Experience Worship is a networked community of worship leaders, pastors, writers, artists, and regular, ordinary people. We are committed to making worship a practical, attainable, not-just-musical experience meant for real people living in the real world. Our goal is to teach, assist, and encourage the worship leader and “regular” person alike to truly experience worship.
Core Values
Worship as a Lifestyle
Experience Worship is comprised of people from various vocations who are joined by a common focus and desire for worship to be their lifestyle, not just a part of their church services. We have committed to encouraging others to learn to live that lifestyle as well. Each person involved is expected to use their personality, creative ideas, and individual styles of expression to help build Experience Worship. We have collectively committed that our worship experience must exist beyond the Sunday service, that worship must incorporate social justice, meaningful relationships, natural talents, and the seemingly “unspiritual” events of life. We are committed to making worship a practical, attainable experience through encouraging, teaching, and assisting others as well as living demonstrative examples of worshipful lives.
Honoring Relationships
Experience Worship is an organization committed to people. Every word and every image are intentionally designed to emphasize that focus while honoring and displaying the beauty in the normalness of people’s lives. But words and images are not where this focus ends. Relationships are key components for the success of Experience Worship’s mission and vision. Relationships communicate to each person that they are loved, special, and important, that they are made in the image of God with a destiny for their life. This understanding is critical for everyone partnering with Experience Worship as it is central to our purpose. Investing in the people around us – family, friends, and strangers – while intentionally treating people with honor and respect are vital and required expressions of our worship.
Striving for Excellence
Maintaining high standards of excellence is an imperative in every aspect of Experience Worship, from the products we distribute and the events we coordinate to the way we respond to e-mails and phone calls. Excellence, however, is not equated with perfection. The desire to make everything perfect can so easily take our focus off the opportunity to experience God; this is an entanglement that we must avoid. We believe that experiencing worship is similar to experiencing life: sometimes your feet get wet, sometimes your hands get dirty, and when that happens, that becomes part of the experience of worship. We are committed to being transparent and real, rather than perfect, while maintaining excellence in all areas.
Clear Communication
Worship is inseparable from communication: us to God, God to us, and people to people. As an organization focused on worship, communication is an intricate part of our function and success. All Experience Worship content, visual and verbal, is intentionally crafted to encourage people to live lives of worship. Our goal is to provoke thought about the naturalness of worship by putting it in familiar life contexts that are unfamiliar as contexts for worship. Part of our purpose is to de-compartmentalize worship, removing it from the format of church and helping to integrate it into every aspect of everyday life. In order to do so, all Experience Worship communication is kept down-to-earth in plain, understandable English using as little “Christianese” or stereotypical Christian imagery as possible, choosing instead to put everything in distinctly real-life contexts. Only then will we truly be communicating our message: YOU can experience worship, just as you are, right where you are.
Integrity & Accountability
Experience Worship is committed to establishing and maintaining a reputation of spotless integrity. This means unswervingly upholding the mission, values, and beliefs of the organization. It means consistency in all communications. It means ensuring high-quality and value in each service and product we offer – whether purchasable or free. It means being known as an organization for openness, humility, trustworthiness, and accountability. Each person involved is a vital part of the organization, thus the personal integrity of each member will directly affect the integrity of the whole. Accountability to the mission, values, and beliefs of Experience Worship will be expected and actively enforced among everyone who represents Experience Worship in any capacity.
Who We’re Not
Experience Worship is not a movement.
We are not promoters of a specific way to “do” church or worship.
We are not about enhancing or creating personal emotional experiences during worship services.
We are not even remotely against musical worship or church services.
We are not affiliated with a particular church or a denomination.
