The mission of the United Methodist Podcast is strengthening the connection in the United Methodist Church for the purpose of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. In Episode #006 of The United Methodist Podcast Dr. Brad Miller has a delightful conversation with Dr. Marcia McFee about designing creative and transformative worship experiences. Dr. McFee is the author of the new book "Think Like a Filmmaker: Sensory Rich Worship Designs for Unforgettable Messages" and owns Worship Designs Studios a company which provides a multitude of resources designed to assist local church worship teams to implement sensory rich and creative worship experiences which integrate the faith narrative with artistic endeavors. Dr. McFee shares with Dr. Miller how her love of the arts and the church were first formed and nurtured in her small hometown church in Missouri which allowed her, as a 12-year-old, to dance and sing and and celebrate her artistic passions. She went on to have a professional career in dance and theater traveling the world with a New York City-based theater company. During the height of her artistic career she was moved by the writing of Rev. Cecil Williams Pastor Glide Memorial UMC-San Francisco, "if you're doing doesn't dance with your sayin’-you haven’t chosen life.” She felt her call to ministry with the certainty that artistic expression would be the focal point of her ministry. Dr. McFee believes every body involved with worship should see themselves as an artist and a local church worship team should see themselves as designing worship not planning worship. Designing worship is theologians seeing themselves as artists and designing worship as a creative process of telling the greatest story ever told in a meaningful and memorable way. The purpose is to form us (the worshipper) to take the message into the world as it is informed our lives. In writing "Think Like a Filmmaker" Dr. McFee found that some of the most amazing and provocative storytellers are filmmakers who are able to take important profound messages and tell a memorable story in a few minutes time. She set out to learn from filmmakers about applicable principles to tell the biblical narrative in such a way that local church worship experiences become stories worth talking about beyond the walls of the church. McFee surmised that watching movies is a common experience to virtually all people and that there are transferable principles to designing sensory rich worship. Dr. McFee shares with Dr. Miller about how her approach to designing worship has helped transform local churches by giving them the tools to jump start their own creative processes so that local church can respond to what Dr. McFee considers the most important question which is "how can we embody what we proclaim?" Dr. Marcia McPhee also tells Dr. Miller about how skiing is a spiritual experience for her so much of that that she even wrote a book about. Episode 006 of the United Methodist podcasts is chock-full of helpful tips, inspiration and strategy how local churches can create meaningful and memorable worship experiences which transform the world. Episode 006 of United Methodist podcast is sponsored by the book "Meet the Good People" by Rev. Dr. Roger Ross and supports Mission Guatemala (MissionGuatemala.com). The mission of The United Methodist Podcast is strengthening the connection in the United Methodist Church for the purpose of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.