Using Worship To Teach About Worship

I am not a fan of the worship leader trying to preach between songs. Many of us can say we have witnessed worship services where the worship leader took 5 minutes or more between each song to expound on the text. The worship leader would have been more effective by choosing a great song and letting the worshipers participation speak to their hearts. I am a fan of using short ‘bursts’ of information to introduce songs that can help set up the meaning of the song. (The most effective ‘burst’ of information is a direct quote or reading from God’s Word.)

There are other times we can use a brief song introduction to teach something significant about the story of God and/or worship.  This week I used that song introduction time to speak briefly about ‘5 Words of Worship’: Abba, Maranatha, Hallelujah, Amen and Hosanna. (The picture in this post is of a ring by Bob Siemon Design that has inscribed on it these five words.)

For me to make this effective I had to put a lot of time into the preparation. There was an enormous amount of information about each word, but keeping within my own guidelines I had to make this teaching time brief.

I used the information to segue between the first two songs in our Sunday Setlist.

Here is a synopsis of what I said:

There are five words of worship in scripture that cross cultural and language barriers.

Abba: father, like we would call out to our dad, but also is a word that denotes adoration and honor

Maranatha: a greeting between Christ followers of the early church that gave comfort to one another for it was a greeting of promise…the Lord has come and the Lord will return, so have hope.

Amen: yes let it be as spoken…so when we say Amen in the middle of the sermon we are agreeing, when we say it at the end of the prayer we are saying…let it happen as we prayed.

Hallelujah: the universal word of worship…can we imagine that people all over the world today are joining with us shouting out or singing “hallelujah”

Hosanna: we sing this one in a variety of songs. In the Old Testament it was a plea from man for God to come and save them. In the New Testament it became a word of praise declaring that God did save. Hosanna in the highest: we praise you God, the one who is above every other.

Do you use song introductions as teaching times?

What are some of the most effective ‘spoken’ song intros you use?

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Here is our Sunday Setlist:

Hallelujah (Travis Cottrell)

It’s between these two songs that I used the “5 Words of Worship” intro.

Hosanna (Brooke Fraser)

Let the Church Rise (Israel Houghton & Jonathan Stockstill)

None But Jesus (Brooke Fraser)

Everything To Me (TW Hale) __________________

This post is my participation in the blog carnival Sunday Setlist which can be found at The Worship Community