Family Worship
The Kids Choir leading us in song
Too often in the church the word worship is strongly connected to the style of songs and music of a particular place. Or it can be understood as the ‘bells and smells’ of a more traditionally understood type of worship. If the music is excellent or the liturgy is meaningful, then we have good worship. People will join a congregation purely because of the perceived enjoyment of what they see as worship.
The word worship is derived from an old English word that sounds near enough to ‘worthship’. It is asking the question – what is your devotion to God worth? So, it is not what we come to church to get as much as it is about what we come to give.
In today’s consumer society worship is a commodity that we can enjoy or not rather than an offering – an outpouring – of the whole of our lives in response to God’s grace.
When we gather together for an act of worship at NorthWest Uniting we are trying to build into our time together a bigger understanding of what our worship is. Our music is probably borderline contemporary; but is probably more Michael Buble than Pink! For those who enjoy the old hymns of the past you may be disappointed (give it a try – you may not be) and for those seeking the buzz of full on contemporary worship, you also will walk away feeling unfulfilled (or not).
Our goal is to touch the lives of people who either have no previous experience of church or have been a fair while away and may have been burnt on the journey. Therefore our aim is to make sure that the music doesn’t ‘get in the way’ of what we are trying to do. Our music and song – indeed our whole gathering – is in many ways fairly neutral. We do not want to have our ‘style’ get in the way of allowing people to enter into a place where they might experience a touch of the holy. We desire that this truly be a God thing and not so much a manipulated thing.
Worship is also seen as something that you come to church to do or experience rather than a whole of life thing that is a 24/7 activity. We don’t want to be accused of being submarine Christians; the type that come to the surface on Sunday all smiley faced and joyous, but then submerge out of sight for the rest of the week. If God is ‘worth’ anything then we should always be open for business.
Having said all of that we do have formal times of worship where we get together and sing, pray, hear the Bible read and shared and hopefully had some sense of God’s presence among our gathering.
Sunday Worship
9.30am Sunday
Unit 1, 322 Annangrove Rd, Rouse Hill
We meet for our main weekly worship time at 9.30am each Sunday where we begin with all ages in together and then we offer age specific programs for the second half our time.
