Core Values of Worship

Core Values of Worship

Matt Stinton & Jenn Johnson

Core values are a great way to set expectations for your team. Your core values will be universal as well as different from church to church.

Core values of our team at Bethel:
• Honoring the Presence - The presence of God. This can be displayed in Selah moments. There may be a pause in worship and we as leaders sit and wait on the presence. It is good to sit and wait and honor a moment. God is waiting on the other side of a potentially awkward moment. Maintain your connection during the set.

• Risk - you don’t grow without risk. To be excellent there is a risk involved in it. Be brave. Risk can look like, stepping out and doing something you haven’t done before or might be out of your comfort zone. You may never know the fruits of your risk, but God sees the one who needs to be encountered personally by the risk you take.

• Excellence - There is a big difference between excellence and perfection. You can make mistakes in excellence. Excellence is the desire and journey of stewarding your gift for the Lord. The pursuit of refinement and growth. Perfection is "performance" because you can never be perfect. Perfection is God’s thing. Say this to yourself, “I don’t have to be perfect to be pleasing.”

• Growth - Musically and personally we want to give our team tools and opportunities to grow. Part of growth is learning from mistakes and mistakes will happen. When you make a mistake you have a choice to either be completely derailed or learn from it. We find our identity as sons and daughters, not in our worship gifts.

• Character - Character is what separates people who are just good musicians and a worshiper. You are the same person on stage that you are the night before with your friends. True character means you are consistent and steadfast on and off the stage. The pursuit of character is being faithful in the little things. It’s the small decisions that lead you to make big decisions. Create a history of making good decisions and the Lord will give you more. The Lord gives you favor, but your favor isn’t for you. The favor "on" your life is to be given away to others.

• Honor - Putting others ahead of yourself. We are in the culture of honor, not the culture of honoring me. Honor is a big part of handling disagreements well. You have the choice of putting the other person down or treating them with respect.

“Celebrate who people are, over stumbling over who they are not.” - Bill Johnson

“If you watch what you think, you won’t have to watch what you say.” -Bill Johnson

• Community - The larger your team gets the more you have to fight for community. We have monthly community meetings to stay connected with our team of almost 90 people that make up our worship department. Creating community creates covering. Community nights, hangouts, find creative ways to get people together to create community. We like to incorporate leaders from all departments of the church into our community nights by sharing a 15–20-minute message.

Having something in writing can be helpful to set expectations and create consistency