In this Worship Planning tip I want to visit the subject: “Stand Up/Sit Down.”
I have a friend from Vietnam and I took him to church with me. After church I asked him what he thought about it. He simply said, “Stand up/Sit down, Stand up/sit down.”
Years later, now, as I am involved in worship planning, his words come hauntingly back to me. As I visit churches I see a lot of stand up/sit down. Not that there is anything wrong with standing or sitting, but are we really thinking about how many times we make our congregations stand up and sit down? I’m not even going to discuss when we ought to stand up or sit down. I want rather to help you consider the actual standing up and sitting down.
Here is a somewhat typical worship program:
Gathering song (stand up)
Welcome/Announcements (sit down)
Worship Songs (stand up)
Offertory (sit down)
Scripture reading (stand up)
Communion (sit down)
Communion hymn (stand up)
Sermon (sit down)
Response song (stand up)
Phew! I don’t know about you, but I’m tired from all that standing up and sitting down!
One of the churches in which I minister works very hard to limit the number of times they make their congregation stand up and sit down. Usually they only have the congregation stand up during the opening worship set of 5 or 6 songs, and then they have them sit down for the rest of the service, including announcements, prayer time, communion and sermon. The congregation is dismissed after the sermon. One stand up, one sit down, that’s it!
So who cares, you may ask? I care. I care because I firmly believe that stand up/sit down churches miss their opportunity to take their congregation to the throne room of worship. My wife Cindy just said to me (after visiting a church) that the service was very nice, the worship was good. But every time she was just getting into the worship, they would stop to pray, run a video, have special music, etc. And there was plenty of stand up/sit down. There was no f-l-o-w, no time to go from HERE to THERE. For more on that, check out my series on getting from HERE to THERE.
I challenge you in your worship planning to look back over your last 4 to 8 services and count how many times you had your congregation stand up and sit down during your worship time. You may be surprised. I want you to ask yourself “why?” Why all the start/stop, stand up/sit down? Where is the flow in your worship planning?
Are you successfully taking your congregation into intimate worship with the Lord God? If not, but you wish it were, I want you to consider the stand up/sit down issue.
You may be seated,
Scott Jasmin
