Plan to gather yourself and/or your worship team to participate via interactive livestream! If these dates don’t work for you, all sessions are recorded so you can have your own “roundtable” long-range worship planning retreat at your convenience. You are invited to participate in this retreat for free! The Greater Northwest Area UMC purchased access for all the churches in your region. Click below to register.
This year we celebrate 30 years of teaching from Dr. Marcia McFee and 15 years of Worship Design Studio! Dr. Marcia will gather expert theologians and artists around a literal roundtable for conversation and ideas for each liturgical season as YOU and your team tune into the livestream and work around your own roundtable to plan worship for the 2023-2024 liturgical year. Join us live (there will be fun recipes for each session so we can all cook and eat together), or use the recordings to have your planning retreat at a more convenient time for your team.
This year we celebrate 30 years of teaching from Dr. Marcia McFee and 15 years of Worship Design Studio! Dr. Marcia will gather expert theologians and artists around a literal roundtable for conversation and ideas for each liturgical season as YOU and your team tune into the livestream and work around your own roundtable to plan worship for the 2023-2024 liturgical year. Join us live (there will be fun recipes for each session so we can all cook and eat together), or use the recordings to have your planning retreat at a more convenient time for your team.
"I have gotten a great deal of insight, help, and fun out of this [event]. It is the best thing my conference has done for me in regard to worship! Thank you."
- L.T., past continuing education offering participant
"Our worship team really enjoyed this event and found it incredibly helpful! . . . We each acknowledged that this was the single most useful and helpful event / conference any of us have ever been a part of!"
- R.P., past planning retreat participant
"This is the first time I've done the planning retreat with my staff rather than alone. It's been awesome! May have to re-watch some sections because great ideas took off and developed in real time. We've already got a year's worth of new development that everyone's excited about."
- D.N., past planning retreat participant
Your conference leaders purchased access for all the churches in your conference to participate in this retreat at no cost to you! All you need to do is fill out the form below to register your church for this livestream event. We will send you a confirmation email and more details about how to access the Worship Design Studio website and the livestream event as the date approaches. If you have any questions about this offer, please contact us at [email protected]. Read more about the retreat content and schedule below this sign-up form.
Note: This form is intended only for members of the Greater Northwest Area UMC. If you belong to another group and would like to participate in the retreat, contact us!
Our retreat will be live-streamed from Kansas City, the new home of Worship Design Studio, at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Community Christian Church, featuring Kansas City Jazz, Artists, and Theologians.
Immerse yourself in a time of evaluating where you are in your worship and where you want to go! Long-range worship planning is not just about picking scriptures, making sermon titles, and choosing anthems. It is an opportunity to assess elements that work or need improvement, and to reimagine the possibilities. Dr. Marcia McFee guides you in a process of tending to all these needs so that you finish the retreat with renewed excitement, stronger purpose, and clearer objectives for the year ahead. This is the greatest gift you can give yourselves as leaders in this moment as we continue to navigate changes in our churches and the world.
The “roundtable” is our anchor image for our time this year. Gather your team around your own table, feed yourselves with food for the body, heart, mind, and soul.
Back before podcasts were “all the rage,” Dr. Marcia gathered four worship experts around a virtual table before every liturgical season to talk about the theological themes of the season and the possibilities for series based on the RCL Lectionary and otherwise. Thousands of people began to listen to these podcasts and Dr. McFee discovered the hunger of leaders, worship artists, and preachers to connect around creating “M-M-Good” worship (meaningful and memorable). Fifteen years ago, the outgrowth of the podcast turned into an annual gathering of pastors and worship teams to do long-range planning for the upcoming liturgical year. Countless churches of varying sizes, denominations, and styles have benefited from the exciting presentations and planning process for making vital, rich, and meaningful worship in churches.
Back before podcasts were “all the rage,” Dr. Marcia gathered four worship experts around a virtual table before every liturgical season to talk about the theological themes of the season and the possibilities for series based on the RCL Lectionary and otherwise. Thousands of people began to listen to these podcasts and Dr. McFee discovered the hunger of leaders, worship artists, and preachers to connect around creating “M-M-Good” worship (meaningful and memorable). Fifteen years ago, the outgrowth of the podcast turned into an annual gathering of pastors and worship teams to do long-range planning for the upcoming liturgical year. Countless churches of varying sizes, denominations, and styles have benefited from the exciting presentations and planning process for making vital, rich, and meaningful worship in churches.
This year we celebrate 30 years of teaching from Dr. Marcia McFee and 15 years of Worship Design Studio!
We are honoring our history by hearkening back to the early days of WDS with the roundtable of wisdom shared by guest experts, and welcoming a new chapter as WDS headquarters relocates to Kansas City, MO. And the gift of modern technology means that you are invited to join in the festivities! Whether you have been a long-time fan of Dr. Marcia McFee and user of WDS materials or are just learning about us for the first time, there's a seat for you and your church at this table. We hope you'll join us for education, inspiration, and resources for worship.
Special Roundtable Guests include renowned Kansas City theologians, musicians, and visual artists!
When you purchase access to the livestream sessions, you also get access to the private 2023 Planning Retreat Group on our website that has lots of notes and planning resources AND access to the whole community of churches that will be part of this exciting jump-start to the liturgical year. AND you get access to our new “Come to the Table” 5-week fully-scripted worship series so you have September through World Communion Sunday planned immediately! We KNOW your congregation will benefit from this vibrant series that helps us see the centrality of hospitality in our Christian faith!
You are never alone. You never have to start from scratch.
Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your team and its ministry of worship!
All times outlined below are in Central time. Use a timezone converter website to see what time that is where you are. All sessions are recorded and will be available to registrants as soon as each session is over and throughout the year (forever!).
Sunday evening (7 PM): THE CREATIVE PROCESS AND THE LITURGICAL YEAR – We'll lay the groundwork with a look at planning seasonally, team processes, timelines and how to get the most out of your time at this planning retreat.
Monday morning (9 AM): THE ADVENT/CHRISTMAS/EPIPHANY CYCLE – Make plans to start the liturgical year off with deeply meaningful worship that has people talking about "the best Advent season ever." You may choose to use one of Worship Design Studio's fully-scripted series to give yourself a great foundation for training your team in more sensory-rich worship and give you an even greater chance of getting planned WAY ahead.
Monday afternoon (1 PM): THE LENTEN SEASON – Dr. Marcia will offer you glimpses into the possible depths you can offer your congregation in this poignant season that offers personal and communal transformation. We will highlight the power of symbols and spiritual practices that flow easily between worship and home, connecting what we do in worship to our daily lives.
Monday night (8 PM): HOLY WEEK – The Holy Week session is an immersive and unforgettable worship experience that illustrates how spoken word, music, visual symbols, and ritual action can all work together to share a powerful message.
Tuesday morning (9 AM): FREE TIME – after four packed sessions, you'll be ready to sleep in, check in with your team, go for a walk, or you may just want to use the time continuing to plan.
Tuesday afternoon (1 PM): EASTER CYCLE AND THE DAY OF PENTECOST – Easter is not just one Sunday, but a whole season! This session will focus on Easter Sunday through Pentecost and the rich journeys your congregation may be ready to embark on during a season that celebrations resurrection and new life.
Tuesday evening (7 PM): THE SUNDAYS AFTER PENTECOST – We'll look at how to manage and plan for this long season, making "ordinary time" extraordinary! Our goal here is to spark many, many ideas that you can easily develop for the second half of the year.
Wednesday morning (9 AM, finished by 11am): CONTINUING THE PROCESS – Now that we have broad brush strokes planned for the year, this session will help you know what to do when you go home, how to keep the creativity flowing, manage teamwork and how to get to the nitty-gritty of planning details without falling back into a last-minute rut.
