Wikiworship

This past Sunday, we launched at St. Stephen the Martyr an alternative worship start for teens with something I call "Wikiworship". I thought I had made the term up since I'd never heard or read it anywhere before. But before I sat down to blog, I googled "Wikiworship" and found a few people already using the word in much the same way as I envisioned it to denote an open source, participatory worship experience built upon user created content.

Find out more about it on wikiworship.blogspot by clicking here and here (from where I got the above image); read what this mission leader is doing in his own context; you can also learn more by clicking here here.

Anyway, here's the short blurb from the promotional flier that went out to teens and their families plus lay leaders in our congregation:

Open Source
User Created Content
Discussing God in
the Real Lives of
High School Students
thru Ur pics, vids,
YouTube, Facebook
and 2daz Music

Introducing a new alternative start to worship for High School Students!

Youth have been talking a lot about worship: it's boring; we want modern and upbeat music; the language of scripture and sermons can be over our heads; we want something more at our level.

Well, we've been heard loud and clear. Now high school students may choose to start worship together in our own style, in our own culture. We'll discuss the scripture text, and share the message God is speaking to us using blogs, pics, vids, and music we creat.

Then we'll join the rest of the congregation in the sanctuary for prayers, communion, and benediction. If you're already active in worship, feel free to continue worshiping in the sanctuary if you prefer. But if you haven't been in worship every week, now there's no more excuses. See you this Sunday @ 9:30!

The impetus behind this new ministry is to respond to the feedback teens give us concerning why they aren't in worship regularly. On a typical Sunday, we have 0 to 2 teens in worship. On our first Sunday of Txt Msg, we had 4 teens plus two of our most active teens were out of town. We'll see where it goes from here. If they take ownership of this ministry by sending me pics, vids, and blogs about where they've experienced God's presence in their lives throughout the week and how they've followed Jesus, then we'll most likely continue this ministry in the summer. But if teens in the church still aren't worshiping or taking ownership by contributing content then we'll most likely discontinue Txt Msg after the summer.

While Txt Msg is responding to the needs and opportunities for raising disciples at SSM, this ministry is also helping to form the vision we're discerning of the postmodern mission congregation in Milwaukee. The vision team will start drafting our Mission Plan document soon, and as we embark on this adventure, Txt Msg is helping me to discern how God is gathering people to worship in a postmodern culture.

I suppose that's enough about Wikiworship for now. There's so much more to say, so I'll keep posting about it throughout the summer as our journey following Jesus unfolds -- both thru Txt Msg at SSM and thru the Vision Team for a postmodern mission congregation. If you'd like me to respond to specific questions you may have, feel free to post on the comments link below, or email/facebook me.