Psalms Praise

Written By:
Sara Hargreaves

Themes: praise, Psalms

Type: Call To Worship, Corporate Worship Idea

Bible Refs: Psalm 1-150

You will need:

Bibles

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This is a simple idea for 'unfinished worship' - getting people to interact and participate in the leading of worship in a safe, pressure-free way. Ask people to open their Bibles at the Psalms, then sing a simple, celebratory song. After you've sung it for a few minutes, invite people to read a verse or two from the Psalms that jumps out to them. You can keep the music or rhythm going on underneath, but make sure people can be heard. In a bigger group you might need to pass a radio mic around, but if you can avoid that all the better. We've used this lots of times now, and it helps people who would never pray outloud to speak out, lead and shape the congregation's praise. You can close the activity by singing the song again.

Sara co-leads engageworship.org together with husband Sam, drawing from her experience in music, worship and youthwork. She is also a mum of two wonderful children and they all live in groovy Luton.

Comments / Responses

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Previous Comments:

Linda Nicolson

15 Jun 2009 08:44

We used this idea in our worship service last night - we sang a couple of songs and then as we went into the worship section we introduced the idea to the congregation. We sang "Here I am to Worship" (Tim Hughes) and then the people began reading out verses, while the music carried on very quietly underneath. From the front it was quite a moving experience, hearing the different voices calling out the verses of praise and declaring God's greatness, and it actually went on for much longer than we had anticipated! Thanks for a great resource!
Linda

Sam Hargreaves

15 Jun 2009 09:04

Great, so glad this was useful! We used it on Saturday morning at an event.

Graham King

29 Jun 2011 23:15

I used this a few weeks ago at a gathering to kick off our week of prayer and it had a tremendously powerful effect. I cannot recommend this enough.

We sang "Light of the World (Here I am to worship)" and the band played on quietly. It took people a few moments to kick off but then the Psalms just kept on coming.

Sara's comment about it helping people who would never pray out loud to speak out is absolutely true - people who had never spoken in one of our services joined in.

This tool was a fantastic blessing on that evening and helped tear down any division between congregation and 'them lot at the front'. It was very moving - thank you Sara and Sam!

Graham King

18 Sep 2011 22:35

... And used it again at our church weekend away this weekend on Saturday night when we wanted to build a time of celebration, praise, worship and prayer which involved everyone present, not just those 'at the front'.

It's quite hard for me to describe how powerful this was - we sang Stuart Townend's version of 'Psalm 23 (I will trust in you alone)' and then the piano kept playing as people read and joined in. It went on _far_ longer than we had anticipated but the Holy Spirit was at work. What an answer to prayers and what a great idea Sara and Sam have given The Church.

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engageworship.org and our contributors offer these resources and their time in creating them for free. Could you give a financial gift to ensure the future of this ministry?