This is the second of our posts detailing some ideas for worship times in your community groups. We hope that the first post gave you some inspiration and some ideas as to how to shake up your current worship times, and opened new doors for you to be able to bless one another and worship as a group!
Below are a couple more ideas for times of worship in your community groups over the coming term. We welcome your own ideas too! So make sure you let us know how you are worshipping and the great things God is doing in your groups, just drop an email to toby@jcceg.co.uk.
A few ideas to try!
Have fun when you worship!
One unfortunate stereotype that can be levelled at the church is that they don’t like to have fun! We want to challenge this stereotype in all aspects of church, especially in the way we worship! Our God is fun, and the bible is filled with stories of partying, feasting and celebration. While we want to take worship seriously, we want to cultivate an environment where spiritual growth within our community groups is serious and fun, quiet and lively!
– Don’t worry about timings! Being fluid on when you start your worship times, and letting them run longer than usual allows more space for individuals to engage in worship at a pace they are comfortable with. When individuals are comfortable in a time of worship it helps them to engage better and often encourages them to be more open to hearing from God.
– Get moving! Incorporate some children’s songs which involve actions in your worship times, or encourage your members to dance and move around as you worship! Scripture is full of physical responses to God in times of passionate worship (Psalm 150; Neh 8:6; Rev 5:11-14) and we want to reflect that in our worship times.
– Change the setting! Take your worship time outside (weather permitting!), or rearrange the layout of the space in which you would normally worship. A change of perspective can sometimes open up our minds and hearts to fresh ways of meeting with God, while worshipping in creation can help to remind us of the incredible power held by the God we are worshipping.
Break Bread!
– During our 40 days of devotion we have been placing an emphasis on Acts 2:42-47 and the devotion of the early church to ‘the apostles teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and to prayer’ (v42).
– Breaking bread together is a simple but deeply meaningful way of starting worship times together as a community group; it reminds people of the reason that they are meeting and worshipping together and draws the focus of the meeting back to Jesus, and what he has done for us on the cross. Reminding ourselves of God’s devotion to us before we worship encourages our worship times to be born out of a natural heart response to him.
These are just a couple of ideas you might want to use in your community groups in the coming weeks, hopefully they will help to spark up some fresh ideas for your worship times! I would love to hear about how God is moving amongst you, or any other worship ideas you might have that I could include in a future post! Let me know on toby@jcceg.co.uk
