Ranges Community Church

One of the things that I’ve been following lately is some comments by prominant leaders of forge on worship on Daryl Gardiner’s web site “Angry and Shallow”, with two posts here and here.

I suppose you could loosely summarise the presented argument that worship should be action, focused toward the poor.
It caused me to ponder some of the ‘traditional’ values of worship held by the Vineyard. Wimber wrote an article on intimacy in worship – you can see it on Vineyard Dock. What interested me was there was no mention of worship as a sense of mission or evangelism.
What heartened me was Gibbs and Coffey in Church Next comments on worship – taking in a lot what Wimber had to say on intimacy, but seeing worship as a form of evangelism itself. They describe worship as being attractional in itself to Spiritual seekers. Some of the characteristics which are needed are

-nearness a sense of God’s presence

-Knowledge  worship centred on Christ

-Vulnerability opening up to God.

-Interaction participating in a relationship with God and others

The other mix to the argument that Gibbs and Coffey mentioned was that Worship should be a change agent ‘A true encounter with God leaves us with a lot more than good feelings. It leaves us with changed hearts and calls us to changed lives. Very simply, to experience Gods’ presence is to be transformed from the inside out.’

Maybe this is a Chicken before the egg senario – our encounter with God motivates us to do good deeds, doing good deeds motivates a longing for bringing in more of Gods presence.
So my conclusion been that yep the heart matters al ot but the medium of how you get there is up to you and God. It may be serving the poor or singing Hillsong in a small home fellowship or a mega church. For me I’ve done both, serving on the streets of San Fransico and having amazing revelation, and singing worship songs in a congregation and experiencing amazing intimacy.