Serving the Local Church

Tori and I started WorshipArts with two goals, the first was to train youth in the gifts that God had given them, and to set their minds on using those talents for the Kingdom of God. The second goal is not as advertised as of yet:

We want to be a support to the body of Christ as a whole, in the arena of the local church. We want to be a blessing to Senior Pastors, Youth Pastors, Worship Pastors and other leadership in the church. Here are the programs we have now and how they meet this goal.

Worship
Our worship teams meet together every week not to figure out how to become the next big Christian band, but to facilitate worship for other people. They learn to lead by example, and to engage with the people they're serving. They also learn how to follow leadership, how to follow the music without asking 100 questions of the worship pastor. They learn how to accompany other instrumentalists and fill out the sound, without having to be in the spotlight. They become useful, dependable worshippers and musicians that don't require hand-holding.

Photography and Video Production
These tracks are geared towards preparing students to serve their church with high quality media creation. They learn how to communicate the vision of an organization through pictures and video. They also gain experience with editing tools that they might find in a church scenario. They not only learn the how-to, but actually produce media that is evangelistic in nature, with the goal of pointing people towards Christ. They learn how to go back to their local church and start using their talents in worship immediately.

Drama and Message Teams
The goal of the drama and message teams is to directly communicate the Word of God and the word of their testimony to the world. While they're with us, these students become better communicators and persuaders so that they will be even more effective in their youth group and beyond. The message team prepares students for speaking confidently to an audience as well as communicating in smaller groups. Our goal is that these students continue to use these skills in the church long after they are done with WorshipArts.

Genesis Ministry Team
These past few seasons, the Genesis Ministry Team has become an awesome tool for youth groups. This worship team has learned to purposefully engage with their audience, and serve others by facilitating awesome worship services where youth can have an awesome encounter with God without having to worry about distractions. The drama and message team travels with the Genesis Team to drive home truths about God and how He interacts with us. The goal of the Genesis Team isn't just to affect youth, but also to bless the leadership of the churches they visit. Their goal is to set the students on fire so that the leadership can build on that excitement in the weeks and months to come. We want to come alongside youth pastors to help them accomplish the goals they have for their specific student ministry.

Future: Sound, lights, graphics
The church has a real need for students that understand and can run technology in their local church. With very few exceptions, all churches need more people to fill these positions to avoid burning out their current volunteers. Also, injecting youth into these positions means your tech team will be more on the cutting edge. Youth are less likely to find their talents or knowledge obsolete when new software or hardware gets introduced. In the near future we plan on training students in these important fields of study, not so they can be a sound engineer for a huge rock concert, but so they can get plugged into their church with the knowledge of how to use their skills in a way that glorifies God.

WorshipArts is guided by the current needs of the church. The point of our program is to uplift the Body of Christ in the local church. We don't want to get distracted from this goal. This is why there won't be a WorshipArts Basketball league, although we may do a 3-on-3 tournament to teach students how to run an effective outreach. Everything we do must benefit the local church and steer people towards the healthy, Christian fellowship that God wants us to have with one another.

So if you think there's a way that we could come alongside your church, give me a call at 269-569-4174 or shoot me an Email at peter@worshipartscentral.com