Worship
Why does worship at the Village include music that is
dark, sometimes difficult, always changing? This
question comes up often in its various forms. To
answer it well, it’s helpful to take a look at the core values of the Village.
Accessibility
God is a sending God. He sent His Son to earth to save us.
Jesus sends His church into the world to make disciples and
preach the gospel. God and Christ have sent the Holy Spirit to aid us in our task. If you worship the God of the Bible, then you worship a missional God. How does all this apply to the music we play in our church? The music we use for worship should be missional: it needs to communicate to those who are outside. One of the key
values of the Village is accessibility. We want what happens at Vespers to be accessible to people who may have had no prior contact with the church or with Christianity. This means that the words of the songs will be rooted in the reality of human experience as well as the truth of reconciliation. And it means that the sounds of the music should connect somehow with what people have heard before in their daily lives.
Community
One of the aims of the music at the Village is to give voice to the journey of the community. This may be done by focusing on what God is teaching us through Scripture, on individual experiences, or on what is common to the community as a whole. In the Old Testament, there are several examples of songs which express praise for
specific things which God has done in relation to His people at a specific time in their history (see Exodus 15 for one example). As we come together to encourage
one another (Hebrews 10:24–25), the music we sing also serves as a reminder that worship is a whole-life event. We not only sing together, we also offer our minds, lives, bodies, and belongings to God for His glory (Romans 12:1). We love and are committed to each other. We obey God
in our daily lives. All this is worship.
Authenticity
God has put us each in a specific time and place. We want the music we sing to reflect where He has us and what we see Him doing in and around us. In a world where globalization is on the rise, the church around the world has an exciting opportunity to influence culture and point people to Christ by creating expressions of the word of Jesus that are unique to local settings.
Creativity
The Bible calls us to “sing a new song to the Lord” (Psalm
33:3). As people who were made in the image of the creator
God (Genesis 1:27), we worship by offering expressions of our own creativity. In relation to the question at hand, this applies to writing and playing music. It is also true in so many other areas of life. The Disciplines Since much of the music at the Village is based on or directly quoted from Scripture, it provides one place for the practice of meditation. It is also the setting for participation in communion and financial giving.
Truth
In John 4, Jesus speaks of worship that happens in spirit and in truth. To worship in truth is to recognize who God is. It is also to recognize the fact of the gospel. What we sing and how we live is in the context of Jesus’ sacrifice for us so that we could be forgiven and have relationship with God. We worship in response to God’s initiation and provision. Many songs in the Bible and in the history of the church were written for the purpose of teaching truth. For this reason, we seek to utilize music which is theologically accurate. In fact, Colossians 3:16 tells us to teach and admonish each other with spiritual songs. We also use hymns and prayers from earlier
eras of the church in appreciation for the understanding of truth that they represent and in recognition of the connectedness that is within the body of Christ through time. |