The Worship Central conference held at Westminster Central Hall in London on 31 October and 1 November was an opportunity to join with thousands of Christians from all over the world in worship and study. Such opportunities to learn from others are crucial to our ongoing development and all the sessions will be available on the Worship Central website shortly. Here’s a summary:
Louie Giglio spoke on 2 Cor 4 on Friday evening, stressing that we need to die daily to ourselves in order to allow the life of Christ to shine through us to others. Some of the things we need to die to include:
1. a small view of God
2. an over-familiarity with the gospel, whereby we lose the sense of the revolutionary nature of what God has done for us in bringing us from death to life
3. the idea that it’s all about the songs or the service, when our focus needs to be all about the Saviour
4. the idea that service is for the applause of other people, when we need to minister from a secure knowledge of our identity in Christ above everything else
5. pride
6. the temptation to give up
Mike Pilavachi spoke from Ezekiel 47 on the river of God on Saturday morning.This river symbolises the movement of God’s Holy Spirit from the altar and place of sacrifice to the dead sea. We are sent out by the Father, Son and Spirit into the world so that life may come from death, but as we progress into the river of God, our sense of comfort is often challenged. Splashing in water that is ankle deep is cooling and refreshing; being knee deep can be fun. But as we go deeper, there is a sense of discomfort as we have to surrender to the water. God’s love language ultimately is obedience and our love is proved by our obedience. God has many children, he concluded, but does He have many friends? We worship God ultimately through our obedience.
Tim & Rachel Hughes spoke from Ps 27:13-14 on Saturday evening. The psalmist speaks of an unshakeable confidence that he will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, but in order to enter into this, we have to wait and be strong in God. The temptation to give in is often great, but we are called to trust, to live by faith and not by sight and to persevere through the days when nothing seems to be happening. We have to keep going and to trust God to bring about the wave that will bring us into new things and into revival.