Many thanks to NALC pastor Cathy Ammlung for this fifth in a series of videos intended to provide congregations – especially those with temporary or longer-term pastoral vacancies – with some tools for worship planning. A link to her video can be found HERE. A full manuscript of her presentation can be found HERE.
In this video, Cathy talks about some of the distinctive qualities of contemporary worship and compares and contrasts that with much traditional worship.
Cathy writes –
Whereas the structure of traditional worship may “flow” like a river, much contemporary worship has more of an “ebb-and-flow” quality, like waves on the shore. Its emphasis on the interplay of word and music may provide challenges, but also great opportunity for services that draw us into Spirit-led encounter with God, worship and praise of God, and being formed as true worshippers. There are some suggestions for planning contemporary worship, and they take note of the fact that some churches do not have regular pastoral leadership. In addition they may have members and planners that are not well versed in contemporary worship style and song. There is even a brief section describing my “adventures with AI” in selecting songs fitting a specific theme! In her first video Cathy discussed the whole issue of why worship planning is important. In her second video Cathy talked about the church year, including festivals. The third video covers the lectionary. The fourth video covers more traditional hymnody and the most common Lutheran hymnals.
