How Can We Get People To Participate In Church Meetings?
How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. 1 Cor. 14:26 (NASB)
David Walters does a good job of describing how different contributions from people can flow together into a beautiful collection of related topics and messages when the Spirit is allowed to lead each person.
"Everything should flow like a piece of music. A symphony, a melody theme, flows through with variations, but at the end everyone recognizes the melody, the theme, the message. It's come through the songs that are brought by the Spirit, the visions shared, the prophecies, and tongues given, the message preached. They all connect."
I believe many Christians are interested in experiencing this type of meeting, but most don't know how to get there. How do you change a group of believers, who are used to having one leader or a worship team bring all the worship contributions, into a group where many are willing to bring their own worship contributions?Here are some of my thoughts:
- The Leaders Must Learn First. If people are going to learn a new way of doing worship meetings, someone is going to have to show them what it looks like. Initially that "someone" is going to be the leaders. It can be the pastor or the elders or the worship team, or in a home group it can be the group leader or the hosts, but someone has to take the initiative to model it.
This leads to the question: "How do the leaders learn the new way so they can model it?"
There must be a "safe place" for leaders to try out the new model of meeting. It may be a home group, or an elders meeting, or a worship team rehearsal. At some point, someone has to be willing to say, "Let's try having a worship time where each of us brings a contribution." See what happens. Evaluate what worked well and what didn't work so well. It has to be in a setting where no one is embarrassed and no harm is done if the meeting turns out to be a complete flop.
As your leaders get comfortable with the new model, you can start bringing it into larger meetings. You must demonstrate that people who don't have a microphone in front of them are allowed to speak in the meeting! When the bass player in the worship team says her own prayer of gratitude, when an elder in row 5 reads a Bible verse, when a youth leader in the back row shares a prophetic picture he received that morning during his devotions, suddenly people will begin to grasp what this new model of a worship meeting really looks like. It will move from being a theoretical concept to being a tangible reality. - Expect Change To Come In Steps, Not All At Once.
Very few things in the Christian life are learned instantaneously -- most are learned step-by-step. Same is true when teaching a church how to participate in worship meetings. Expect this transition to be a journey.
If the believers in your church are not used to speaking out in a meeting, it will take time for them to get used to the new reality. For some it will take a lot of practice until they are comfortable reading a verse in a large group. People with a prophetic gift may be used to sharing prophecies one-on-one with people, but sharing a prophecy with the whole church takes a lot more courage and confidence.
So allow time for folks' courage and confidence to grow. After each meeting, personally encourage the people who made contributions. Tell them that you liked how their verse fit with the song you had just sung. Let them understand how their seemingly simple prayer encouraged you. People have to know that even if they misread the verse or stutter or have a mental blank in the middle of a prayer, nothing is going to happen that will cause them embarrassment. Your leaders must create an atmosphere of safety so people can be willing to take such a risk.
The other week my wife and I sat next to a couple from an Anglican background who recently started attending our church. They are quite terrified at the thought of making up their own prayers and saying them out loud. It is completely foreign to their experience and expectations. It will take them time to get comfortable with the idea, but I hope that someday when one of them publicly says "Thank you God for ____ (anything!)" there will be a few "amens" to encourage them. That will be their first personal contribution to a worship meeting in their lives, and I can tell you that it's exciting to witness! - People Don't Need Certain Spiritual Gifts to Contribute to the Worship.
Some of the contributions described in 1 Cor. 14:26 are gifts of the Spirit, such as prophecy, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. The danger is when people look at themselves, see that they don't have those certain gifts, and then dismiss their ability to contribute anything of significance to the worship.
Leaders must clearly teach that everyone can contribute something of value to the worship. Almost everyone has the ability to read a Psalm, or at least a verse of a Psalm, that would build up the church. There is no spiritual gift of "psalming" or of public praying. We just have to get up the courage to share our contributions in a group. - Encourage People To Come Prepared.
This dovetails with my last post, but people must come prepared both to worship God and to hear from God.
Encourage everyone to watch for a verse to share next Sunday while they do their personal Bible reading throughout the week. Encourage prophetically-gifted people to spend time praying and listening to God throughout the week, asking if He would have anything for them to bring next Sunday. It greatly improves the likelihood that they will have something to contribute.
God is gracious and he will bless even our feeble, initial, imperfect attempts at making our church meetings more closely follow the Biblical example.
