Worship & Arts

Background

Among the highest priorities for the people of God is to become the Bride of Christ, loving her Lord, and participating in the passions and purposes of his heart. The Bride shares her love to Christ through her worship, and declares Christ's love to the world through witness. A people passionately in love with Jesus will find appropriate expressions of that love through lavish worship. In turn, they will also seek meaningful ways to share God's love for the world through appropriate witness. Both the worship and witness demonstrate the attractiveness of the Gospel. Artistic expressions through music and various communication art forms have been powerful tools to help God's people accomplish these dual roles.

Purpose

The mandate of the Worship and Arts track is to mobilize and enable the numerous worship, music, and arts related movements which God has been raising up on all continents, and throughout all branches of biblical Christianity to a greater use of worship and artistic expressions as part of the task of seeing a vital church for every people and making the Gospel available for every person by the year AD 2000.

Assumptions

• We recognize that many churches in their present state cannot make a significant contribution to vital worship or effective outreach because they have left their first love and find themselves in a relatively powerless state. Because of this, revival or church renewal or awakening is an essential first step to becoming a truly worshipping and effectively witnessing church.
• We recognize, as well, that the most effective worship and artistic expressions are those that are culturally relevant and contextualized to local situations. We endeavor to esteem the beauty and richness and variety of the world's redeemed cultures.
• The Worship and Arts track does not assume the responsibility of creating new worship and arts ministries. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Our task is rather to identify those ministries already involved in Biblical worship and effective artistic communication of the Gospel and to interconnect them in a way which will enhance the possibilities of each of them becoming all that God wants them to be. As such, we desire to promote a worldwide network of information and resources on worship and artistic communication for the entire Body of Christ.

Goals

• Form an international steering committee for the Worship and Arts Track, drawing from existing networks, like the USA-based Music and Missions Coalition, Marches for Jesus, and other networks internationally.
• Develop a database of worship and artistic communication ministries worldwide to inspire networking of existing ministries.
• Develop an international English AD 2000 Worship and Arts newsletter to go to English speaking ministries, to inform and enable ministries in Biblical and cultural understanding of worship, music and the arts in building the Body of Christ.
• Develop similar regional editions of an AD 2000 Worship and Arts newsletter with indigenous staff to write appropriate materials for the targeted regional and national audiences.
• Work with leadership in existing worship and artistic communication ministries to sponsor area workshops, seminars, worship celebrations, etc.
• Develop a database of Christian recording studios worldwide, for the purpose of encouraging the recording of local and national musicians and worship leaders. Work with existing Christian recording companies and interested mission agencies to find and encourage expert personnel to train engineers and local musicians to form inexpensive recording studios and basic music publishing facilities in nations and areas where they do not exist.
• Where appropriate, develop an international computer network of musicians using midi and email communications systems, to share and exchange midi files of songs, and encourage the use of standard midi file equipment. Find and encourage expert personnel to train interested local musicians in the use of midi, computer music notation, etc. in nations and areas where they do not exist.
• Work with the international offices of AD 2000, March for Jesus, and other international worship ministries to develop plans for the December, 1999 and December, 2000 global worship celebrations in Jerusalem.