It Shouldn’t Matter, But… (Part 4)
If a person comes to church two times a month, we might have only twenty-four hours of direct influence speaking into that person’s life. That same person will likely spend close to two times that much time at work in one week.
(I read somewhere that 48% of church attenders attend once a month or less.)
Since we have such limited time, we want to maximize every moment to lead people to Christ or deeper in their relationship with Him.
That’s one reason I think in most church worship experiences, transitions shouldn’t matter, but they often do.
You might wonder what I mean by a “transition.” A transition is what happens between Hymn #413 and the pastoral prayer. Or in your church, it might be what happens between the fourth praise song and the drama.
The church I grew up in never thought about transitions. After the “special song” (that often wasn’t so special), a pastor would walk slowly to the podium, pause, gather his notes, breathe slowly, then start his prayer.
After praying, he’d walk slowly back to his seat and the choir director would carefully tell the choir to stand, look at the organist, pause, pause again, count to four, then start.
Too much dead time.
- I’ve been trained by the Internet not to wait three seconds for a connection. If it takes that long, I’m onto the next site.
- I’ve been trained by my Ipod that I don’t have to listen to songs on the radio that I don’t like.
- I’ve been trained by my DVR that I don’t have to watch commercials.
People are used to things flowing smoothly and moving rapidly, or they mentally “check out.” I know transitions shouldn’t matter, but I think they do.
What do you think?
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I absolutely agree. People’s lives will not be changed by what they don’t pay attention to. The idea of “just preach the word” only works if people are there (in mind and body) to listen. Few are suggesting that we change the moral imperatives in the Bible and become “worldly” to reach the lost. But because we are “in the world” we should be students of human behavior so that we can do a better job of getting an audience who will listen to “the reason for the hope that we have.”
This is something our pastor is always talking about in our team meetings. It matters a lot in many ways. First, you do NOT want to interupt the flow of the Holy Spirit! Our bumbling through moving from worship to prayer can really flatline a move of God. Transitions can make you look like you know what you’re doing or you have thrown together a service. Like you said, you may only have one chance with that visitor and we want them to understand we have been working hard to do everything with excellence. Their weekend experience should leave them with the feeling that we care about every part and we do things with purpose. As a children’s pastor, if my transitions aren’t well planned and kept moving, I will lose their attention quick, fast and in a hurry! Some adults don’t have much more of an attention span than a 6 year old! :) I say if your church is struggling with this, brain storm at a team meeting and get it figured out!
What might be some practical ways to transition? Video…Music…Does someone always have to introduce want is next and lead people in what to do next or can you just transition into next segments naturally?
I agree with Craig’s post, but at the same time think it’s a shame. If a slow transtion during a church service ‘loses’ us, what about slow transitions in everyday life? People are often aggitated when they have to wait in line, especially around the holidays (people…don’t expect to get in and out of a store on December 23rd in less than an hour. Seriously!).
I’ve noticed this in my prayer life. I’m often uncomfortable sitting in silence and waiting. I think this is because we’re programmed to be ‘doing’ something. However, I’m learning that by sitting and quieting myself, I’m entering in to a deeper prayer time with God.
Granted, this may be different than ‘transition’ that Craig is talking about, but I think the two can compliment each other in a service. Yes, we only have so much time to get someone’s attention before we lose it, but why not show them their attention can be kept, even in transition/silence, if done well. :) Give them time to think about what they just heard, sang or prayed. This is something that I appreciate in my current church. We are on a tight schedule to get people in and out, but they often give us times of silence to reflect, which can be used for the worship team to get in place, etc. Sometimes these quiet moments are guided by the video screens with items to think about. Very effective!
Karen,
I agree silence can be very effective. Being still before God is awesome.
And yes, it is ashame we even have to think about these things.
Jason,
You asked if people always have to introduce what comes next. At my old church, we introduced everything. It was very freeing to learn you don’t have to introduce everything and it is often more effective if the experience flows more naturally with fewer words spoken.
Craig, I find these posts on “It Should Matter, but..” very helpful. I totally agree with you that transitions matter even though we wish they didn’t.
I just wanted to share something that I am starting to discover as I lead my church in worship. As we try to reach people sometimes our methods have becomes too like culture we are in, and sometimes people want something different. Here is what I’ve found. I have been intentional planning moments of silence in our gatherings. I guess this still takes transitions, but when we find that that moment, the right place to pause and enter into silence, it is profound.
Something I’ve been stressing to our team is to keep it relevant as well as counter-culture. We are so busy and have so much buying for our attention (the constant noise, the ads, etc.) that when we have led people into 5 seconds of silence, meeting our maker in prayer, it feels like an eternity.
Just some thoughts. Thanks for the insights, they’re great! Keep them coming.
This is a tough one. Transitions between every aspect of a church service should be thought about and questioned. I think churches aren’t intentional enough when it comes to how they present their announcements and take their offering. Most of the time we take a break from Praise and Worship to give them 4-5 short commercials and take up the offering. This #1 breaks the natural flow of the service, #2 it sends mixed messages, we tell people that tithes and offerings are part of worship to our God, yet we take the offering during a break while we’re doing commercials.
Now I am not saying we need to make everything a high energy super-entertainment packed event in and of itself. High energy all the time can also be distracting. Think an action movie with all explosions all the time, it just gets annoying after the first few minutes. Sometimes silence can be powerful, sometimes a being down tempo keeps people from getting annoyed with all high energy, sometimes a well placed joke or story can loosen people up enough to hear something heavier.
For me its all about intentionality, and being willing to examine all we do and change it if necessarily.
Craig,
I think what you said is important, but what’s even MORE important is that we should be aware of LIFE transitions — often times people come to church because of LIFE transitions, and that is often a moment that we can maximize and thus be able to minister to people. If we’re cognizant that many people who come to church are in the middle of life transitions, then we’ll be able to speak to their needs, and minister effectively to these people. Amen?
Blessings,
Jonathan
Kudos to Craig for hitting a grand slam on transitions!
Every word is so true.
And you have to remember, that the soundtrack to the “special songâ€? somehow is always cued up about 20 senconds to early… so you have that akward moment where the sound guy rewinds the tape to try to find the right point, then the singer usually makes some nervous joke!
I read yesterday that readers on the MSN Money site are putting together a Top 10 Least Wanted List: Companies that abuse and waste your time. We live in an increasingly impatient society, and we just can’t expect people to turn that off and accept our ‘transition flaws’ becuase it’s church and not a business.
I’ve often wondered how long the apostles preached. Apart from the one sermon of Paul’s where someone fell out the window, I don’t know of any lengthy sermons (at least recorded).
God can have a great impact when just a Word is spoken.
I’ve always told my tech team, “every time there is dead air, a puppy dies…” I know you animal lovers will jump on me, but hey, we never have dead air anymore!
BTW, I would have used kittens, but since they grow to become cats, I was afraid that would encourage MORE dead air.
In my experiences, the main reason that transitions are inadequate or too time-consuming is because the flow of the worship service has not been planned out and communicated to all of its participants in an effective manner.
I’ll speak as a LC member. Transition is really big for me. If the audio for the message is behind the video. If the backing audio for the worship carries over into the information video. If the video/audio crew are talking loud enough that I can hear them. If the worship leader talks the next verse intro, while the words are clearly on the screen. All of these break my mental groove. But being a “too much dead time� minion, I expect the ‘glitches’ and I usually quickly regain focus when all is back to a ‘normal’ pace.
To really find out how much transition matters you should kill the sat. feed right before the message and see how well the sites recover. One of the best experiences that I had at LC is when the power ‘died’ at our site and the staff put out candles and the site pastor ‘winged’ it. That’s when you know that you have transition.
love the site !
I’m going to go slightly against the grain here.
I think you’re worried too much about the possible “speck” in the experience’s eye. Meaning, I don’t think it’s necessary to worry so much about details like “transitions” as they’re being outlined here. I think if you were to poll people after an experience and asked them if they noticed this transition or that transition, chances are they didn’t.
As an example, a few weeks ago when I was able to attend an experience in person, Craig had a microphone that wasn’t working properly, it took less than a minute to switch to another microphone. It happens…big deal. I don’t believe it had an impact on the overall experience. After the experience, what I did notice was, instead of Craig and Chris S being out in the lobby talking to people (as they normally do), they were inside the auditorium working on the problem.
The very first time I attended an exerience at LC here’s what I noticed. 1. Much younger congregation than I was used to 2. Relaxed/casual dress 3. A lobby where people actually gathered together to visit with friends instead of just heading into the service or out to their cars 4. A pastor that delivered a message I could relate to, understand, internalize and use (God, Love, Sex was the series).
Ok I’ll shutup now :)
I don’t like to call it a “special”, as in, “sister Bertha is now going to sing a special.” I like to refer to them as “mediocres” or “sub-pars.” Let’s call em what they are! Way too many Sandi Patti wanna be’s out there!
So, transitions pretty much consume the majority of my thoughts when I’m approaching a weekend at Lifechurch.tv. As a worship pastor, I really think through each of my song transitions. We program loops for each of the songs and tie them all together on one big loop sequence. I’ll place a music bed between songs to help transition, or a pre-recorded scripture reading with music, basically something to help us get from point “a” to point “b.”
Then I am concerned about the video transitions from our Campus Pastor to the live feed. I’m concerned about the transition from the satellite feed to the invitation prayer, from the prayer to announcements, from that to the video……..etc. The reason I am so concerned about this is because God is doing something every week, at every experience. We expect Him to move so we are extremely intentional about content and transitions. There are certain elements that we have control over. With those elements, we will control them to the best of our ability. God is in control of the hearts of the people in the room….I just don’t want to get in the way of what He is doing.
Some say that you would never notice the transitions. That’s exactly the point! If you don’t notice transitions then someone has done a good job of thinking through all the things that have to happen. It’s when you DO notice the transitions, or the lack there-of when it is an issue.
No one notices that there AREN’T little dead bugs in your light fixtures at home. It’s when there are little dead bugs in your light fixtures that you notice and you crawl up and clean em out!
It all comes down to doing everything you can to not get in the way of what God is doing.
Interesting points Derrick. Being a member of lifechurch.tv for almost 9 years, I sure have seen the rollercoaster that is Life come along ways. I can tell a big difference now that I intentionally think about it. In the beginning, we had a more “traditional” praise and worship band. This was before the days of our satellite feed, etc. so thinking back, I do remember dead time or transitions that could have been better. Heck Craig has gotten better at speaking and I can now see that he and the staff has intentionally thought about these things through the years. As far as the last couple of years ago, No instance comes to mind where I can remember any transition problems, but if there was one, I’d be one of the first to notice. Kudos to the lifechurch.tv staff for keeping on top of this.
One thing that irritates me, and is a distraction is people leaving early during the offering or prayer but before the worship pastor (stephen cole, now adam ivey in my case). Occasionally the campus pastor will say please be seated until we dismiss with “Whoever Finds God, Finds Life”, but most don’t listen. This is an area I see for improvement. I’ve talked with it several times with members I know who have attended for awhile. Many of them say, I’ve never heard that, or I don’t think its a distraction or never heard anyone warn us. I’ve told them perhaps they are walking out before it is even said. Perhaps this is not so much a transition as it is a communication issue, however it does cause a distraction during the transition of prayer to offering collection, or the last praise and worship service to dismissal, etc. Just my two cents.
I used to work for a company in Ohio that is one of the best in the industry at creating live corporate events. The owner would do occasional semars for potential clients on how to make an effective meeting event. He would start by exmplaining that our current culture is focused on television, so they expect everything in the world to come across that way, and if it doesn’t then you lose their attention. It’s a sad thing to say that our attention is so weak that it is lost in a flash of time during a transition, but let’s face facts, it’s the way our society works today and how we have to communicate.
In his talk he would say that you need an opening video and a closing video to let the audience know when the program begins and ends. Granted that this is where is video based company made lots of money, but he had a very valid point. Look at the formats that are the most attractive to audiences today. During commercials (for those of us not using a DVR) we check out and go look for food. My family has a habit of muting the sound as soon as commercials hit. If people are not engaged by the entire program they will check out at some point and may not come back (at least not mentaly). The same is true in church, so if we want to win the attention of this generation then we need to keep them engaged.
Here are some tips that I have learned over the years from both corporate and church environments:
-Never have a blank screen! The simple answer to this is to always have a logo of some kind somewhere that you can go to when there is nothing else to put on screen. At LC we have custom animations, but I always had the habit of finding an event logo and putting it into still store or powerpoint so that we could go there in a pinch.
-Have generic music available for those odd transitions. It does not have to be loud, just there to fill the gap. I would have my engineer put it in and leave it running for the quick transition. And be sure to change the tune once in a while! My engineers would get sick of the same songs, and so will your church!
-Always have a backup mic available! These are the most distracting moments for an audience and it’s not hard to plan ahead and have one laying at the pastor’s feet - but be sure that you test it EVERY WEEK!
-If your worship team tends to wander through the song and not in the order it was planned on the powerpoint (or Media Shout or whatever) then don’t put anything up until you can see where they are! Flipping through the slides is far worse to the audience then not having words. I recommend Pro Presenter.
-LOOK AHEAD in the program. When something is happening, ask yourself “what’s next?” before you get to what’s next.
I also used to coach a lot of worship teams to make them more effective:
-I always recommend that they study how worship in the temple was designed in the old testament. There is a pattern there that God still uses in our modern versions. Go check it out! It’s worth the time if you are a worship leader in any capacity.
-Plan a transition between songs, not a stop and start the new one. Watch ANY professional concert and learn how it’s done. But keep them short so that your audience stays engaged.
-Use a key that the average person can sing!
-MOST important, remember that the worship team is not the show! The goal is to lead the congregation in worship, not entertain them with a concert. Guitar and drum solos had better be an offering of worship that others can participate in. If not then you are drawing attention away from the God that the congregation is there to worship - and he deserves it! If you are not sure about this, watch your audience. If they are involved in worship and you see it end when the guitar solo starts, then you have found your answer.
In the end Craig is 100% right! With a breaks are where people check out. If they are leaving early, ask yourself why. If they think that what is left is not worth their time then they are already headed out the door.
Sorry for the length…this tends ot be one of my passions as well!
Craig is right, transitions do matter. We live in a world where everything has to be fast, some services are too slow as you mentioned. We need to reach those people who are not 100% committed.