Blog October 2024

Why is Worship Central?

As a worship team, we spent most of our practice time last year going through the Worship Central course led by Tim Hughes & Al Gordon. Over 7 months we listened to their teachings, learnt from them and listened to how God was speaking to us through it. The first session was named Why is Worship Central and it’s no coincidence that I chose it as the title for this month’s blog. I would love to share with you some of the things we heard through last year and the ways that has played out in our worship this year.

Whether we want to or not, we all worship something or someone because that’s who we are created to be. Who or what we worship, is a response to things we value most in our lives. God does not force us to worship Him, nor does He need our worship but when the object of our worship is the creator who created us to be worshipful beings, something wonderful happens. It is this beautiful exchange where we find our identity as sons and daughters in Jesus and connect with our real purpose. We exist to worship (Isaiah 43:7).

True and genuine worship is our wholehearted response to recognising who God is and what He has done for us and in light of that, realising who we are and our relationship with Him. Relationship is at the very heart of worship. To see Him as Holy and Glorious, Almighty and King, Lord and Saviour and to realise that we are not those things. To worship God is to align our hearts and souls with His will and submit to Him, offering ourselves willingly (Romans 12:1).

Sometimes we can see worship as another thing we must do, a task. We can get caught in the trap of rituals and techniques, restricting God to our own customs and traditions thinking that it’s only worship if we do this and that. Or coming away from church thinking that we didn’t really connect with the worship or get a lot out of it. The truth is worship is not about us or for us at all. Worship is only about and only ever will be about Jesus (Deut 6:13). We should look at worship as a gift. A gift that we come to give but one through which we also receive – there’s that sense of exchange again. When we make that choice, to sit at His feet and not let anything distract us or get in the way of that moment, we are transformed, from the inside out. And it’s from that place of transformation, exchange and relationship that we can then go out and serve. We are called to worship first, serve second (Luke 10:38-42).

The end of the worship central course lined up neatly with the weekend away last year where we were led in worship by our guests Jonty and Mirkku. Off the back of the teachings from the course and the weekend away, we looked into how we felt we were being called to enlarge the site of our tent in the context of our worship at St Mark’s. This manifested in a couple of ways which I’m sure you will have noticed. One is the addition of our new drum kit and cymbals, for which I must give thanks to all who contributed. We felt that in order to raise the level of our worship and give the best of what we have to offer, the old electric kit had served its purpose and needed to be replaced. We also took the decision to try moving the band into the chancel for a number of reasons. It is certainly not about making ourselves the centre of attention, but it is about making our worship central. There are also some practical reasons for the move. The new drum kit doesn’t fit in the old band area, meaning it would need to be placed back in the lady chapel making it difficult to communicate when leading worship and also disconnecting the drummer from the rest of the band. From a technical standpoint, it’s also far better to have microphones behind the main speakers rather than in front of them which can be a cause of feedback issues.

The initial feedback we heard was positive with people saying that they did feel the level of our worship had been raised. But we are aware it has also bought some challenges and ones we know we haven’t fully fathomed out yet. One being the sound levels with the new kit which have been difficult to balance at times. Hopefully, you will have seen that we are trying a few things out in this domain with the addition of the drum screen, trying the drums in different places and soon the placement of some foam panels to better absorb the sound. The other thing we’ve heard and recognise is that the wires do look untidy in some places. This is something that we could do more with such as running them under the floor once we decide whether we’re staying there permanently or not. It’s also been difficult for us as a worship team. We’ve had a lot of new tech to get to grips with figuring out in ear monitors and figuring out the best place for everyone to stand so as not to feel too far away from the congregation.

At a recent practice, we met to discuss some of these challenges with Hennie and spent time praying into them and talking them through. Whilst we prayed, one of us had a vision of a massive wave by the beach. But instead of heading inland, the wave was heading out to sea where it got deeper and there were more unknowns. However, we felt that this was an encouragement from the Lord to keep pressing on and riding that wave. As I’ve reflected on this since, I’ve had the sense that this wave does have a destination and will not go on indefinitely. We also had a picture of a jigsaw puzzle with some missing pieces which felt quite obvious at the time. We know there are still pieces of the puzzle to find, and we haven’t got everything quite right yet but we’re working towards it.

If last year was a year of listening and learning, this year has been a year of trying to put all of that into practice. And I think it’s fair to say it’s been a journey for both the wider congregation and the worship band alike. As we go from here, my hope and prayer is that we navigate these next steps together as a church. Ultimately, this has to be and has always been about how God is glorified most at St Mark’s. We’re aiming to make a decision as to whether we stay in the chancel or not by the end of the year. Please continue to be praying for wisdom and discernment and thank you for riding the wave with us so far.

Andy Myers