Christ Centered Worship
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24, ESV).
Worship is more than a Sunday morning gathering. It is the purpose that should guide everything we say and do as followers of Jesus Christ. So when we gather each Sunday, our goal is to help each other realign our hearts with that purpose for the week ahead. This is the aim of everything we do—prayer, teaching, fellowship, and particularly music.
Music has the potential to draw all of us together in a focused response to God’s truth. The Old Testament Psalms are a prime example of this. David and the other psalmists wrote many of those profound prayers as songs to be used as Israel gathered on various occasions. Though most of the psalms were written around 3,000 years ago, they still stir our hearts today.
The way we approach music at Calvary East has been guided by this understanding of worship. We use songs that help us reflect on the truths we are learning in our study of God’s Word. Instead of trying to put on an entertaining show, we choose songs and arrange them in such a way as to enable everyone to participate in singing. We also try to use musical styles that appropriately express the lyrics of a song in a way that makes sense for who we are as a congregation.