Many of us have seen the fruits of embracing diversity in our churches. Through inclusion, unity and celebration, we discover the gold that God has put in each person, in each culture, and in each expression of a relationship with Jesus.

When Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom, this united diversity was a central agenda item (Matthew 28:19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…”)

We are passionate about making disciples of all nations, and welcoming people from all backgrounds so that we might discover more of the fullness of God and the richness of the church of Jesus. While we want to ensure that there is diversity in all we do, we also recognise that visible diversity is tokenistic if it doesn’t also influence our decision-making, our view of Jesus, or our expressions of praise to him.

As we look at our Vineyard family, we already have many different expressions and styles of church and worship. And so, it is not through our style that we are united, but rather we are united by our values. Particularly in worship. Our values are intimacy, accessibility, integrity, Kingdom expectation and passion. It is not a sound, or a style, that defines Vineyard Worship – rather, our worship is defined by our values.

In some ways, we may each need to repent of times that we have limited our worship of Jesus to a particular sound, style, or expression. We may have found ourselves saying ‘That doesn’t sound like Vineyard worship’, and in doing so, we have excluded those whose natural expression seems to not ‘fit’. 

Next week at the Vineyard Leaders’ Gathering, we’re excited to continue turning the tide on this. We are thrilled to welcome Edgar King, who will be one of the worship leaders for two of the worship times. Edgar is the National Director of the Association of Vineyard Churches in Kenya. He’s visited the UK and Ireland many times before and is such a friend to us. 

He’s going to be leading with Olu Meduoye and, as you will see, we have put together a choir. Those worship times will help give voice to a different expression of praise. For some of you, this style might be new, but for others of us, this style might be your natural expression of worship. 

We hope that this will inspire you, validate you, or broaden your view of worship. And ultimately, we hope that you will connect with Jesus, and we know that this worship will minister to Jesus and be pleasing to Him.

So we encourage you to jump in with us, to experience something that might be new to you, to worship in spirit and in truth, and to ask Jesus to reveal himself to you as we sing.

We’re going to be singing some familiar songs, there will be some moments to sing in your heart language (whatever language that might be), and there might be a song or two which are less familiar to you. But let’s embrace and celebrate the diversity of worship and expression, because we all carry some of God’s heart.

You may find this prayer helpful if you are on a journey of repenting for views, actions or thoughts.

Lord, we repent of when we’ve made worship about a style, or our preferences, and have excluded people as a result, we ask that you would unite us, not in uniformity, but in celebrating difference, in the context of shared values. And that as we, your family, dwell together in unity, that you would pour out your blessing on us – here and now, but also that you’d pour out your blessing on all of our churches in our nations.

So now, we choose to look past our preferences, our personal desires, and we look to you in unity, affirming that one day, every nation, every tongue, and every expression will join together to worship you. We look to you, and we glorify you, Lord. 

Amen.

Edgar and Olu are leading on Monday and Thursday evening.  If you don’t yet have your tickets to come, you can come for the entire time, just a day, or just an evening.  We would love to see you there as we gather as a Vineyard family.