Christmas is fast approaching – less than two months away, as I’m sure that you can tell by the decorations that went up the day after Halloween. Hopefully, your service planning is done for the rest of the year – however, I know the realities of church work, so here’s a post of opinions/ideas that may help with getting ready if you’re not quite there yet…
If you’re doing a 4 week series in December, don’t use every idea week one. Save something special for the weeks that come after – particularly Christmas Eve. That goes for décor, as well as service elements. Something should be noticeably different on Christmas Eve itself – maybe it’s garland across the front of the stage, or a lighting effect, etc… Ideally something that will make people want to take photos and post to social media…
As for elements, I’ve found a gradual build works well. We often put up the basic look at the beginning of Dec., and let that be enough for week one. For week two, we included a Christmas worship song/carol or two, and did something family oriented [usually a baby dedication]. Week three was usually the weekend before Christmas, and that one was full-on Christmas [i.e. all of the songs were carols].
Then comes Christmas Eve [stay tuned for more in coming days]… #creativeworshipideas
Hmmm - well, let's see...
I'm a Christian, a husband, a dad, a son, a pastor, a consultant, a musician, a writer, and bits and pieces of a bunch of other things. My work life has followed three main phases - business to teaching to church. I was the Weekend Services Pastor for nine years at Northview Church, an awesome church in the Indianapolis suburbs. I used to work for Willow Creek, another awesome church in the Chicago area. Plus I've written for various magazines and websites, and other freelancy sorts of things... My life mission is to help the church be as excellent as it can be.
Oh yeah - the name's Greg. Greg Wallace. But not the race car driver or the major league pitcher or the British celebrity chef. Just the creative worship guy. Hi.
It's my hope that these ideas, musings, rants, raves, etc... will inspire you. They're just my opinions - but again, I hope that they'll help to inspire you. Because the church really, really needs inspired creative types. If you're a creative type (and most people are, deep-down), ask God for help. Then take any ideas that are useful to you - borrow them, nab them, use them, adapt them - and make them into something greater...
You can head over to my Instagram site for an abundance of shorter posts: creativeworshipideas. If you're looking for consulting - especially on weekend services, team leadership or multi-site strategies - I'd love to help. Just message me here, and I'll be in touch - Greg
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