installations and drum circles
hey everyone, i have been keeping up with the blog at arms length…because of my crazy schedule…but i decided to ask a couple of quick questions.
1) i am at a large church in the dallas area and we have been brainstorming on some different “installation” ideas. i am curious what everyone else has seen or participated in or what has worked well in your churches? i know that this isn’t a question specific to females, but thought that this would be a perfect place to to explore this form of worship.
2) do any of you participate in a worship based drum circles? i am starting one here and was curious what the response has been, obstacles you have overcome and suggestions that you just can’t help but make. : )
thanks so much!
shannon
June 29th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
we used to be a part of an alternative congregation called the tool room and the whole worship was basically one big drum circle with other random instruments thrown in depending on who was there. It was awesome. They had a “leader” who gave some general direction but for the most part it was actually fully participatory and Spirit led. we LOVED it and hope to do something similar at our church. The only thing is that it can get crazy if there are too many people. The Tool Room group was usually not more than 30 people and only about half were playing instruments.
I don’t know what installation is…is that a term for something?
June 29th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
we use the word installation to describe some tables or stations where folks could have some experiences that are multisensory and such… we like to coordinate them with the messgae series we are in or by just having their own theme.
one theme that has stuck with me as i think about all of this is “at the water’s edge” and wanting to have the stations take participants deeper through selections of scriptures dealing with water. i would love some brainstorming on this specific topic by the way….
June 30th, 2006 at 10:19 am
oh yeah ok, we use the words stations or centers.
July 2nd, 2006 at 5:54 am
Shannon, I don’t have anything specific to add to the drum circle idea, but I’m involved in a Creative Collaborative team that plans experiential worship elements for our gatherings. I love brainstorming – especially ways to draw people close to God.
We don’t always use stations, though we often use a multisensory response element after the spiritual talk (sermon). Thinking of your “water’s edge” – scriptures animated on laptops at stations, people invited to light a tealight and float in water, giving people a stone to represent themselves and place it in a large container of water to symbolise a desire for “going deeper”, people invited to have water poured over their hands at a station and savor the sensation of the refreshment that water/life/God brings. Just a few thoughts, and my prayers for God inspiring more!