Worship Values

Values That Unites Us In Worship

• God-ward:
  Leading people to God-oriented expressions and communication that has God as the subject most distinctly requires less proclamation about what we are committing to him, and more of his glories, beauty and excellencies. We are developing a high priority of the vertical focus of our Sunday morning worship services. The ultimate aim is to so experience God that he is glorified in our affections.
• Expecting the powerful presence of God:
  We do not just direct ourselves toward him. We earnestly seek his drawing near according to the promise of James 4:8. We believe that in worship God draws near to us in power, and makes himself known and felt for our good and for the salvation of unbelievers in the midst. We see this manifestation of God as for the good of all. We expect and hope and pray that our focus on the manifesting of God is good for people and that therefore a spirit of love for each other is not incompatible with, but necessary to authentic worship. (Matt. 18:20; Phil. 2:3-4)
• Bible based and Bible saturated:
  The content of our singing and praying and welcoming and preaching will always strive to conform to the truth of Scripture. The content of God’s Word will be woven through all we do in worship and will be the ground of all our appeal to authority. This will require careful evaluation of all elements of our services. (Psalm 119:89-112; Col. 3:16)
• Head and Heart:
  We want worship that aims at kindling and carrying deep, strong, real emotions toward God, but does not manipulate people’s emotions by failing to appeal to clear thinking about spiritual things based on shareable evidences outside of ourselves. (Matt. 22:37; Luke 10:27)
• Passionate Sincerity:
  God declares he hates insincere religious activities but he loves worship that is real. We seek to develop a passionate sincerity in our expressions of worship when gathered and in private. Avoiding trite, flippant, superficial, frivolous atmosphere, but instead setting an example of reverence and passion and wonder. (Ex. 20:5; Deut. 5:9; 2 Cor. 11:3)
• Experiential Participation:
  We encourage everyone to personally enter into the experience of corporate worship. Everyone has a valuable contribution that they are encouraged to offer. We desire everyone to truly have opportunity to put their fingerprint on our worship services. (1 Cor. 14:26; Eph. 5:19,20; Col. 3:16)
• Mingling of Various Elements:
  We recognize and encourage the variety of worship expressions found in the Scriptures. We value creativity and variety. We find variety to be a joy to God and a way to help prevent patterns from becoming mundane or empty. We desire genuine freshness and life not simply variety for the sake of variety. (God’s delight in variety is seen in creation generally and specifically through the various worship expressions found throughout the Psalms)
  • Fine culture and folk culture:
    This is an affirmation that both fine culture and folk culture have merit and hold potentialities for God-glorifying goodness. Fine culture is that which puts a high priority on intellectual and artistic expressions that require extraordinary ability to produce. Folk culture is that which puts a high priority on expressions of the heart and mind that please and help average people without demanding unusual effort. Fine culture is the symphony. Folk culture is rock music. Fine culture is Shakespeare at the “Schnitz” or ancient liturgical forms of worship. Folk culture is Lord of The Rings at the theatre or contemporary worship choruses. That is, we strive for worship expressions that interest the common people gathered (folk culture), connecting with where they are and exposing them to finer expressions of worship, guiding them into a God-centeredness and a truer understanding and experience of who God is. We will try to sing and play and pray in such a way that people’s attention will not be diverted from the substance by shoddy ministry nor by excessive finesse, elegance or refinement. Natural, Undistracting excellence will let the truth and beauty of God shine through.
  • Contemporary and historic music:
    “And he said to them, Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matt. 13:52) We value the stability and contribution of the heritage of our faith and the freshness and vitality of contemporary expressions of worship.
• Focused and Free:
  God has appointed ministers and leaders with in the church, which is comprised of believer priests. Thus none is more valued, yet each has a distinct role to play. Therefore we seek to fulfill the leadership roles given by God in our worship services by encouraging the worship leaders to plan and lead the service. We see the worship leader as responsible to discern the leading of God throughout the planning and executing of our worship services. Yet authenticity would be marginalized if those being led were not allowed to freely participate in ways that are unique to them. So our service is led by the worship leader and those he/she has solicited to help. In that sense we embrace a focused approach. Yet we also encourage freedom and personal participation among all gathered. In that sense we value free participation.