Thursday, October 19, 2006

Worship Blitz = Frustration: Part Two

When I last left you I was frustrated at how I didn't get anything out of the Center Street service. I just was wanting to know why I didn't get anything from it. God wasn't telling me why he was making feel this way.

The next church we went to on Sunday was the Ukranian Orthadox Church. It had a lot of iconography. The sanctuary was filled with paintings on the ceilings and whatnot on the walls. There were banners that represented that the Catholic Church believes in.

The paintings represented stuff as well. It was awesome looking stuff. The one lady was telling us stuff about the different things around the sanctuary and what it all meant. It was cool that there was writing in Ukrainian.

A thing I thought was interesting was how they didn't have any instruments when they sing songs. All they have is the choir.

After the Ukranian Orthodox Church we went to Westside Kings. It was a 20 something church. It was really laid back I felt.

At Westside Kings they sat around tables which is a great idea because it gives you a sense of closeness I guess you could say. They had a lot of praise and worship songs. I never heard any of those songs. The one doing the sermon was really smart. He didn't just babble like some people do when they preach. Then they have some discussion with the people at your table which is a good idea.

The cool thing was that they had a five minute coffee break before they had the sermon. I thought that was cool and interesting.

Here is Westside King mission and values:

Our mission is to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ in authentic community
for the good of the world.

Confident we're part of a story so much larger
than any of us, we dare to enter the stories of others in Calgary, and around
the world, holding to the hope of witnessing the healing and transforming grace
of God, first-hand.

Our values that guide everything we do are grace,
journey, and relevance.

We understand we're all on a life-long journey of discovering who God is and a more accurate perception of ourselves. We realize that God has in his imagination an idea of who we can become that is not possible without His grace that accepts us as we are and, at the very same time, calls us forward to live like Jesus did. It means we've taken our hands off the religious panic button, and abandoned quick answers and worn out rhetoric, and dare to engage in an open dialogue about faith and the things of life knowing that participating in God's activity wherever and however is what is truly relevant.
Here is Westside Kings style:
Our style - evolving. As culture morphs, technology advances and methodologies evolve, what you see, hear, taste and smell at Westside might vary. But, we are quite intentional about one thing - to never get in the way of God's story. Our style is ultimately to partner with God in offering a thought-provoking window into the heart of who God is and an invitation to transformation.

Our style - casual and artistic, safe and provocative, contemporary and rooted in timeless biblical truths, relevant and ancient, rational and vulnerable.
Our style - uncompromising about the gospel while committed to finding a way to language our faith in a way that spurs us to live our lives as Jesus did - authentically and unashamedly in a constantly evolving world.

When you show up on a weekend, here's what you can expect - an invitation to join us in expressing our thanks to God through music, a few announcements to keep you informed about what's happening around Westside, then one of our communication team will bring a thought provoking thought for the week. When it's all done, we hope our style complimented what God desired to do in your life.

Westside Kings is a church for younger people. Well, the Sunday night service is anyways. They don't try and force you to worship like they want Tehillah Monday. But I will explain more later. They Shepard you along and guide you which is how it should be done.

In the next blog post I will tell you about Westside Kings. So until then... shalom!

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