Worship Values for First Evangelical Free Church

Our core values state:  In dependence on our Lord Jesus Christ and His Spirit, we aspire to be a church community that honors God.  The following explanation spells out more fully how we anticipate fulfilling our vision for authentic worship at First Free.

Faith and Worship Are a Way of Life for All Believers

All people are worshippers by nature.  Every human being has something or someone that holds the place of honor reserved for God alone.   As Christians, we recognize that trusting in the Lord and worshipping the Lord are connected in crucial and inseparable ways.

• Like faith, worship requires true knowledge of God.
• Like faith, worship is a response to what God has revealed about Himself.
• Like faith, worship evokes a response in our heart and life toward God.
• Like faith, worship recognizes and responds appropriately to the magnificence of God and His promises.
• Like faith, worship is a way of life, not an occasional experience or feeling.

All of these parallels shed light on Jesus' statement to the Samaritan woman:  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks (John 4:24).  Worship involves a proper response to the truth God reveals about Himself.  The Lord seeks people who will honor Him in this way.

We know the Lord wants us to trust Him more and more in every area of life; we also know He wants us to honor Him more and more with every area of life.  Our faith sets us apart from others because we consciously seek to exalt the one true God in all of life.

Principles for Congregational Worship at First Free

The worship values we use at First Free follow the teaching of Christ by prompting spiritual worship with the truth of God.

Our divine and final authority

We value the Bible as the only God-inspired source of truth on every topic it addresses, including worship.  Therefore we use the Bible as our standard for planning and conducting the worship services.  We normally organize the service around the biblical truth presented in the morning message.  We also follow an expository approach to preaching because it encourages faithful explanation and application of the Bible.

Our primary desire

Our overriding desire is to please God during our worship services.  He is our audience, and above everything, we want to see His name exalted.  Our personal desires and preferences hold secondary importance in true worship.

We also want to offer God our best in worship, so we pursue excellence in planning and presenting the various aspects of our services.  We want to avoid, however, the traps of perfectionism, professionalism or programming the services so tightly that we cannot make Spirit-directed adjustments.

Our target

Since worship is an activity of God's people, we design our services primarily with believers in mind.  As in the New Testament, we also conduct our services in a way that shows sensitivity to people who are not yet believers so they, too, can become worshippers of the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ.

We also want to promote involvement in worship, not passivity.  We value active participation by the congregation.

Our guidelines

God is creative, and we see from Scripture that He encourages a wide range of instruments, emotions, physical postures and other responses in worship.  That's why we value variety and creativity in our services.

Our style

From the beginning, the church has recognized the flexibility permitted by the New Testament in corporate worship and adopted styles that fit the people God has reached with the Gospel.  We utilize forms that the Bible allows and tailor them to promote worship among the people God has brought to us.  We recognize the freedom we have to choose such things as the instruments played, the kind of attire worn by those leading, the length of the service, the number of songs we sing, etc.  We also take into account the resources and skills God has placed in our congregation.

Our unity and worship

Because we have freedom in formulating our worship style, we achieve church unity through the message we preach and the biblical principles that shape our services, not the format we use.  Our unity arises from our common doctrine and mission, not a uniform worship style.

We recognize that some forms and styles do not prompt worship equally well throughout the congregation, so we feel free to utilize different service formats to engage different people and to reach out to our community.  Just as Quest has adopted a specific approach to worship to fulfill our church mission, so the other services may take on a distinctive format to fulfill our church mission.

In all of these values our aim remains constant—to honor God as He desires and deserves.

Revised By the Elders, 2007