About once a month our church hosts a night of praise and worship, preaching, and meditation. It’s geared toward our youth, but opened up to the entire community and based on a format recommended by Lifeteen they call XLT. This is an example of what we did last week at our most recent event. Whether you are involved at a Catholic or Evangelical church, this format would provide a great evening of worship.
7:30pm Music begins, we welcome all gathered and the band plays about 3 songs. This particular week we did I Will Follow You, Our God, and Open My Eyes Lord.
7:50pm We have a speaker preach. We had a parishioner give a testiony about their faith journey and mission trips to Poland and Kenya.
8:10pm We move into meditation. In the catholic tradition we have Eucharistic Adoration where a priest processes in the blessed sacrament. Here are a few of the songs we led:
- I Love You Lord
- In the Silence
- We only made it through two, but other examples might be Revelation Song, From the Inside Out, Your Love is Extravagant, None But Jesus. We usually do 5 or more, but this particular week our speaker was longer.
8:45pm Benediction. We have a a traditional song that begins “Down in Adoration” and after the priest blesses everyone, we sing the Devine Praises which is a prayer praising God and many of the saints.
8:55 Close with a couple of upbeat songs. We did Everything Glorious and Everyday.
This format works well because it gives you the chance to use music to move through the evening. During the meditation or Adoration we often lead a song or two and then 4-5 minutes of silence. It’s inspiring to be in a filled room where everyone is silently in prayer.
Do you have any prayer services that seem to work for your church or youth group? Let me know how you do it?