As Village Church has grown over the past few years, we’ve been privileged to have people from a number of different Christian backgrounds and denominations join us. Some might be used to Sunday meetings that are similar to Village, while others might be used to more music, more extended prayer times, and more moments of quiet reflection.
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While these are good things, they’re not part of our Sunday gathering. Our desire has always been to keep that moment (5pm Sundays) as something which anyone can come along to and not make too great a culture shift in order to hear the Gospel and come to know Jesus. At our Sunday gathering, we have two aims; Firstly, to make it edifying for regulars at Village as we meet around God’s Word, pray and encourage each other; Secondly, to make it accessible & understandable for those who might not know God but come along. This filters down to the language we use, the way we explain God’s Words, how we pray, how many songs we do and how we do them. We want to protect those goals, while keep making sure we’re achieving them.
But one of the beauties of the Gospel is that there is diversity even in our unity. While we have the same God, and we know He speaks to us in the same way through His Word & His Spirit, we also know that we’re all wired differently. So while Sunday is a moment aimed at bringing together the whole Village Church community as a declaration to the world of what God is doing, other events are aimed at appealing to different people who are wired differently.
The Music, Prayer & Praise Night is one of them. It’s an experiment, just as beSpoken was. But our hope is to recognise there are many within the Village Church community who long to sing together more, mixed with having more extended times of praying and thanking God for what He’s done for us in Jesus, as well as ministering to each other through this. So while it’s not something that will appeal to everyone, we’re sure it’ll be a great night for many who are wired this way, as well as many others who aren’t!
So if you’re keen on checking it out, it’s at Ithaca Presbyterian Church tonight, 7:30-9pm.
(Note – as Ithaca are generously letting us use their building, we’ll just be asking people for a small donation as a gift to them. They didn’t ask, but it’s just the generous thing to do.)
