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Worship The purpose of worship at New Hope One of the core values at New Hope is worship. Many new visitors to New Hope are immediately struck that our worship is somehow "different," but seldom can they identify what that difference is. You could say that our goal is "worship that connects." The purpose of our worship services is to connect Christians with God, but also to connect non-Christians with God. Connecting non-Christians to God
Connecting Chrtistians to God First of all, our purpose is to help Christians actually meet God, to come into His presence. The preaching aims to be intelligent and instructional, while the music aims to be excellent and beautiful, but our goals extends past education and aesthetics. Those are just means to the real goal. We know God has a living, personal presence, and we seek on Sundays to usher participants toward it. Our philosophy of worship thus recognizes that worship is really unmanageable, and therefore each service is an adventure. We cannot control the presence of God! Since we believe so strongly that real worship cannot be programmed, you will not find us doing a lot to work up people's emotions in an artificial way. The worship leaders may be intense, but will not directly work on people's emotions or wills. They will point to God and Christian truths and ask God to come down. There are not a lot of gimmicks-the worship services are pretty straightforward and basic in format. Of course, God is always present when we meet, but there are clearly times when he breaks through in a special way. Sometimes his presence seems to rest mild and sweet on the meeting, while other times it can be powerful, convicting, and even disturbing. And we look forward with anticipation to worship experiences that go far beyond anything we have witnessed so far. So, the first responsibility of the Christian attendees at New Hope is to sharpen their expectations for worship. If you come from other churches you may need to retrain your instincts. On the one hand, you may have been trained to expect a rather dry, spectator-ish, cognitive experience, in which the service is just seen as a few housekeeping items before the lecture (sermon). On the other hand, you may have been trained to work yourself up into a cathartic experience. Neither of these approaches is healthy, for neither really trust in God as the author of worship. Though the music can be moving, the primary goal is not to be entertained. Though the preaching is designed to make you think, the primary goal is not to be intellectually stimulated. You must come expecting God to illuminate you, to have major flashes of self-discovery, to have spiritual surgery done on your hearts, to be transformed and remade. You must come expecting to meet God.
Connecting non-Chrtistians to God Secondly, our purpose is to help people who don't know God (or don't know what they believe) meet God. In 1 Corinthians 14:23 Paul indicates that we should expect in worship people who are both hostile to the faith or seeking the truth. Therefore, Paul also insists that Christians are not to worship in such a way that is unintelligible to non-Christians. We seek to plan and conduct our services to both build up the believer and also welcome and challenge the unbelieving. We seek to avoid lots of Christian "in jargon." We explain what is happening in the service as we go along. We often directly address and welcome people who do not have faith, or who are seeking. And the preaching is careful to continually address the concerns and issues that non-believers have with the Christian faith. We always seek to remember what it is like not to believe, and we do our best to treat with respect someone's questions and difficulties with Christianity. So, the second responsibility of Christian attendees at New Hope is to use the worship service as a way to reach out to others in the community. We want to have non-Christian friends in mind as we plan our services. New Hope is a good place for your non-Christian associates to come and be introduced to Christianity. Our prayer is that many will follow the pattern that Paul mentions: the secrets of his heart will be revealed, so he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is truly among you!" |
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