Jeff & Wendy Fisher with the Worship Grant Planning Team
January 2006
Over the last couple months we have been working with a team of people to put together a proposal to apply for a Worship Renewal Grant through the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. The purpose of these worship grants is to stimulate thoughtful and energetic work for worship that shows renewed creativity, theological integrity, and relevance. They are made possible through the Lilly Endowment, Inc.
We began this process in October by brainstorming various ways we could use such a grant, and eventually decided on studying the topic of worship space and visual arts with the goal of applying our learning in the new sanctuary when it is completed.
The grant application process has a lot of steps, including a very detailed set of questions that must be answered. As we worked through the questions, we stated that the purpose of this project was:
To deepen our understanding of how
worship space communicates our theology and apply that understanding to our new worship space so that we can engage in creative expressions of worship.
We made several key statements in the course of answering the seventeen questions for the grant application that are very important to this project in particular, to building a new facility, and to worship space in general. One of the major points that we made in our proposal is that everything we do must be directly connected to our mission and vision as a church. The key question we must ask in each area is, “How does this area of our ministry support our mission?”
That question needs to be asked about the sanctuary as well. It is our goal to answer that through this project so that from the moment someone comes through our doors they have a clear sense of our mission and are literally invited into its key components: “the presence of God, the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.”
We acknowledged in our proposal that too often during any building project it is tempting to make worship space decisions primarily based on either finances or preferences. Our goal is that through the process we are proposing, these decisions wouldn’t just be based on those factors, but rather would be based on our theological priorities and the mission of Unity church. Unfortunately, if it is simply left up to our own choices our sanctuary could easily become a hodge-podge of preferences and accommodation.
We believe that our church will be strengthened when voices are not ignored, while at the same time each decision is handled thoughtfully and in light of the biblical teaching. We want to make decisions about how our space is organized and designed that facilitates a deeper, awe-inspiring, and intimate connection with God and with people. When we do this we believe that our worship and fellowship will be strengthened. In essence, our goal is to create a thoughtful worship space based on our mission and theological convictions.
Because the goal of these grants is to generate worship renewal, one of the questions was to describe authentic worship. Our response included the ideas that authentic worship is:
• being empowered by the Holy Spirit to engage with God in a way that enables full, conscious, active participation
• being spiritually lifted up by the Holy Spirit to join the Son in the praise, adoration, devotion, and intimacy of communing with the Father
• the outpouring of one’s whole self, both heart and mind, to express and proclaim the all-surpassing value and worth of God who has poured himself out for us
• the back-and-forth, listen-and-respond dialogue of the worshippers’ experience as God speaks to his people through various means
• experiencing a sense of mystery and awe, closeness and intimacy, and a greater awareness of the drama and dialogue between God and his people.
So as we seek to engage in authentic worship, we strive to utilize and adapt our space and environment to communicate who God is and how we worship him, to forge strong connections between mission and worship, to be welcoming and hospitable to all who enter our church, and to draw each worshipper closer to God to discover the fullness of joy that is found only in him.
There are five parts to this worship renewal project to which you are invited to participate:
1. RESEARCH: The first part of the project is to research how to decide on the theological and aesthetic priorities for worship space. This will involve a group of people who will read books and articles on the subject, study what the Bible has to say about it, and visit other churches to see how they have laid out their worship space.
2. WORKSHOPS: The second event will be two workshops on the visual arts of worship that will be open to the entire church and surrounding community. We will bring in presenters who are knowledgeable in this field to lead some sessions and provide for hands-on activities to help us make informed decisions about the space.
3. CLASSES: Following the workshop, the third part of the project will be classes at Unity that focus on both the layout of visual arts, but also the creation of visual arts. The grant will help provide us with materials to make banners, signs, artistic expressions, and other forms of visual art during these classes.
4. FOCUS GROUPS: In conjunction with these classes, the fourth part of the project is to have a study group that will meet with pastors and leaders from other churches and denominations and then go on a retreat to make some final decisions about how to arrange and organize the new worship space.
5. OPEN HOUSE: The final element of our project would be a presentation of all that we learned and did at the Open House of our new facility. Again the entire church and community would be invited to not only see our new worship space, but be informed about how we came to many of the decisions regarding its design.
We believe that this project will be an effective means of learning, growing, connecting, sharing, and playing our part in spreading worship renewal throughout our church and community. One of the major priorities of worship renewal is widespread participation. We are encouraging you to actively participate in as many of these opportunities as you can. We believe that they will be well worth your energy and time, and help all of us engage more deeply in worship.
