Introduction : According to the Westminster Confession, Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. To use John Wimber's language we seek a life-style or relationship with God. This makes worship and intimacy with God a fundamental value.

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:23,24 NIV)

1) Worship should be marked and characterized by intimacy with God and an expression of our love for Him. It requires a disclosure of our thoughts to Him. Our full humanity, ie. feelings, emotions, thought processes and will are brought to Him in true worship.

2) We need to have integrity in the way we live and worship the Lord. This means avoiding pretense or 'hype', a man made sense of excitement. Corporate worship times should reflect a genuine expression of our lives, 'hype' only tends to separate us from reality, this results in hollow worship and is more liturgical than real.

3) Worship is a place of brokenness and repentance, awe and surrender, our real condition before God is revealed and this allows Him to transform us.

4) Worship in this way reflects our deep desire for the presence of God, a sense of His tangible presence. This is not to say that He is ever absent, we know that wherever two or three are gathered in His name, He is there (Matt 18:20), indeed the Holy Spirit indwells all believers. Yet we know that at particular times, the Lord's presence is very tangible without manipulation or human 'hype'. Often, these are times when people are healed, set free and empowered in various ways.

Priorities

The following priorities flow from these values.

1) We seek to respect the leading of the Spirit as far as initiatives and programs in the church are concerned. The Holy Spirit should be allowed to administrate, if He is in a particular programme, then we know it will work. We should not run programmes simply because other churches do, or someone thinks it might be a good idea. We are to rely on the Holy Spirit for the leading and the enabling in all such ventures.

2) We make time to wait on the Holy Spirit. This is a Quaker tradition, unlike the Pentecostal tradition in which there is often a 'revving up' in the hope that He will move. There is a certain vulnerability in this waiting, it requires honesty when at times God does not move in a certain way, rather than attempting to simulate a 'charismatic show'. This is part of avoiding the 'hype'.

3) It is important to allow God to move in His way when He moves. This may mean at times that the meeting can become 'messy'. People can respond in unusual ways when the Spirit is moving. We shouldn't expect God to move the same way as He may have last week, or in another church or revival setting. It is easy to be manipulative and 'fleshy' if we become fixated on certain ways of experiencing God's presence.

4) We need to allow time and space in our meetings for God to move. This means that we have a flowing type of worship experience which facilitates waiting, or a ministry time where we do not attempt to be in a hurry.

5) We need to spend time, money and energy on worship. Expenditure on musical equipment, time for training worship leaders and teaching and modelling worship in our lives.

Practices

1) Having regular 'ministry times' in house meetings and congregational meetings etc.

2) Nurturing and encouraging prayer skills for both individuals and groups.

3) Imparting praise and worship skills, through both teaching and modelling.

4) Regular impartation by the laying on of hands for the release of gifts. The idea being that as many people as possible are able to minister to others.

5) Moving the focus of ministry in the Spirit from the platform (the charismatic 'superstar' figure) to the people of God in small clusters. 'The day of the superstar is over'.