Because worship creates a shared sacred experience as well as a first impression for potential new members, worship planners and leaders will want to have a shared understanding of what to pay attention to on Sunday mornings.

Note: It may be helpful to imagine that you have a dear friend who is visiting for the first time, and you want them to feel like it could be their new church home. Then imagine that friend having a disability, or a marginalized identity, or children of various ages, etc.

Be Welcoming, Inclusive, and Accessible

• Create the conditions for relationships of belonging to flourish.
• Use the microphone as an act of caring for those who need it.
• Train your Greeters to avoid stereotyping.
• Provide captioning when possible. (You can project your Zoom feed with captions onto the screens in the sanctuary.)
• Provide space and grace for children in worship. Offer colorful pipe cleaners and coloring materials.

Embody Unitarian Universalism

• Include worship elements that help people understand UU Identity
• Lift up UU values in some way in every service
• Select UU worship elements that are done in every service (like the ritual of lighting the chalice, or the reciting of the covenant, or a song of gratitude after the offering).

Invite the Senses

• Give opportunities for everyone participate at some point in the service by singing, responding, interacting with the people next to them
• Provide some visual beauty, such as flowers, art, or an anchor image used throughout the service.
• When using images, think symbolic rather literal to invite creativity
• We learn by hearing, seeing and doing. Include things that are not verbal. The more senses that are reached during a service, the more people will remember it.
  • Music. Passion, Surprise
  • Touch, Humor, Silence

Worship as Pastoral Care

• Include at least one element that speaks to someone who is mourning or lonely.
• Include some rituals in every service. Rehearse them ahead of time so that people can be in the moment during the actual service. (This is the purpose for wedding rehearsals.)

Worship as Religious Experience

• Even without an ordained minister, a committed team of lay leaders can learn worship arts and thoughtfully prepare weekly worship services.
• Worship is an emotional and spiritual journey that needs good flow and smooth transitions. A couple of examples far an arc of worship might be:
  • Gather -- Tell the story -- Respond to the story -- Take it out into the world
  • Cast the container -- Tend to the gathered -- Invite transformation -- Invite Action
• Worship is also how we embody and experience our interconnectedness. Worship is more about relationship than it is about information.
• Leave room in your worship service planning to let the spirit in.

Worship Planning as Creative Interchange

• Worship planning, especially around a monthly theme, can provide some of the deepest theological conversations in congregational leadership. Worship team (music directors, worship associates, sermon-writer, religious educators) brainstorming sessions the month before get the creative juices flowing and give enough time for those directly responsible to select their service elements.
• Plan the worship calendar well in advance (e.g. in July for Sept-Dec, in November for Jan-May, in April for June-August) with at least a theme and a leader named. This way people have enough time to commit to the detail and creative pieces.
• Use a cloud-based service (such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or Worship-Specific services) to keep worship files all in one place: Master schedule with people and music (to avoid duplication) listed, orders of service, slide decks, scripts, pre-recorded video, etc.
• Inspiration and worship elements for themes can and should come from many places. (Be sure you follow copyright laws.)
  • Hymns and songs
  • Sacred texts and songs
  • Contemporary readings
  • Movies
  • Metaphors and imagery
  • Life circumstances
  • World/current events
  • Life Transitions