I found Most liturgy or patterns of worship are tightly controlled. Some have every word prepared before hand. Both the 'contemporary' that Skye et all sneeringly dismiss and any number of traditional or evangelical services are tightly controlled or scripted.

The reality is many Christians dismiss anything they are uncomfortable with, especially if it produces results.

I believe the majority of Jesus ministry or connection with people was done outside acceptable worship, pattern, procedure, and process to the same type of people.

Great insights here. It's true. We can't escape "worship environments." We have to choose a specific time and place and context to worship. The Bible repeatedly distinguishes between the external and the internal. The "worship environment" becomes a "show" when the outward expression begins to differ from the genuine inner experience, especially of those leading.

We've all been around church leaders who are one person in front of the crowd and a very different person one-on-one. THAT's what the Bible calls "two-faced" or hypocrisy.

And if the show becomes the focus, that's what the Bible calls idolatry. But if God is worshiped in spirit and in truth, that's what God honors.

All worship gatherings are produced. Every single one of them. Some are more highly produced and others more loosely produced, but all have a production coordinator, a script to follow and a desired outcome or experience.

The truth is that we have distorted the concept of public worship. Public worship is the least defined and the least important form of worship in the Bible. More important in the life of the believer is private worship (communing with God) and personal worship (giving of myself for the benefit of others)Romans 12.

When we get caught up in the experience, whether it be liturgical or 'contemporary' in style, we miss the point. The point of our gatherings should be to spur each individual on until we are all built up into a strong body. That's Paul's definition of public worship.

In the modern church we have created an environment of public worship that is about dumping content through teaching. What we need is not more knowledge dump on a weekend…we need application of the truth in our private and personal worship throughout the week. This, in turn, produces genuine authentic worship that flows out of 'too-full' hearts..

Malcolm said”…I found Most liturgy or patterns of worship are tightly controlled. Some have every word prepared before hand. … and any number of traditional or evangelical services are tightly controlled or scripted.”

I am pentecostal and this type of church service is completely foreign to me. However, the role of the pastor turning from shepherd to showman I have seen and agree we have need to be wary of.

In Pentecost, a response to external stimuli is (almost) always appropriate, so it is easy for pastors to learn what “moves” people and begin to create services that involve mostly hype and little if any of an actual presence of God himself. Thus, the shepherd is gone and the epitome of a showman has arrived!

The Good Shepherd leads us to controlled environments and experiences: beside still waters, into green pastures, etc. 1 Corinthians and 1,2 Timothy, etc. Certainly seem to call pastors and church leaders to be thoughtful and purposeful in their work in creating and leading gathered worship experiences. It is not surprising to hear Jethani write in ways that reveal some degree of distaste for the result; As I read 1 Corinthians – and more – Revelation – the Spirit who has authored scripture itself expresses
some degree of distaste for what is happening with some of the worship gatherings. There is always a need for us to be ready to see that as leaders there may be ways
in which we are missing the mark. The recent journey of Willow Creek is, to me, a great example of a church willing to be ‘examined’ as such and change course. The truth is, in a lot of our evangelical churches the emphasis can truly be placed on the ‘show’ aspect of church, and leaders can become excessively obsessed with the production, an example not
found in the lifenof Jesus, or Paul, Peter and the early New Testament church. Any gathering of more than two or three will have some degree of production. When Jesus, or later Paul, taught in synagogues, there was production. Jesus and then
Paul seemed content to work within the structure of
gathered worship where there was production, simy because it was
a gathering point. The attractional ‘production’ should serve the missional purpose of Jesus, to gather people, give them good Environments to hear the gospel, hear and
take in good teaching, be directed into community and redirected
out into the community to love and serve it in the name of Jesus… The problem is it can
be easy for the production to become an end or even THE end in and of itself, even when
we do idealize much more than that. I have a friend who grew up at Willow, becoming a leader and staff there… He finally quit it all and joined the Greek Orthodox church because his soul longed for something more than the production values of the best
church production could offer. Our ‘liturgy’ in a highly ‘produced’ environment can
often become ‘the work of the STAFF’ instead of the work of the people, and it can become very easily something that attendees watch
rather than participate in. This has sometimes been by design
when we’ve decided that the goal of the weekend services is
primarily evangelism. The problem is, while
it ‘works’ for evangelism, it can form disciples whose basic experience
of church and gathered worship is rooted more than
they are even aware in high cost production
values.

Liturgy is controlled, but not for man’s reasons. I’ve only been attending an Anglican church for a few weeks now but after speaking with a priest and understanding the tradition in the why and how behind liturgy, it’s quite a phenomenal way to unify believers world wide. To know that hundreds of thousands of churches across the world are praying the same prayer, reading the same scriptures in service, and then throughout the week. Knowing we are praying for each other, the world, our leaders, our communities, all at the same time each Sunday thrills me. And to end with the Eucharist – the ultimate communal Thanksgiving that we are even allowed to walk up and kneel at the altar to receive it is a profound experience.

The big thing that stands out for me is that most liturgical worship patterns and styles incorporate scripture very closely. In what I would call a “typical” worship service for my Lutheran church, we include about 35-45 verses of scripture that are sung and spoken, not including songs, the sermon, a creed, or readings from the Old Testament, an Epistle, and one of the four Gospels. Because of the repetition, it is an incredible way to teach people scripture. We try to change things around every few months in order to get some variety and to teach some new things, but this forms the basis for our worship.

I believe that the biggest problem is when people aren’t being taught what the Bible says, and that often happens when our goals of being energetic, stimulating, and exciting overtake what we are called by God to do, and that is to bring people closer to His Word so that they can know Him and love Him and serve Him. I think that worship should be passionate and spirit-filled, and what better way to do that than using the actual words of God inspired by the Holy Spirit?

Manipulation is not cool. I have seen many times people, not being led into a Worship “experience” but led into an emotional experience that they then believe is “good” worship.

Worship is everything that we do with our lives and how and to whom it is directed.Worship is Not 20 minutes of cold chills under the controlled environment of a high tech light show and hypnotic music. Don’t we already know that Satan has decieved by coming as an angel of light and that his purpose included music in the first place.

Worship is not a produced show designed to the comforts, amusement and tastes of man… worship is EVERYTHING.

Okay this is the way I look at it, Jesus was all about WOW. In fact I've thought about developing a Wow Theology. Jesus was not boring. Look at the Gospel of John. How many times did the people Jesus inter-face with say — in 21st Century Terms — "Wow"!
– Turning water into wine, that was pretty wow.
– "How can this be?" Nicodemus being incredulous at Jesus' statements.
– "He told me everything I ever did!" The woman at the well.
– People were "amazed" by Jesus' teaching John 5:26.
And on and on it goes. So I think Jesus was all about the Wow! We are following his example.
That's my take anyway!
Blessings,
Dave

John, I agree with much of your comment except the introduction. Much of the gospel story has Jesus moving into the existing environment of the day, not controlled, calm circumstance. And let’s not confuse our need to personally withdraw from chaos and spend moments alone with our Lord with the gathering of saints and sinners. We need both – time apart and time in the world. It is appropriate for time of quiet and reflection when the body gathers. It is also appropriate for other expression. We are diverse by design and it’s highly appropriate that worship reflect that diversity. Impugning our preference upon others is not.

I thought Bruce’s comments brought some clarity to the core issue of this debate.

I am finding a strong desire for a mix of both the tightly planned out worship services and at times I am desiring to not "go through the motions" so I really appreciate when our pastor gets up sometimes and puts his notes down and tells us he feels the Holy Spirit leading and he doesn't feel like his hours of planning are more important than what the Holy Spirit wants to do. We may go into an immediate altar call or a full prayer service or sometimes the entire service is spent is praise….that is unrehearsed and raw which really tends to give it more authenticity at times. I work with the worship and planning teams and I know how much work goes into the services which just makes me appreciate it more when we can say "it is not about us" when our shepherd feels the Holy Spirit is wanting to do something different than what is planned.

Dave one of the things I notice though is Jesus never seemed to make a big deal out of any of his miracles, no wow, no fanfare. He ususally just did them and then left, or dissappeared through the crowd and went and prayed or something. He even told people not to tell anybody what he did. On the other hand, we always want to tell someone and toot our own horns and say look what we did here or look what happened and make it into a big exciting thing to draw peoples attention to us.