ABSTRACT
In a sense, all Christian worship is experiential. In the Celebratory church, the believers experience the grace of God via the Sacrament of Eucharist. In the Evangelical church believers hear the word of God and experience salvation or find a sense of direction for living. For some churches, however, it is the experience that defines the worship. Even though we might be hard pressed to find a church that claims to worship in the experiential style, it is clear that there are a significant number of churches that conduct worship in a manner that emphasizes the experience. In these churches the worship service can only be described as a performance, and they don't seem to be troubled by this at all. This stands in stark contrast to the celebratory style, especially the Roman Catholic version where referring to the Mass as a performance would be seen as a grave insult. When there is an emphasis on experience, worship takes on a unique quality, which has important ramifications for acoustics and media systems. The experiential church is likely to have sophisticated media systems that are a significant part of the experience.
