“Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” Psalm 150

 We as a church in Winchester are an expression of lives that live to worship God our Father. One of our key values as a church is to follow and obey our Saviour Jesus Christ who walked as an example on this earth. By reading the 4 books of the gospel we see that Jesus lived His life always glorifying God His Father and giving Him thanks.

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but the Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain not in Jerusalem, you Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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 in truth.” John 4:19-24

So, we can see that worship is not just about getting together on a Sunday and singing. Worship is much more than that. As we see in the Bible verses found in the Gospel of John above, we see that the Father is looking for those who will worship Him is spirit and in truth. This goes much deeper than just singing. What Jesus is referring to here is to live a life of worship or live a lifestyle of worship.

How do we live this lifestyle of worship?

• As believers we want to please God and therefore we live in obedience to Him and the Bible, which is His Word. This is an act of worship.
• As children of God we want to live our lives with thanksgiving in our hearts, for we have much to be thankful for, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Psalm 100:4-5. We literally start our meetings singing songs of thanksgiving or songs that express our praise to Him for what He has done for us.
• We believe that we should have an attitude of praise and worship in the way we do things in our day to day. Everyday we should present ourselves to Him as “living sacrifices” ( the Bible tells us this in Romans 12:1), which means we lay down our will, our likes, our agenda for that day, and we are willing to do God’s will, do what pleases Him and follow His guidance.
• Spending time with God everyday and being aware of His presence is also living in worship to Him. In essence God is the most important thing in our lives.

We come together on a Sunday and we start our meetings with singing. Our singing is just an expression of what we’ve lived out during the week. Therefore we sing the words in the songs with integrity because they are just an overflow of what we live already. This is what it means to “true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,”

So what happens in a Sunday meeting?

• Generally we have a time of singing after the elders have opened up the meeting.
• During the time of singing each person responds to God as He leads them to. Some people love to go to the back and dance. Others raise their hands as a sign of worship and surrender to God. Some may feel the need to kneel before God or fall prostrate on the ground in reverence for His awesome Majesty. People may feel various emotions during this time, such as laughing or crying or both. This is just a sign that God is touching their hearts profoundly. Some people don’t even show any outward expressions of any emotion, but God can still be touching them too.
• We encourage visitors not to feel obliged to participate in the singing if they don’t want to. Each person participates out of their free choice and decides to what degree they are willing to participate.
• We have a worship team who lead the songs. This team is composed of musicians and singers and the lead singer. These are men and women of any age or background or culture which have a heart to worship God and the musical talent to play and sing.
• Many Sundays there’s a time of response when people come to the front to meet with God in a different way and for the leaders in the church to pray for them if they so desire.
• It is often during this time that God heals diseases and people’s hearts and emotions.
• The Bible says that God lives in the praises of His people.

What is the difference between those in the worship team and the rest of the congregation?

Those who form part of the team have musical talent and can play an instrument or sing well, but they also have the call or a special worship anointing to lead the rest of the congregation to worship. We believe that we are all called to worship God but not everyone is called to lead in this area. 

Our elders lead the worship but the worship leader leads the music team during this time of singing in submission to the elder, who is ultimately in submission to God.

What kind of songs do we sing?

• Our songs have a contemporary style to them.
• We sing fast, noisy songs as well as slow, quieter ones.
• We have times of free worship, when we are responding to God freely and are being spontaneous in our singing. During this time we are very much depending on the Holy Spirit to speak to us and give us words to sing a new song unto the Lord. “Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.” Psalm 149:1 This is also a time of encouraging one another with Psalms and words from God.

We have lots of fun in our togetherness. We invite you to come and visit us and experience being in the presence of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Taste and see that God is good!