The Father’s Day services at my church this weekend proved that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to create engaging worship experiences.

I am blessed to attend a dynamic, creative, fun, wealthy megachurch in south Orange County—but the Father’s Day worship services were meaningful because of the adjectives dynamic, creative, and fun—not the adjectives wealthy or “mega.” I love that while our leadership takes Jesus seriously, takes the Great Commission seriously, and takes faith seriously, they don’t take themselves seriously. The combination consistently creates an atmosphere of authenticity, informality and family.

Many churches do the “which father has traveled the farthest to be here” routine, and I cringed when the service headed that direction after several minutes of high energy music (including the ESPN theme song to kick off the service!). But true to form, a few of our associate pastors added enough uniqueness to make this trite idea seem like new. Half a dozen La-Z-Boy recliners and overstuffed sofas sat along the perimeter of the floor seats, and the guys who won the “newest father” or “most involved father” titles got to spend the rest of the service reclining in these comfy seats. Jeff and Bruce kept it moving (very important with this kind of thing) and prompted laughs with their creative emceeing. The newest father—a dad for just under three months—received a pillow and blanket and permission to nap in his recliner during the service; after identifying the most involved dad in the 3,000 seat auditorium as one who participated in “only” three of his kids’ activities, Jeff handed him a copy of How to Say No and remarked, “Apparently most of the dads here have read this already.”

The service continued with our worship minister sharing a story about his dad’s love and forgiveness. At the end of the story, he invited dad and the other three members of dad’s Southern Gospel quartet to share a song or two. It was done with excellence, of course, or it wouldn’t have made the stage, but the musical skill became secondary to the enjoyment of praising God together—especially when four of our worship ministry staff joined the quartet for a rollicking finale. (I couldn’t help thinking that for all of our focus on postmodern, “contemporary” worship, it’s funny how people always go crazy for this kind of thing.)

The sermon brought things back to a more serious place, but I noticed the same focus on the church-as-community. One of the most meaningful moments I’ve experienced at church in some time came when the minister talked about how God provides for us as a heavenly father. He commended fathers for honoring God by faithfully providing for their own families, and a short video showed children and adults of all ages thanking their dads. Finally, he asked all the fathers and grandfathers to stand, and the congregation erupted in several minutes of applause, whistles, and cheers—a simple thank you for the dads and husbands who work so hard. When we finally stopped our applause, the minister led us in a prayer of blessing for all the men standing.

Your church’s worship minister may not have a dad who travels with a gospel quartet, but I bet someone in your congregation could share a meaningful story of how her dad demonstrated God’s grace during a difficult time. You may not have a laugh-out-loud-funny associate to “work the crowd” on Sunday morning or a volunteer to deliver recliners on Saturday afternoon, but you could create your own way to “un-cliché” the usual traditions. You definitely could clap for your dads, pray for your dads, and thank your dads.

These ideas had little to do with the location or size of my church, and everything to do with thinking about ministry, about overly-familiar Hallmark holidays, and about church in creative ways. We don’t have great weekend services like this because we’re a big church—we’re a big church because we have great weekend services like this, and our community responds.