Where we’re going matters. If you’re not moving, you’re dying. This is true not only in ministry, but in business, school, music, art, and relationships.
Where we already are is important. Without self-awareness and some self-analysis, you can never better yourself. You can never figure out who you are and what you can bring to the table.
That is why organizational clarity is so important. Where there’s a lack of clarity there’s confusion. Confusion leads to frustration. Frustration leads to burnout. I don’t want people to burnout. I want people to remain passionate about Encounter Worship and growing closer in relationship with Jesus. That’s why I’m laying out our purpose and values, or, as I like to call them, our playground.
Over the last six months I’ve been observing, praying, and researching about organizational clarity and efficiency. Much of this was inspired by The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni, my time spent at Wooddale, and observations of other churches like Life.Church, North Point, Church of the Highlands, and Elevation.
Let’s start with a simple list, then I’ll expand on everything in more detail.
Encounter Worship exists to create dynamic and engaging worship experiences that are authentic, excellent, relevant, and creative while always pointing people to the reality of God.
1. Authenticity
- We love Jesus
- We’re real
- We love people
2. Excellence
- We bring our best
- We’re always making things better
- We’re teachable
3. Relevant
- We’re always changing
- We’re welcoming
- We’re coaches
4. Creative
- We’re passionate
- We’re humble
- We’re fun
Now for more depth:
Authenticity
Love Jesus. That’s what it’s really all about. That’s where it starts and ends. The rest of these values flow from loving Jesus. We have a real one-on-one relationship with Jesus. Just like Jesus, we’re real with everyone. We don’t act like we have everything all together because we don’t and because we know we’re not perfect, we know that no one is. We are better at loving people when we accept them as who they are, which is how Jesus loved people.
Excellence
Nigel Hendroff, the Music Director at Hillsong Church says, “excellence isn’t perfection, it’s bringing your absolute best!” We always bring our best to reflect the God who is higher than anything or anyone we can imagine. We bring our best because everything we do has an eternal significance. Because excellence isn’t perfection, we’re not perfect. That’s why we’re always working to make things better, because we want to develop our God-given talents. We know the best way for us to get better is to be teachable. We know that when we’re offered constructive criticism, people are not criticizing us as a person, they are trying to help us get better at our craft.
Relevant
We want to remain flexible and relevant to the culture outside of the church, because we believe that is the best way to reach people who don’t know Jesus yet. As a community, we are always morphing and adapting to where we believe God is taking us. We believe God is using us to grow his kingdom, that is why we’re always welcoming new people onto our team. We’re not an exclusive community, we are inclusive. We know God has called us to coach people up and help them define who they are in God and develop them into who God has called them to be.
Creative
We’re creative because we believe that we were “imagined to imagine and created to create.” We’re passionate about creative worship, whether we’re creative through music, production, or the arts. We want to honor God in this way. We are also passionate about Jesus and what he’s doing in the world today. We choose to be passionate because we know that passion isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice. We’re humble because we know that we did not do anything to deserve the sacrifice that God made when he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross to save us from death. We’re fun because we are full of joy and wonder because we know that we are a people who are saved from death.