This month’s Worship Leader had a great article by Aaron Niequest, a worship leader at Willow Creek and the creator of A New Liturgy on creating a memorable and creative communion experience. We’ve really been digging A New Liturgy, and we wanted to introduce you to this fine artist (with his permission) by reprinting his Five Pillars of Creative Communion below.
SCRIPTURE. Everything we do must be grounded in the Word of God.
REVERENCE. Always repect the mystery of our faith. In our attempt to approach communion from a fresh perspective, we never want to make it tame or over-familiar or trite.
HONEST AND HUMAN. Create space for people to move beyond “what they should pray” to “what they actually need to say to God.” We want the divine communion experience to still be wholly human and deeply honest.
ART. Rather than over-relying on words and music, we seek to engage communion through thelens of multiple art forms.
BIG PICTURE. Too often, communion can get reduced to “thanking God for my personal salvation from my sins.” This is good, but too small. So we work to keep our individual experience of communion set firmly in the context of the big story of the kingdom of God on earth.
Be sure to check out A New Liturgy — it’s a new way to worship… a “movable, sonic sanctuary.” (We like portable things…)
