Continuous Worship Conference Coming This September

A couple of years ago I came across an extraordinary book called Unceasing Worship by Harold M. Best. Over the last couple of years this has become my one of my favorite works on theology of worship. Here are a few reasons why I like it.

First, most people these days, particularly when in comes to theology/philosophy of corporate worship and the arts, dig into the ministry for a few years, have some measure of success and then write a book expressing the formula for replicating that success. With Best, he spent over fifteen years as the dean of the conservatory of music at Wheaton college. He spent years honing his ideas in both the academic world and the local church and then wrote his book. His depth of experience and perspective are clear throughout his writing.

Secondly, the first chapter is titled, “Nobody does not worship.” He begins with the understanding that worship ceaselessly pours out of humans for better or worse; for God glorifying worship or self glorifying idolatry. Best reveals just how much we have reduced worship to music sung at particular places and times and created an idol out of these experiences. He emphasizes that we have only one mediator between ourselves and God and that is Jesus Christ, not any kind of music, art, gathering or experience.

Lastly, through a very interesting turn of events Harold has become a personal friend and theological mentor to me. His son Gareth plays guitar in one of our bands (”The Brothers of the Empty Tomb”) and I have had the privilege to spend a number of afternoons with him wrestling through the finer points of the biblical theology and practice of worship. I have found him to be extremely helpful, thoughtful and on top of all that he has a delightfully dry sense of humor.

I am very excited to announce that Harold will be joining me and Pastor Mark Driscoll this fall for the “Continuous Worship Conference”. This conference will be brought to you by Resurgence and will take place at the Ballard campus of Mars Hill Church, September 17th and 18th. The cost will be $35.

We will begin the conference Monday afternoon with a “pre-conference” track dealing with pragmatic issues of corporate worship with breakouts taught by a number of Mars Hill staff dealing with how to build a corporate worship band that you actually want to listen to, live and post production technology, songwriting and various other topics. Then, Monday night we will start to dig to some meaty theology together with Pastor Mark. We will spend Tuesday with Harold Best and then I will wrap it up Tuesday evening. Each main session will be followed by a Q & A panel discussion where your questions will be fielded by a carefully chosen group of folks who are working out these ideas in various stations in life.

It is absolutely essential that we first engage with a deep, rich, biblical understanding of worship before we discuss the pragmatic issues of corporate worship. If we fail to do this we run the risk of making an idol out of the very thing we are intending to bring glory to God. This is not simply an issue for “worship leaders”. Everyone is a worshipper and a right understanding in this area has huge implication for all areas of life and ministry. Please join me in September for this important discussion.

More details including conference schedule, discussion panel participants and many more surprises will be coming soon. For more information and to register click here.