Do you believe our current Call to Worship per discipline(I was glad when they said unto me...) is effective in calling a 21st century people into worship? In particular the Boyz and Girls in the hood? Why or Why not? What alternatives can you recommend?

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

Answers

You are welcome to write your own call to worship and use it. At the same time, after I completed a Bible study going verse by verse it shed a new light on it even for those of the hip hop gen.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

I was tempted at one time to do away with the call to worship, but then I realized that we (AME, AME ZIon, etc) are the only ones that have such a thing in our order of service. It should serve as means to gather the people to remember why they are there to worship. However if it becomes another ritual to be rushed through (and it has), then it serves us no purpose. I am only 26 yrs old and I can identify with it preacher or not because I realize the grace of God and my duty to worship him in spirit and truth. To deny me the opportunity to do that would not prove beneficial. I believe the problem however large or small it may be, lies with the worship leader. If he/she is unexcited about being in the house of the Lord, then of course, the rest of the congregation will follow suit. As an alternative, I would probrably recommend a hymn of worship such as #11 "Unto thy Temple Lord we Come: Unto thy temple lord we come with thankful hearts to worship Thee: And pray that this may be our home until we reach eternity. All four of those stanzas in that hymn are appropiate for calling a church to worship. It would also catch many off guard to see a hymn as a call to worship. It would perhaps serve a better purpose spoken than sang. If you are just trying to reach the young people, create a service for them. Revise the call to worship to fit their language and then allow for a contemporary praise to follow instead of a hymn. It is radical, but then so are the young people who are trying their best to avoid church or particularly, the AME church because they feel it is repetitive, non-engaging, and non-edifying.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001