Gospel-Shaped Worship

After my freshman year of college, I had the amazing opportunity to spend a summer in Hong Kong and to do an internship with two worship pastors. I had been leading worship in youth and college group settings for a few years, and I was very excited to see how to better develop a worship service. The first day of my internship, the three of us sat down to choose the songs for the coming Sunday. But to my surprise and chagrin, this process involved nothing more than opening up the “Top 25” on CCLI and choosing a few fast songs and a few slow songs from that list.  The remainder of the week was spent on searching Hong Kong for stage props, practicing with the music team, and creating elaborate slideshow backgrounds.

The more time I spent in the internship that summer, the more resolved I became to find a clear and biblical vision for worship leading. Thankfully, through the influence of several pastors and through books such as Worship Matters and Christ-Centered Worship, God has provided direction and help. In answer to questions like, “What are we doing when we gather on Sundays?” and “What songs should I choose this week for us to sing?”, I’ve learned the priority of gospel-shaped worship. 

Gospel-shaped worship is a way to describe an order of service which moves us through the progression of the gospel from the beginning to the end of a service. In every service, we want to see the glory of God, humbly come to him in our need as finite, sinful, broken men, see and embrace God’s grace in Christ, and respond in faith and trust and consecration to Christ. For all the distinctiveness of each worship service, it is our goal that each service would move us from GOD to MAN to CHRIST to RESPONSE.

Over the next four weeks, I’ll take these four “movements” one at a time and we’ll see the significance of gospel-shaped worship for both our worship services and our hearts in daily worship to God.