In a large part, this research was born from an evaluation of my own worship leading ministry over the past twenty years. In retrospect, my worship planning and design did not give careful consideration to the concepts of God’s transcendence and immanence. I often (and unknowingly) capitulated to a “rush to immanence” giving little intentional thought to the transcendent aspects of the God of wonder that Scripture is clear to describe.
I believe that both God’s transcendence and his immanence are categories often overlooked by worship leaders and worship planners. Many authors have made this observation anecdotally, but none have verified it empirically.
This research sought to discover what goals, values, or objectives influence how a worship pastor selects and sequences elements to be included in his/her worship services. This research also sought to validate if and how the concepts of God’s transcendence and immanence influence worship sequence and design.
After a careful assessment of the data, the following conclusions and implications can be drawn from the WDP applying to Southern Baptist churches whose average weekly worship attendance is greater than 1,100.
- The goal, value, or objective of conveying God in his transcendent otherness is not strongly influential in the practices of most worship pastors as they plan worship services and select worship elements to be included in worship services.
- Celebrating the gospel, supporting the sermon or series theme, engaging the heart, and a song’s style, key, or tempo are the most influential factors governing the selection of songs or other elements to be included in worship services.
- Worship service beginnings in most Southern Baptist churches launch with a combination of announcements, a celebration/adoration of Christ, the cross, and the gospel, and the adoration/celebration of God’s love and care for his creation. However, thanksgiving and the adoration/celebration of God’s distinction and separateness from his people could also be present, but to a lesser degree.
- Most Southern Baptist services of worship do not incorporate dedication, commitment, contemplation, reflection, confession, or repentance as part of their worship service beginnings.
- Most Southern Baptist churches do not typically read Scripture as part of their service beginnings. However, when Scripture is read at or near the beginning of a worship service, it is usually not Scripture that conveys God’s transcendent distinction and separateness from his creation. Rather, Scripture that is used as a part of service beginnings is most commonly Scripture of adoration and praise such as that which is commonly found in Psalms.
- Other than during the sermon, the most common time for Scripture to be read in Southern Baptist churches is in the middle of the corporate worship time prior to the message, somewhere between minutes 11-20 of the service. Almost one-third of Southern Baptist churches do not include any Scripture reading during the corporate worship time prior to the sermon.
- Based on a total of seventeen different indicators used in the WDP to formulate an I-Score and a T-Score, Southern Baptist worship pastors generally are more immanently focused than transcendently focused.
- The goal, value, or objective of conveying God in his transcendent otherness first and then in his immanent nearness second is not strongly influential in the practices of how most worship pastors construct the sequential ordering of their worship services.
- The pattern or sequencing of worship services in Southern Baptist churches is most often governed by musical considerations rather than theological considerations. A movement from fast/celebrative to slower/contemplative exerts the strongest shaping influence on the sequence of a Southern Baptist worship service. Other strong influencers on sequential ordering are the stylistic considerations of a song, the key of a song, or key relationships between songs.
- In a little more than one-third of Southern Baptist churches, the biblical concept of “revelation-response” is deployed to provide a guide for how worship services are sequentially ordered. Almost two-thirds do not use the biblical concept of “revelation-response” to guide how worship services are sequentially ordered.
- Worship pastors in Southern Baptist churches are strongly influenced by their desire to celebrate the gospel. Yet, the gospel story they present often has an important piece, indeed a foundational piece, missing: “God is holy.” The holiness of God is frequently the missing transcendent component from their songs and Scripture reading.
- Worship services in Southern Baptist churches do not typically begin with songs that convey God’s separateness and distinction from his creation (transcendence). Likewise, songs that convey God’s separateness and distinction from his creation and songs that express thanksgiving are the least likely category of worship songs to be included in a service of worship.
- Worship services in Southern Baptist churches are more likely to open with songs about the redeeming work of Christ followed by songs about God’s nearness, love, and care for his children. Worship pastors expressed a relatively high degree of unpredictability about the categorical sequence of songs that appear in their worship services.
- In general, the research from the WDP indicates that worship pastors in Southern Baptist churches tend to be more immanence focused than transcendence focused giving credence to the statement that the age of immanence has entered into Southern Baptist churches.
In addition, the following general conclusions can be made. My research indicated that most Southern Baptist churches in the sample population group:
- Meet on a single site (61.3%) rather than on multiple sites or more than one campus
- Conduct two or three worship services on their main campus each weekend (63.3%)
- Would consider “suburban” as the best term to describe the location of the church’s main campus (70.9%)
- Are attended by 500-1,500 (68.2%) in their main worship service (most populated) on their main campus
My research also indicated that the main (most attended) worship services of the sampled population are most often:
- Planned by the worship pastor (97.4%) in conjunction with the senior pastor (65.9%)
- Between 70-75 minutes in total length (52.6%)
- Between 25-30 minutes in length for the corporate worship portion of the service that precedes the sermon
- Described as modern (63.8%) and contemporary (55.8%)
- Comprised of congregational singing, a welcome or greeting, prayer, greeting one another during the service, video or media elements, baptisms, announcements, receiving of the offering, prayer for the offering, and Scripture reading. (These elements were listed as those that are typically included in the corporate worship portion of the service that precedes the message.)
- Comprised of four or five congregational songs (66.5%)
- Led by a worship leader who is not playing an instrument (61.7%), a band/rhythm section (85.0%), a praise team of one to six singers (83.1%), and a choir who sings anthems occasionally or regularly (61.3%)
- Observing the Lord’s Supper quarterly (68.2%)
- Led by worship pastors who have been serving their current church from one to ten years (65.4%; average longevity = 9 years; median longevity = 8 years)