The Music Exchange

WHAT IS WORSHIP? (DVD)
Vineyard Worship Resources
£16.99

The purpose of this DVD is to ‘explore the questions of who we worship, why we worship and how we worship’.

The DVD calls itself a ‘Training Experience’, which sounds a little more spectacular than it actually is. I’d probably just call it a DVD, though that’s why I’m not much of a salesman.

Whole lifestyle

The presentation of the material is clear, simple and uncluttered. There are many chapters, which take the viewer logically through all the areas of life which are affected by a life lived in worship of God, e.g, ‘Holiness as worship, compassion as worship, relationships with the church as worship’, etc. The chapters are linked and introduced by the host, Dan Wilt, the Director of the Institute of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies in partnership with St. Stephen’s University, Canada.

The message spoken throughout is that worship is a whole lifestyle of serving God. Dan Wilt takes us faithfully to Romans 12.1, and provides a backbone of Scriptural references as he introduces each section. This means that hardly any of the material mentions music at all, and rightly so. It’s refreshing to have a resource from the Vineyard that takes the focus off music as being the main worship activity. The speakers instead lead us to think about issues of church community, holiness and social justice. And that is the slight anomaly with the DVD. Out of the 14 speakers, seven are musicians (or as the DVD describes them, worship leaders) including Dan Wilt, the main presenter. If music isn’t the issue, it seems strange that the majority of air time is given to musicians. Only very small snippets are given to Tom Wright and Peter Davids, which is a pity. With a more weighty doctrinal bite, there might be more ‘God teaches us in the Bible that…’ instead of ‘I think that…’.

Hooray moment

For instance, one of the key texts quoted to back up the importance of tackling issues like poverty and justice is Amos 5.23-24: ‘Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’ (ESV). Whether or not this is a mandate for social action today in the whole context of Amos and the New Testament needs more unpacking by theologians rather than musicians — which is why I’m not going to attempt to unpack it now myself!

I did have a big ‘hooray’ moment during Matt Redman’s personal testimony. He tells us that worship is about revelation and response. ‘We need the fuel of revelation. If I’m feeling dried-up, it’s because I’m not reading the Word.’ I was struck by Matt’s humility and plain speaking.

Where’s God’s Word?

To conclude, the presentation is professional, clear and digestible. It could be used as a platform for discussion for church groups over three or four weeks. The material is good in general and the Word of God is held up as being very important. However, whether the Word of God is the final authority on these matters is not clear — here’s a quote from Peter Fitch, one of the theologians who speaks on ‘the Pursuit of Truth as Worship’: ‘Knowledge of truth comes from a deep experiential knowledge of the Father, but also through those who have thought through Scripture and classical literature… and we can learn from movies, culture, ancient voices.’ He encourages us to take ‘the best thoughts from the past to frame for us the kind of wisdom we need to go into the future’. Maybe, after everything I’ve said about giving theologians more air time, it would have been good to hear more from Matt Redman.

Worship training

Whole lifestyle

Hooray moment

Where’s God’s Word?

Richard Simpkin

Main Articles

Other articles