A few years ago in Grace, the alternative worship community I am part of we ran a worship experience reflecting on the theme of wonder. We had a big graffiti wall with the word ‘WOW’ painted on it in pop art style (like Lichtenstein’s famous POW! painting). We then invited people to come and graffiti on the wall things that made them go wow, that gave them that sense of awe. People have those moments in all sorts of situations - watching the sunset, in the warmth of an embrace, witnessing the birth of a child, staring up at the sky on a starry night, visiting an art gallery, being at a gig, realising the enormity of what God has done for us in Christ, walking a labyrinth. We then got people to reflect on things that robbed them of that sense of wonder. For each one they would write a post it note and stick it on a brick that was placed in front of the wow graffiti. After a while the wall gradually blocked out the wow (If you do this make sure you build a wall that is safe and sit people at a reasonable distance from it – we actually used a set of sponge bricks from a theatre set). This became a physical picture of how things like busyness, homework, lack of time, or the struggle of relationships dulled peoples sense of wonder. The service then turned to focus what God has done for us – given us the gift of creation, come that we might have life, sent Christ to restore our broken relationships (and in fact the whole creation) – we read the verse from Ephesians 2 that describes Christ tearing down the wall of hostility and celebrated this under the idea of ‘restoring lost wonder’ by tearing down the wall we had built whilst playing a loud music track to reveal the wow that had been hidden from sight.
Douglas Coupland who so often captures the zeitgeist has a fantastic quote in his book ‘Life After God’ where he says ‘Sometimes the people I feel saddest for are those who once knew what profoundness was but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder’. Worship is one fantastic way to help young people rediscover that lost wonder.
Restoring the wow can be about very small things. Involve young people in the creating of worship so that they own it. We had two teenagers recently perform a track they had written along with VJing some visuals they had put together – it was amazing. Creating it definitely gave them a wow. Take worship out of its usual setting. Why not worship outside – looking at a starry sky, or on the beach, or at an art gallery? Involve all the senses – we set up five stations in a service – one for each of the senses – for people to become aware of them and thank God for the gift of life in all its richness. Move worship beyond singing – there are so many diverse ways we can express ourselves. Find something dry in your tradition and dream a way to make it live again. Use the things of everyday life as the building blocks for worship so that young people are enabled to encounter God in the everyday and ordinary things of life.
Youth is a stage of life characterised by passion. Sadly the opposite can sometimes be said of church. Older generations in church are afraid of the passion of youth and sometimes seem to prefer worship to be predictable, safe or routine. Kenda Creasy Dean had just published what I think is the best book on youth ministry for quite some time ‘Practising Passion: Youth and the Quest For A Passionate Church’ where she advocates developing a curriculum of passion which re-engages with the ancient practises of the church as a way of enabling young people to be transformed by experiencing the Passion of God. One of those practises is worship.