Creative Worship

First, a disclaimer: In this post when I refer to worship time, I mean a specific time that we take as community to intentionally worship God, often with singing. I believe that worship should be a 24/7 thing that involves our whole lives and all our actions, thoughts and emotions. But for the sake of easy writing, I'll be using "worship" in a more specific sense for this post.

 

 

Here at YWAM Dunham we have worship times on Monday and Friday mornings. Monday, we come together as a whole base, and Friday we have DTS worship times. When it's DTS worship time, we as students are on four different teams and take turns leading.

 

 

It's been really cool learning about different creative ways to worship. We are encouraged to pray and ask God for ideas, and to try new things. I thought I would share what we've done, and maybe you'll be encouraged to be creative with your worship times.

 



 

 

This picture is from worship time this morning. There were dropcloths laid out in the worship room, with paints and blank canvases, and if you felt inspired, you could go paint something. I didn't; I spent most of my time curled up on the couch talking to God. Other people sang, danced, sat, laid on the floor or laughed.

 

 

We've also. . .

• Gone into the woods (in -20 C weather), and sang songs acapella.
• Sang African songs and danced in a giant circle.
• Had times to just sit, be still and listen.
• Washed each other's feet.
• Waved flags and banners.
• Had "city walls" made of risers, but there were gaps in it, so we stood in the gaps.
• Yelled. "Who is like our God?!" "NO ONE!!!"
• Crawled through a tunnel into the worship room, which was decorated as a "tabernacle".
• Had paper and pencils available to make pictures and paper airplanes.
• Gone into the woods on a different day, to be still, and ask, "God, how do you want me to interact with creation?"
• Sang "I Will Wait" by Mumford and Sons, which isn't a "worship song".
• Pinned stuff to wooden crosses.
• And made paper flowers, which I'll explain below.

 

Last Monday, Sarah was leading worship. She's a visual artist, and likes to use symbolism and imagery. So, because it's nearly spring, she was thinking of trees budding and flowering. She was also thinking about almond blossoms, which are a symbol that's often used in the Bible (the golden lampstand for the Tabernacle, Aaron's staff, and so on). Almond blossoms symbolize watchfulness, because the Hebrew word for almond flower is similar to the word for watchfulness. It's a reminder that God watches over us.

 

So Sarah brought a tree into the worship room. . . . .

 

 

And then there was paper and fabric and tape and glue available to make flowers. The idea was to write things that we have been worried about on the flowers, and to turn those worries into almond blossoms, as a way of physically saying, "God, I know you're watching out for me, so I trust you and give up my worries." This is my flower below. 

 

 

 

Afterwards we had a tree full of lovely almond blossoms. 

 

I encourage you to get creative with worship times! God is the Ultimate Creator, the Master Artist, and He created diversity. There are so many ways to worship God, that I think it's a bit silly to limit ourselves to just singing and playing instruments. Have fun!