Lessons from “Engage” – How to Inspire Your Congregation to Action
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What happens in your services is of no use to your people if they don’t walk away with a clear understanding of how to incorporate the teaching and worship into their lives.
That’s why it is so important to begin your worship planning with the end in mind. At The Journey, we do this by asking and prayerfully answering these three questions in the early stages of our planning for each service:
- What do we want people to know when they leave?
- What do we want people to feel when they leave?
- What do we want people to do when they leave?
What do you want people to have learned when you are finished? What do you want them to be feeling? And, most importantly, what action steps do you want them to take to integrate the themes of the service into their lives?
Thinking through the “Know, Feel, Do” as you craft your worship services is the best way to define where you are going and get there more effectively. If you don’t answer these questions in advance, you run the very real risk of wasting both your time and your congregation’s.
Let’s take a look at how the “Know, Feel, Do” plays out in practicality. Say, for example, I was planning a message on generosity. At the outset of my planning, we would start thinking through the “Know, Feel, Do” questions in relation to generosity.
We may decide that the big theme for the day will be: “Your life will ultimately be defined by one of two ‘G’ words – Greed (closed-handed living) or Generosity (open-handed living.)” That’s what we want my people to know.
Then, we want them to feel the power of generosity, so we’ll think through how to invoke that feeling. But, keep in mind, the feeling is only important if it motivates them to take an action. So, ultimately, we are concerned with the “Do.” We want them to be motivated to actually give.
We want them to give of their time through serving or give of their money to our giving campaign or to the needy in our city. We want them to take an action step that connects what they’re hearing with how they live when they step outside the church doors.
Never end a service without giving people specific next steps they can take in response to God’s teaching. Scripture is clear on this point: “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves” (James 1:22).
We don’t have a lack of knowledge in American churches. We don’t even have a lack of experience or feeling. What we have a lack of is action. People simply don’t do what the Bible says they should do.
By asking the “Know, Feel, Do” questions as you plan your worship, you can help your people know what God wants them to know and feel what God wants them to feel, with the ultimate goal of helping them do what God wants them to do. Otherwise, we are only helping them fool themselves.
Jason
PS – Are registered for my new Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Network that begins April 20. In the tele-coaching network you will receive monthly hands-on coaching from me, including over four hours of training on how to establish the worship planning systems we talk about in Engage in your church.
Learn more and sign-up at www.worshipleaderinsights.com/coaching.