Stuart Townend was speaking today at Oak Hill College on leading Corporate Worship

He used the acronym “A.C.T.”: Adoration, Revelation, Transformation, as a structure for his comments.

I’ve posted my notes from the talk here.

In this post, I’ll just highlight some of the great things he said.

 “We need both the objective and subjective in singing: objective reflection on the character and work of God and subjective emotional response to those truths”

“More people learn their theology through songs than through sermons. People are more likely you leave church humming a song than reciting the sermon! Therefore it is vitally important that our songs teach good theology.”

“Look at 3 months worth of your songs sung in church: are you choosing songs that reflect the breadth of the character of God”

“Songs must put the reality of the different experiences of life in the perspective of the reality of the character and promises of God.”

“Faith is not routed in dislocated ideas, but in history. We have a story to tell, and so there must be songs that don’t merely proclaim truths or evoke emotions: we need songs that tell the story.”

Story telling songs are great in evangelistic circumstances: non-Christians can truthfully sing “From the squalor of a borrowed stable” but cannot sing “I love you Lord” without lying.

"We want to undermine the idea, “I couldn’t come to church today because I was in a mess, and I need to clean myself up before I can enter God’s presence”. No! We come to him to be cleaned up."

"True worshippers of God habitually give thanks to God. Idolators are those who “neither glorify him as God or give thanks to him.” (rom 1:21)

"Worship is on God’s terms and not ours"

"Those who lead worship are called to please God and serve the people, not just serve God and please the people."

"The danger is that we so rely upon the means of revelation (songs, scriptures etc) that we do not look to the Spirit of revelation to use those means that he would reveal the Father and the Son. We must be prayerful."

“Matt Redman, prefers the term ‘Lead worshipper’ rather than ‘worship leader’. The Holy Spirit is the ‘worship leader’.”

"It is important to realise that ‘worship leading’ is delegated responsibility from church leadership. There is a need for the elders to have knowledge and responsibility for what goes on in the Sunday service, so that if the worship leader gets a phonecall over Sunday lunch saying “why did we sing that song?” the worship leader can say, “the pastor said it was fine, so you need to speak to him.”

"Really important to work with the musicians you have rather than try to ‘create a sound’ that you may not have the musicians to create. "