“Boredom is an insult to life.” - Paulo Cuelho
Most church experiences are predictable, void of surprise, and boring. They are a violation of God’s creative nature. To escape this numbing predictability, the Worship Design Team I directed broke the rules. Violated church norms.
In a church culture where sermons were expected to last 30-40 minutes, our sermon lasted 15 minutes. The event, not just the sermon, was the message. Where rigid orders of worship insured consistency but not creativity, our worship structures were changeable and unpredictable. We violated norms for the sake of a deeper experience. Whether you’re a simple house church or a large non-denom, you can break the script for a more powerful experience.
Here’s how we built one service around the topic of forgiveness. The Sunday morning of the event, participants walked into the worship space and noticed colorful bunches of helium balloons tied to the end chair of every row. No explanation was given. On each chair there was a small blank note and a pencil. No explanation was given—yet.
We kept the singing to a couple short worship songs that reflected the core message of forgiveness. On this day, that was what made sense. Every decision was intentional; part of the symphonic movement to a crescendo.
After the pastor’s remarkably short 15-minute sermon on forgiveness—a violation of convention that he was willing to accommodate—one of the team members approached the platform and explained what the note and pencil was for on each chair. Participants were asked to write down one person they wanted or needed to forgive; fold the note, and keep it to themselves.
When everyone had written down a name, each participant was asked to take one of the helium balloons that were tied to the ends of each row. Then we asked them all to leave the room. The service wasn’t over, but we were all going outside. As gatherers flowed into the parking lot, holding their balloons, we told them that forgiveness was about releasing someone to God; putting justice in a just God’s hands. We then asked them to imagine that the balloon they were holding was that person they needed to forgive. We didn’t rush this; but allowed the sobriety of the moment to sink in.
When we sensed it was okay to move on, we then asked the crowd of worshippers to quietly release their balloons into the air. Dozens and dozens of red, blue, yellow, and white balloons lifted into the wind, as if a Spirit had grabbed the tail of each balloon and mercifully carried it off. The congregation stood in the parking lot for ten minutes—watching, releasing, beginning to heal.
Our Worship Design team had “broken the script.” This is a powerful technique that authors Dan and Chip Heath write about in their book, The Power of Moments. Our team broke the pattern of boring and predictable worship gatherings:
We drastically reduced the time of the typical sermon by more than half on that day. This required a willingness on the part of the pastor to understand not simply his part, but his part within the whole experience. And thankfully, he did.
We brought in something unusual into the worship space—the balloons—without offering explanation right away. “Is it somebody’s birthday? Are we celebrating something?”
We saw attendees as participants and not observers. They wrote down the person they needed to forgive, rather than merely reflecting on that relationship. Then they kept the note to themselves. This allowed them to consciously engage without the pressure to “share.” After all, forgiveness is a tender issue.
Participants then took one of the balloons from the bunches around the room, not understanding why. This required them to risk getting up, moving around and leaving their comfortable spot behind; but we trusted that the risk would pay off.Finally, we asked them to exit the building with their balloons; before the service was typically over. The parking lot was the new sanctuary. No final praise and worship set, no closing pastoral prayer. Just a lingering experience of forgiveness. Of release.
As the authors of The Power of Moments tell us, we didn’t need the participants to simply “understand something, they needed to feel something.” 1 We avoided what the authors call, “the soul-sucking force of reasonableness.” 2 For the sake of engagement, you, too, can create extraordinary moments by breaking the script.
Note: No airplanes were harmed during the launch of balloons; though you might want to check with the FAA on guidelines for releasing dozens of balloons into the air. We should have, but didn’t. You probably should.
The Power of Moments, by Chip Heath & Dan Heath, p. 80
The Power of Moments, by Chip Heath & Dan Heath, p. 63
I remember that day so well. And releasing my hurt and need to forgive into the Spirit’s hands (the balloon).