worship values

Inside Worship, volume 32, is excellent. I will be quoting from several articles over the next few days. On the inside front page, Casey Corum, Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Vineyard Music, writes on the three simple values that embody Vineyard (or for that matter all) worship. These are his words on the topic.

Intimacy - This is the hallmark worship value in the Vineyard. This value demands that our worship be self-disclosing and vulnerable to God. My personal believe is that this value is not about musical style nor the volume of our music. We need to be careful, while we hold our values near and dear, that we do not export our ideas of what "intimacy" looks like to other cultures and generations. I'm a believer in "quite intimacy" as well as "loud intimacy". I believe there is room for both at the heart of this value.

Accessibility - Worship leadership assumes that someone is following. The expression of this value involves restraint on the behalf of the worship leader and team, in order to provide access to those who are attempting to worship with us. It is a pastoral approach that is concerned more about the needs of the gathered congregation than with our own personal desire to express ourselves creatively. We lead worship from a position of humility and servanthood.

Authenticity - John 2:24 states that the Father is looking of worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and truth. This value states that our lives and our expressions of worship ought to be in line with one another. Our corporate worship expression is the overflow of our individual lives, lived out minute by minute, in the presence of the Lord. This value asks us to bridge the chasm between the words of our worship and the actions of our daily lives.