Breakout Session One: A Biblical Perspective on Worship (Ross Parsley)

During my training for the Global Summit on Tuesday Larry said this... our goal is that by the end of Session 2 people feel that they have their moneys worth. Yesterday I felt that way. Today, following Ross Parsleys two sessions I had doubled my investment. These two sessions were HUGE for me!

Some background on Ross Parsley. He is the worship leader at New Life in Colorado Springs. In the past year or so his church endured a public scandal where their Senior Pastor had to step down and then the death of two students when a gunman entered their campus on a Sunday.

Breakout 1: A Biblical Perspective on Worship
I took three pages of notes, too much to share here but here are some highlights.

Question: Does where we spend out time as a ministry with our team reflect a biblical perspective of worship?
How do we spend our time? Most churches do each of these things in this weighted order.
SKILL: lack of distractions, inspiration, motivation
TRADITION: things which have meaning to our community of faith
PERSONALITY: matches the leadership of the team
MUSICAL STYLE: the hook you fish with
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: does your church have politics/power struggles? should reflect the vision of your church
MINISTRY PHILOSOPHY: do the people who serve REALLY understand why we're doing what we're doing?

All these things are good to a point but this list should be inverted. Honestly, when I look at how our team/time is structured, we spend WAY more time on SKILL/Rehearsal than we do ministry philosophy. This is challenging for me.

We have to teach our team over and over again that biblical principles are the foundation of our ministry rather than skill/tradition and formats and styles.

Ross challenged us with this: "Don't you want a service where something beyond skill happens on Sunday?" YES!

Why do we do what we do?

Revelation- do we help people to understand who God is and who we are? A full picture of God- big, awesome, powerful, not just grace and mercy.

Transformation- we need to not just deal in the realm of "soulish" emotional connection and communicating information. We should crave transformation.

Illustrations- When we, as leaders, are transformed, When God deeply changes us, when He is supernaturally involved I become the story. This is fundamental.

Worship is not just about artistic expression! We should be about people being transformed and then sharing it in a powerful way.

This reminded me of the Life Verses and Jay's leadership- both of these things are connecting.