a thank you note.

Leave gifts on someone’s doorstep. Or, pick a few needy families and leave them gifts. Small gifts go a long way!

Place an anonymous ad in the newspaper, thanking someone by name. Example: To Jen who always serves me coffee with a smile at Starbucks, thank you!

Call Consumers Energy. Tell them you want to anonymously pay part of someone’s bill that needs it as a member of Westwinds.

Send a movie gift card to a neighbor or co-worker.

Buy a good book and send it to a friend or neighbor with an anonymous thank you.

Go in to a repair shop. Tell them you want to anonymously pay for someone’s repair up to whatever amount you can afford.

Interactive Worship #2

So what theology/methodology/philosophy is the idea of "interactive worship" born out of?

P.S. Before we go on, (based on a few emails and comments I have received) the purpose of these posts on interactive worship is a response to MANY of you asking for feedback and direction on interactive worship elements specifically for your weekend services.

At Westwinds our first goal for weekend worship services (Fusion) is to create an environment—celebratory, liberating, engaging, full of hope and expectation, affirming, restoring, free of distractions, thought provoking, and reflective—where individuals can meet with God (though it will not always be all of those things at once). Our goal is not to get people to worship : : : that is often an end product but it is not the goal. Worship is an act of an individual’s will. That will is something we cannot control or manipulate; at best we can influence it.

Second, our goal is to have a service that has multiple layers that organically emerge and connect. We want some overlap at the seams of the layers so Fusion feels seamless, but enough individuality to the layers that there are multiple themes people can grab (not an eclectic hodge-podge of totally unrelated elements or inert ideas). There is a lot of give and take on this but our goal is not simply one clear theme we are trying to beat to death.

In other words, our goal is not entirely mono-thematic design. An interactive worship element, a video for a story of a spiritual journey, a Top 40 song, or aesthetic design may or may not bring about a tight thematic link but the experience, freshness and window into a real life make it all worthwhile. It is a moment-collection.

The days of creating a power-themed service have drawn to a close for us. While we definitely want to be sure of “where we are starting” and “where we are leading people to” theme plays only a partial role in planning. The question of “what element best ties in with the message” has been replaced by “what are we going to design in order to help people engage God and the things He is calling us to grapple with?” (I will post more on this in the future because this was a HUGE shift for me that was years in the making)

Every week we are given a moment-collection we call Fusion. We have 60-75 minutes to do something that will move people a step closer to Jesus Christ. If we keep in mind the idea of a continuum it will be a lot easier for us to think about our hoped-for outcomes. We want people to make steps and move closer to Christ.

At Westwinds, we believe we are called to design Fusions that have never been tried anywhere, even though innovation—in and of itself—is not the goal.

Worship interactives are not the tail that wags the dog. We feel no pressure to create a funky new hands-on experience each week. However, with each new week we have an opportunity to ask how we can best communicate truth, how we can best create an atmosphere conducive to worship, and how we can encourage participation in the dialogue with God and one another.

Here are a few scenarios just so we are on the same page about the “kind” of things that fall into this category : : :

A mural is painted on the entire back wall of the auditorium as a “theological plotline” of the OT and NT. In connection with communion, participants take chalk pens and write in their names where they identify with God on the plotline.

A life-size replica of DaVinci’s Last Supper is created with lumber, foam, and fabric. The “heads” of the disciples are Mac computers that play a looping video with each disciple telling his story of martyrdom. Participants visit the table and listen to the stories on headphones while taking communion.

Magazines are scattered throughout the auditorium. Everyone is encouraged to rip out a page in a magazine that best describes them. They hold on to that page throughout an entire series on identity. At the end, they are given an opportunity to exchange that page for another if they feel they have been changed in the process.

A candlelit room houses one video camera with rolling tape. Throughout the hour, participants wander in to the room and confess to the camera knowing their tape may be shown in Fusion.

Steel panels have been installed on all exterior walls of the auditorium. Giant magnetic words are scattered all over the panels. For 15 minutes, while piano music plays softly, the congregation writes love poems to God by rearranging the words.

A “stream” of white gravel about 3’ in width winds throughout the auditorium. Participants grab pieces of red gravel out of a bucket and place them in the stream to signify different points where they have sensed God’s movement in their lives. Computers at the back of the room are fed to the screens. Participants type short messages about God’s movement and the stories are displayed on screen.

A series is taught through the book of Jeremiah. Each week, a new icon is revealed to help tell the story. Each person has been given a scrapbook for the series including maps and notes and diagrams. Each symbol is then sketched into the book by the individual.

A large underlit table has been constructed and covered with plexiglass. Undermounted on the plexi is the entire text of Ecclesiastes on transparencies. Throughout the series, at any time, participants may grab a chalk pen and make notes and reflections on the text that is displayed.

A grand piano sits in the middle of the room. Surrounding the piano are buckets full of broken tile. The tiles pieces represent our brokenness as a community. As we discuss our commitment to one another as a body and our commitment to the community at large, we write the name of a persone we are praying for on the back of a tile and glue the tile face down on top of the piano. The piano is then grouted and the mosaic stands as a monument to our commitment to be viewed every week (see picture above).

Another very recent example would be any of the Twitter Church scenarios I have blogged about recently.

This post is also featured as part of the blog carnival known as Watercooler Wednesday over at Ethos. Check it out. Great stuff each and every week!

Interactive Worship #1

In recent days, I have received many calls and emails regarding "interactive worship" or "worship interactives" more specifically. Many of you are in conversation about creating more elements in your worship services that inspire participation (outside of singing and the sacraments).

I think it is high time I start to blog about some of this. Perhaps we can generate some good conversation here. I will be putting out a series of posts on Interactive Worship beginning with this one. If you have questions and/or input please comment.

As a “worship pastor” I have had over 10 titles in the past 20 years. But, I have only been at 4 churches. Music Pastor never worked for me. Why? Worship isn’t music. Worship Arts Pastor got closer. Worship Arts Stylist even closer. My current title incorporates the word “experience” which may even be closer but still falls short.

The inertia behind the changes has been a desire to communicate something about worship beyond song—beyond sacraments—beyond preaching. The changes have also been fueled by my desire to see something incredibly special and unique happen on a Sunday morning because God is worth it, our people are worth it, the community at large is worth it, and the people who are involved in the worship planning and implementation are worth it.

We have a recurring conversation on our Experience Team that goes “we may have done these things 100 times before we get to Sunday (practice, preparation, etc.) but this will be everyone else’s 1st time! We long for a sense of freshness and vitality. Perhaps this is why scripture talks so much about singing a “new song.”

Many churches run the risk of having two or three worship elements become the tail that wags the dog. Music and preaching usually take precedence to every other element, which is somewhat understandable since those are two specific elements of corporate worship we are encouraged to engage in throughout scripture. However, neither of those two things is ever elevated in scripture to the apex of what happens in corporate worship. The apex is wherever God and humankind meet.

For four years I pastored in the Pacific Northwest. I remember one significant meeting back in the day when we looked at each other and said, “what the heck are we doing killing ourselves to write dramas every week? We have lost sight of what we are doing.”

We were driven by a model. We were parroting someone else’s design and trying to stamp it on our own people (not that drama doesn’t work or is a bad idea—it was just horrible for us and killing us slowly).

Those conversations started me on a quest and gave me a holy discontent—a longing to connect with God in corporate settings through elements with a fresh perspective, a temperature for change and variety, an indigenous authenticity, and a catalyst for stories of life change. The stuff people continue to talk about. The stuff they tell stories about. The quest is not yet over for me but I believe God is pleased with our journey and our progress.

Part of this quest has included a continually developing theory and practice of interactive worship. Fusion has become somewhat of a laboratory—or maybe more significantly a Petri dish—where we feel a freedom to experiment with worship elements in order to “culture” a people or grow them closer to God leading them in to fuller life development in Jesus.

For our purposes here, a worship interactive can be defined as: A participatory moment or segment in a corporate worship gathering wherein all present are encouraged to engage in some tactile and/or other sensory experience designed to invite one to move towards God.

Interactive worship or “worship interactives” are not new. They are not a product of the emerging church. They do not all involve candles (thought candles are great anytime if you ask me). They do not all involve tents.

When Jesus gave us the sacrament of communion, He was inviting us to move towards God as we touch, taste, and smell the elements that invoke His memory, create community, help us gain perspective and perhaps give opportunity for repentance. Communion is a worship interactive.

Baptism is a worship interactive. As one plays a role in the living metaphor of dying with Jesus and rising with Him—of cleansing and renewal—of community—of individual identity and identity with a cloud of witnesses—and obedience, there may be no greater worship interactive. Not to mention the interaction of the one baptizing and the participation of the witnesses in the celebration.

God gives us great freedom in planning the who-what-when-where-and why of our weekend programs. We have permission to participate with the creator—as sub-creators—in designing fresh and experience-rich multi-layered environments where we increase the occurrence of people interacting with God, his Word, his truth, his people, and their barriers to living the life Jesus invites.

To go one step further, we do not only have permission . . . we have a responsibility.

As pastors and creatives we can take a lesson from the many pictures throughout scripture of worship environments designed to engage, spur participation, create a sense of awe and majesty, spawn interactive worship, awaken the senses, tell a story, and point to God.

We need a resolute metaphysic (we believe in a God who does not change) but we also need a relative epistemology. The way people learn, engage, understand, grapple, wrestle, question, and worship changes constantly—not only from person to person but with a whole group of people. Our environment, culture, technology, etc. is changing rapidly and we need to read the signs. We need to learn ways to engage those who are already being engaged. We need to provide fresh experiences in order to bolster and augment the apex.

More to come : : :