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By Mark Schoeff, Jr.
UMConnection Correspondent

On Sundays in most churches, people are greeted at the door and handed a bulletin. Although it may seem routine, what?s contained in the bulletin ? the liturgy ? could determine whether worship is meaningful.

'The worst thing we can do is go through the motions of worship without having enough substance that feeds and challenges the congregation to be good disciples,' said the Rev. Laurence Stookey, professor of preaching and worship at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

'If somebody hasn?t thought it out, then you?re going in every direction at once,' he added. 'If you cover the whole landscape, then every week seems like every other week, and people get bored. You have to do whatever you can do to make (liturgy) seem authentic, so that it wrestles with the deep questions of human life.'

Pastors should put as much time and thought into the liturgy as they do into sermons, say the experts.

'Great care must be taken, for liturgy is a primary tool by which we teach the faith,' said the Rev. Peter DeGroote, associate minister at Foundry UMC in Washington. 'If liturgy is slapdash, Christian lives are likely to follow suit. If it is all about repeating doctrine, we encourage conformance, discouraging wonder and mystery. If it seeks only to comfort, it hides the challenges of Jesus.'

How Jesus is experienced can vary. One way that churches in the Baltimore-Washington Conference are trying to attract new people is by experimenting with worship and liturgical styles.

Mount Oak UMC in Mitchellville offers three services, two on Sunday mornings ? traditional at 8:30 a.m., contemporary at 10:30 a.m. ? and an alternative service at 6 p.m. on Saturdays. None rely on a formal liturgy printed in a bulletin.

'A lot of people like the freedom of the contemporary and alternative services,' said the Rev. David Wentz, senior minister at Mount Oak. Music is important to both. Wentz plays the saxophone in the seven-piece band that leads the contemporary service and strums the guitar at the alternative service.

'My goal is to have an uninterrupted flow that helps people move from where they are when they come into the service into a place of experiencing the reality of what Jesus said. What we?re really trying to do is be led by the Holy Spirit, and not quench the spirit or grieve the spirit,' said Wentz. 'Hopefully, when you put the pattern together, you have been led by the Holy Spirit.'

A different kind of worship pattern can be found in the Mobile Ministry program. The initiative takes the church out onto the street, connecting with people during the summer through tent ministries called Saving Stations. Services include music, a call to worship and prayer but not a written liturgy. Spiritual meaning is captured in every aspect of the Mobile Ministry experience, including setting up the parament at the site.

'The whole time we?re out there, we?re modeling what it means to be part of the kingdom of God,' said the Rev. Mike Sharp, Mobile Ministry coordinator and interim minister at Graceland UMC in Dundalk.

The mobile services are conducted without hymnals and are free form ? sometimes after the opening prayers, people begin a Bible study or do mission work. And the events are not always held in tents. In March, one church conducted a mobile service in a Washington nightclub, Cada Vez.

When people are moved spiritually, even if it?s in an unusual setting, 'that?s worship,' said Sharp. 'You have to open it up. You have to find ways to meet people where they are.'

Sharp is in the process of phasing out the bulletin at Graceland, too. 'It?s great for information dissemination, but oftentimes...it can become filler material pretty quickly,' he said.

But DeGroote believes that a good liturgy has shelf life. 'When liturgy is done well, people want to take the bulletin home and read it over again,' he said.

Many patterns of worship are legitimate as long as they are high quality, said Stookey. 'Whatever is done must be done well. Any style ... done poorly does not honor God.'