When it comes to all things worship at Vancouver Church, the most important thing we all need to remember is that it’s about God. That’s why I wrote this in a post early on:
Psalm 115:1 “Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.” I’m guessing that many of you have read this psalm before, and probably even heard the Chris Tomlin Song “Not to us.” And for a while, the idea behind the song was embraced by many worship leaders (which is not limited to just me…) and worshipers. But, it seems that for some worship has become about us, with God being secondary.
For us, this cannot be the case.
It’s pretty simple really, If it’s not about God, we’re not about it. Let me expound on that a little. When our preferences in worship become primary and giving God the glory becomes secondary it’s no longer worship. At least not worship of God. We may be worshiping a style or form, but not God. That’s why you hear me say: “If it’s not about God, we’re not about it.”
There are so many opportunities for us as a church to get distracted. We can get distracted with good thing, but we get distracted. But we can’t do good things and neglect the best things. That’s why we have to be about God and Not to us.
This is our core value. This is the fail-safe. If we do nothing else, we must do this. This is the fundamental of worship. As with any sport, we have to be excellent at the fundamentals. You don’t win football games without being able to tackle. You don’t win Basketball games without being able to dribble. We don’t have a worship ministry without God being first.
All other things must flow from and succumb to this. It must be born out of this goal or it must become servant to this goal. This is God’s agenda for our worship arts ministry. He wants desperately for us to be all about Him. He is a jealous God. He loves us unconditionally, and wants what’s best for us. He knows that what’s best for us is to be about Him and nothing else.
This must be the foundation of our worship. We can do good things, but they are a leaf in the wind if we’re not doing the best thing.
