What is Worship?

1. What is Worship?

2. Worship is ascribing worth to God.

3. How is that done properly?– The great can of worms.

4. Some say in the ways demanded by God – The Regulative Principle

5. Some say in the way the early church passed down to us –Traditional Worship

6. Some say in ways that appeal to a modern culture – Contemporary Worship

7. At the very least Scripture says that "everything" in worship "should be done in a fitting and orderly manner" (I Cor 14:40)

8. We should let the word of Christ dwell in us richly as we teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, as we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts to God. And whatever we do, whether in our words or deeds, we do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Col. 3:16-17)

9. These ideas or Biblical principles bring us to what is called the Emerging or the Emergent Worship movement.

10. What are some of the characteristics of Emerging or Emergent Worship that make it different from “traditional” or “contemporary” worship?

11. Each Emerging Worship Service is holistic and participatory.

12. Each worship "gathering" is unique – there is no model.

13. No cookie cutter/easy to copy style.

14. No "right" answer to the question of what an emerging worship gathering should look like.

15. What are Emerging Worshippers looking for?

16. Emerging worshippers wantmore than a weekly worship service that looks/feels like entertainment– as some of our present traditional and contemporary services feel today.

17. Instead of entertainment these worshippers want a lifestyle of worship.

18. People want community and a sense of belonging – it is a desire for more than one hour on Sunday morning.

19. Emerging Worship is a move away from worship composed of preaching and singing toward a multi-sensory approach.

24. Who are Emerging Worshippers?

25. They are people with a post-modern understanding of the world.

26. In American culture that means the Emerging Church appeals to people who have a global and pluralistic world-view. – many: gods, forms of expression, and faiths to choose from(Kimball, The Emerging Church. 59)

27. “Ethics and morals are based on personal choice, as families encourage their children to make their own decisions about religions and to be tolerant of all beliefs.” (Ibid. 68)

28. Although relativism is more of a norm in a postmodern world, most agree on some absolutes, such as the wrongness of excessive violence, murder, or evil like the September 11th tragedy.” (Ibid. 68)

29. In a postmodern culture “People increasingly long for the mystical and the spiritual rather that the evidential and fact-based faith” of modernity.(Ibid. 68)

30. There is also a shift from the individualistic to a more communal nature of society.

31. The postmodern phenomenon is not contained to only one generation – postmodernism spans several of our present generations as demonstrated in Emerging Worship Gatherings.

37. How does one begin to design a space for an Emerging Worship Service?

38. Attention given to environment to create a visual sense of sacred. Visual technology is used, but to display artistic, etc, rather than power points.

43. Candles are used to represent the light ofChrist, as the church has used for 2000 years.

44. The visuals and imagery are tremendously important, as emerging generations are very visual.

45. Emerging Gatherings use artwork, ancient crosses, ancient symbols, displays that use scripture.

50. Often curtains used to create private prayer spaces. Room gives impression of why gathering and of connection to an ancient faith.