Our nation has a rich musical history in which church music plays a major role. Current tendencies in Christian music, especially worship music, display a certain one-sidedness in their musical and textual message.

People are searching for meaning and spiritual experience: they long for authentic worship. In many churches they find musical events which produce temporary excitement but which are, in the long term, exhausting.

Worship is a central area of the life of the church, providing a place where it is feels easy to fix one’s gaze on the Centre of our faith. Leaders and musicians working together in a church service need a sound understanding and a biblical foundation on the subject of worship.

1. Worship & Praise

2. Personal Worship

3. Seminar programme

4. Creative Worship

1. Worship and Praise

An attempt to distinguish them

"He predestined us … to the praise of his glorious grace." Eph. 1,5f

 The Father is looking for worshippers; he is not addicted to music, but longs to meet with his children.  see Jn. 4,23

Both have their starting point in being and not in doing. In both cases, it is not the product that is important, nor is it is my “sanctified” life-style, but my being, my undivided heart.  "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Dt. 6,5

We are predestined to praise, "placed for His praise" in daily life. We are called to testify to the blessings and truths of the King in everyday life, to encourage people, to bring hope in difficult situations, to proclaim the goodness of the Lord even in the face of the enemy’s attacks.

In the fellowship: we have the task of comforting and encouraging each other, to be attentive to our neighbour and to bring him into contact with the hope of heaven, to think prophetically and to act in keeping with 1 Cor. 14,3 and Eph. 5,19.

Worship arises from an overflowing heart, it cannot be commanded. What we worship rules us, so God wishes us to worship him, for it is in this atmosphere that divine love can work on us, change and heal us, bring us to our true identity. His wish is to fill our centre, for this is how we will achieve freedom. Where the Spirit of God governs, there is freedom, trust in God.

The first mention of worship in the Bible is found with Abraham.

He says: "Stay here … We will worship and then we will come back to you." Gen. 22,5

What is happening in the worship here? Abraham is prepared to give everything to God, even his entire future and vision. He sets out in obedience and in the belief that he has heard correctly.  In the conflict in verse 13 he turns his gaze away from the problem and sees what God has provided. The worshipper knows that God will react: we will come back! God will provide for me and my son!

These are the questions:

On what am I fixing my gaze? What is occupying the centre of my life? What thoughts dominate my everyday life? Who am I?

Worship is a natural reaction, holistic, with an individual character. Everyone has their own forms of expression, and there is no place here for making comparisons with others.

2 Sam. 6, 20ff

2. Personal Worship

My prayer develops into music

In worship we need fixed traditional elements, liturgy just as much as spontaneous, new songs or new and different forms adapted to the situation.

Our deepest need is to be allowed to be honest, to be taken seriously, all of which is especially true in worship before God.

Being in God’s presence, having fellowship with him, waiting for His words: what friendship this is – the Creator and me!

Whether I sing a Psalm and play or improvise a song – this should be an authentic expression of my heart. The bible promises that in worship renewal, healing and inner growth take place.

"You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence." Acts 2, 28 

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness…" 2 Cor. 3,18

Music from the depths

from the burden to a song

Habakkuk 3,19 b

"To the chief singer on my stringed instruments." and tells us: this text, in this difficult situation, is, astonishingly, to be sung!

 Habakuk is bent down under a load. He is confused, his heart is heavy, full of affliction and emotional conflicts. In this situation he needs a solution.

Hab. 1,2

"How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?"

 Problem: my prayer is not answered.

1,3

"Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds."

Problem: the righteous man suffers, the evil-doer enjoys good things.

1, 4

"Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted." 

 Problem: God seems to tolerate evil.

“How long” and “why” – these words introduce us to the problem – but not to the solution!

 He speaks, raises his voice to God, sings calling and crying out, then gives God a chance to speak to him. He decides to wait for God.

 2,1

"I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint."

2, 2-4

"Then the LORD replied: Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous will live by their faithfulness."

3,2

"LORD, I have heard your message;" says Habakkuk.

 Habakkuk cried out – God answered – the man heard and – was changed.

The change in Habakkuk’s heart is described in chap. 3,17-18, although the external circumstances still look difficult:

„Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour."

God does not always changes our circumstances. In reality, He much more frequently uses the circumstances to change us. Once we have changed, it is often unimportant whether the circumstances then change.

3. Seminar Description

Target Group

• Worships who want to grow spiritually, musically and personally;
• Musicians with a wish in their hearts to serve in the church and who want to know more about the power of worship;
• Creative people who want to win the arts back in order to discover forms of expression for worship in the church;

Conditions

The participants in a worship seminar should feel the wish to come nearer to God, no matter what this costs. They should be prepared to explore new paths in musical and artistic expression, keeping the encounter with God in the centre of the picture.

These seminars are intended to give people a sense of security and enable mutual appreciation to be expressed, to make God’s presence tangible and to change us.

Aim

Participants should discover their own very individual spirituality and learn to take on more responsibility spiritually. They should receive help to lay aside hindering expectations, to take steps at their own responsibility in God’s presence towards finding personal freedom in their musical expression and to experience a new unity: unity in variety, not in uniformity.

New forms are to interact with traditional ones. It is not a question of our personal taste, but of one goal only: we want to worship God together.

For musicians in particular:

They should develop an understanding of their role within the framework of a church service and learn how to open this framework for a meeting with God.

Elements of the Seminar

1. Personal worship

Expressing oneself "authentically"

Singing and playing psalms

Re-think lifestyle, identity, picture of God

2. Worship in fellowship

Worship according to the inner ear without programme

Concept of fellowship: "When you come together, everyone has ... "

Opening up “room to play” where each can experiment with familiar and unfamiliar forms of expression

3. Help for musicians

Creating songs

Arranging a musical theme with variations

Training musical sensitivity

Musical frameworks for "open" times

Process analysis: how does the Holy Spirit work?

4.   !! Seminar Programme "Creative Worship"

A seminar form involving cooperation amongst different artists (poetry, painting, dance, prophetic drums, drum circle…), organised by Crescendo twice a year.

This seminar can also be put on together with local organisers.

Aim:

Many areas of art which play an important role in our history and which are lying dormant in the hearts of many worshippers were once practised in the church to the glory of God. The seminar aims to rediscover these and make them accessible again.

Believers are to be set free from religious pressure to perform and to experience freedom in personal expression, in simply being and relaxing in God’s presence.

Elements of the Seminar

1. Workshops are offered in these fields: dance - painting - drum circle - music - poetry.

Each participant is free to make his own decision as which area he wishes to re-capture.

Qualifications: none

2. In the plenum, all the arts come together and join in shared worship to which each contributes as he is able.

Dialogues develop between painters and dancers, or …

 Feedback from participants

“What happened went beyond all I had imagined. From the first to the last note, God took me with Him on a journey of discovery such as I have had never experienced before.”

 “I am still astonished today over the power with which I danced around the room; that can only have been God’s power!”

 “During my musical contribution in this fellowship I experienced a liberty and carefreeness which I had not known in this form in my normal life.”