I am FOR announcements in a worship service! There, I said what very few WL’s would. Some people have suggested we not do them as it isn’t worship. I 100% disagree.
Announcements should be an opportunity for the congregation to carry out what they have heard in a message, the who, what, when, why, how and where of Isaiah’s “Here Am I, Send Me.” Stop thinking of them as announcements and begin thinking of them as “obedience opportunities.” One way to reinforce this is to place most announcements at the end of the service after the message so they better match the Isaiah 6 pattern of response. Hit them with the Word and then give a related obedience opportunity by matching announced opportunities to the sermon as real steps of obedience worshipers can take. For example, if the message was on stewardship, announce the launch of Crown Teams or systematic online giving as the first announcement afterwards. A message communal connection? Announce the launch of new small groups and challenge people to connect. A message on living outside of your comfort zones? A trip to Vietnam to expand your boundaries.
So stop making announcements in your worship services and begin making “obedience opportunities” and you’ll find out you adore announcements, too.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Do You Have Announcements in Your Church Service?
I like Jordan's take from WorshipTrench.com:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I'm practical enough to recognize the need for announcements; furthermore, I appreciate this suggested "spin" of obedience opportunities. However, I'm more of the opinion that an announcement should more or less whet your appetite for the opportunity. If your church is having a community outing to the ballpark to foster fellowship, you don't need to share the costs, who the money needs to go to, who they're playing, what day of the week it is, etc.... These details are certainly necessary, but they should be found in a consistent print media (i.e. the program/bulletin). The announcement should simply be to highlight what people should be making note of anyway.
This is just the opinion of a fellow worship leader.
I concur that those aspects of announcements are good, but as a pastor I actually will mention such opportunities during the sermon as a means of applicability.
Gunny
You have to be careful doing that at times or people might consider your sermons infommercials with an agenda other than the Word if you do it too often. I was in a church for a consult recently and the whole sermon seemed like a pretext for a initiative they were taking. That gets old week after week so we separate them.
Point well taken, Jordan.
Preaching Phil 2:5-11 and 2:12-13 on consecutive weeks I mentioned some service opportunities for those interested.
I got a call from a guy asking, "Are we hard up for volunteers or something?"
I do know, however, that the nursery people appreciated when I challenged people to servanthood by taking a turn in the nursery rotation. It wasn't a pressing need so much (i.e., we wouldn't have had an announcement about it), but they're always open to extra assistance.
Post a Comment