To Get Started
a biblical vision of worship at vpc
our goal
To cultivate our heart and craft unto God
cultivate our heart
Cultivating our heart means creating an environment—internally and externally—that is focused on honoring, glorifying, and connecting with God through music. It's about preparing our hearts and minds to worship. It’s more than just singing lyrics or playing chords; it’s about pouring out our hearts in authenticity, attention, and adoration.
Authenticity
We cultivate our heart by coming to worship with sincerity. This looks like singing or playing wherever you are in your faith walk. This can be hard to do when you don’t feel connected with God, but we can look at Job in the Bible as an example. He says in Job 13:15, “Though you slay me, yet I will praise you.” Bring the good, bad, and ugly to God, He can handle it. Cultivate your heart with authenticity.
Attention
We cultivate our heart by offering our full attention when we worship. This is challenging after giving it away all week. We give our attention throughout the week to work, family, and personal life and arrive to Friday rehearsal with little to give. But we can look to the story of the loaves and fishes in the Bible. Jesus multiplies what we give Him but He can’t multiply what we don’t give Him. Cultivate your heart with attention.
Adoration
We cultivate our heart when we want to let the music lead us into a deeper connection with God. We have to experience personal worship before corporate worship. We can look to Mary breaking the alabaster jar as an example. While she’s mostly known for this moment, we have to recognize that she was always at Jesus’ feet. Worship is not just singing and playing up front but it’s sitting at Jesus’ feet. Cultivate your heart in adoration.
cultivate our craft
Along with cultivating our heart, we must cultivate our craft. Cultivating our craft means to intentionally develop and refine the skills, talents, and gifts we use in worship as a way of honoring God. It’s about investing in excellence and offering our best to God, ensuring that our crafts are used in a way that reflects His creativity, fosters commitment, and serves the community.
Think of cultivating our craft of worship as gardening.
Create the Garden
Let’s cultivate our craft by creating a garden of worship. That said, gardens wouldn’t exist without gardeners, with you! Have you ever encountered God in a worship gathering and remember how that felt? We need gardeners who want to create the same for others. In worship, this means prioritizing punctuality and communication and following through on your commitment. Worship requires technical skills, knowledge, and commitment to seeing the creation of the experience through. It’s a process of continually learning, experimenting, and seeking improvement in order to more effectively use your talents for God’s purposes.
Create for Community
Let’s cultivate our craft for community. We create gardens for people because we ourselves have experienced the splendor of the garden, of worship. People are coming to VPC from all walks of life and we want them to experience the beauty and splendor of God. Cultivating your craft for community means working together with others to create something that builds up the community and fosters a unified worship experience. This means showing up for one another and striving for excellence because we’re all depending on one another. This garden, our worship gathering, can be the place that changes the life of one person. Isn’t that worth it?
Create Beauty
One of the most exciting parts of creating a garden is embracing the creative process. God is the ultimate creator, and as His image-bearers, we are called to reflect that creativity. We can do that through new music, maybe writing our own or creating innovative worship formats, or fresh artistic expressions. Ultimately creativity in worship reflects the creativity of our Creator.