worship tricks [first series]

intro

one of the things i want to do via this blog is to share with the world [or at least with those few people in the world who are a) reading the blog and b)interested] what i'll call worship tricks. now i've written that term i think it may not be brilliant but it will do for now. one of the things i love about alternative worship is the way groups use the stuff of life and popular culture as the building blocks for worship rather than using churchy language and stuff that no-one outside the subculture really relates to. i've expanded more on this in an essay - see the links to articles i've written at the side. these tricks might just be called ideas, but i like tricks better because often there's some sort of dynamic thing that happens when ideas are used in worship that makes them worthy of a better name than idea. i'm going to number these tricks and see where it leads. so if you have some tricks let me know. some people think they are on to a trick when they are using multi media, but there's an overdose of naff powerpoints with sunsets and predictible words. i'm after stuff that's either got an edge, is cool, is a good building block, is beautifully crafted or simply works. it may be as simple as using a particular tune or image in worship to reframe it or it may be a ritual or it may be a link to a piece of liturgy or a flash animation online. we'll see.