WorshipTraining

Course Description

Welcome to Essentials In Worship Values.

In this online module, you are about to join other worship leaders, artists, worshipers and spiritual influencers, across streams of the Church and across the world, in exploring themes in biblical worship values and spiritual formation. The ideas we will explore are absolutely vital to every 21st century worship leader, creative influencer and worshiper.

Values are “big stone” ideas in our lives, both as worshipers and as communities, that give context to all of our choices and activities as worshiping people. In reflecting on worship values, we want to answer these kinds of questions:

“How do we go about deciding what to do in worship expression on any given Sunday/event with so many differing perspectives on what worship is all about?”

“How do we communicate the essential values that Jesus seemed to hold, and that our unique faith community holds, through the ways that we express worship?”

“What can we learn from ideas such as intimacy, integrity, accessibility, cultural relevance and Kingdom expectation that might form more humble, passionate, servant-hearted and devoted Christians in our faith community over time?”

These are not easy questions to ask, nor are they easy to answer. However, if we will prayerfully pursue the heart of God in these questions, we will find Him eager to invite us into living truth – truth that can stand powerfully in a postmodern world.

Essentials In Worship Values is a synthesis of a few essential values that we hope will provide a fresh sense of “centering” on important things as you progress as a worshiper, leader of worship, pastoral overseer or creative artist.

This course is designed to be about 6 hours of work for you each week for 4 weeks (10 hours/week for those taking it for university credit), leaving plenty of space to keep life going as you learn rather than putting everything on hold. In this way, the course is a “taste” of some of the deeper worship theological, historical and cultural work of our Learning Community, but is enough to fasten us to essential ideas that should form our daily worship activity and leadership.

We will explore four fundamental worship values that have seemed to be vital to the Church in almost every generation, and that might shape and renew our contemporary worship expression today. We will look together at the worship values of Intimacy, Integrity, Accessibility, Cultural Connection and Kingdom Expectation, and then briefly introduce spiritual formation ideas that will form your own values of the heart.

Weekly reflections on the readings and content of the week will be posted by you and other participants (how we will do this will be explained in the next few pages), and an ongoing community conversation among an international online class will take place. At the conclusion of the course, you will create a final project that will directly serve your local church, and further the worship experience of your local community.

Your class will be led, guided and facilitated by your Course Moderator, Will Bernard, to whom you will be formally introduced at the beginning of the course. I will lead the content of the course, participate in the opening and closing calls, participate in the ongoing conversations, and contribute the primary media teaching for each week. Your course moderator will lead you weekly through the course content.

Through this course you’ll develop a fresh worship worldview and become an integral part of our internationally growing family of “lifelong learners”.

Again, welcome to Essentials In Worship Values.

With friendship,

Dan Wilt

Learning Director
WorshipTraining.com

Course Objectives

As a result of taking this course, participants should be able to:

1. Define terms such as intimacy, integrity, accessibility, cultural relevance and Kingdom expectation.
2. Identify key spiritual formation ideas that could aid us in sustaining our followership of Jesus across a lifetime.
3. Demonstrate an ability to effectively discuss and apply the values reflected upon into their role in their local faith community or wider sphere of influence.
4. Identify the worship values that seem to currently move your church in worship planning and activity, and contrast them with the values represented here.
5. Integrate introductory spiritual formation practices into one’s every day life as a Christian.
6. Our goal is for the participant to value the discussion of values related to worship and its leadership, and also to integrate helpful ideas into their personal devotional walk.