Since 1999, I’ve been leading conferences to serve anyone involved in planning or leading congregational worship. In 2006, we started calling them “WorshipGod” conferences to communicate that it matters who or what we’re worshiping. A”worship conference” can refer to any kind of worship. It’s worshiping GOD that distinguishes what Christians do from all other kinds of worship. Only Christian worship is initiated by God the Father, enabled by God the Son, and empowered by God the Spirit.
In 2017 we’ve taking a break from a single national conference and planning different regional conferences. The first is WorshipGod Northeast and it will be hosted by Covenant Fellowship Church, Glen Mills, PA, March 30 – April 1. Joseph Stigora, one of the pastors at Covenant Fellowship and a longtime friend, has been overseeing the this event and doing a fantastic job. (We have a second WorshipGod conference coming up July 27-29 in Louisville, KY, called Human and Holy: Exploring Healthy Tensions of our Gathered Worship. But I’ll share more on that in an upcoming post.)
The theme of both conferences will be “healthy tensions,” a topic I first talked about in my book, Worship Matters. Our relationship with God contains a number of seeming paradoxes that need to be held in tension for our worship to be biblical and God-honoring. God is both intimate and infinite. Our meetings involve both structure and spontaneity. The best musicians are both skilled and sincere. Our meetings should be both rooted in Scripture and relevant to our culture. We’ll be exploring these tensions and more at both conferences.
Featured speakers at WorshipGod Northeast include HB Charles, Jr., Jared Mellinger, and Brian Davis, pastor of Risen Christ Fellowship in Philadelphia. In addition, my son, Devon, and I will take one of the main sessions to talk about the principles, priorities, and practicals of arranging. That will be a great session to attend with your whole band.
Seminar teachers include me, Joseph Stigora, Doug & Sheri Gould, Patrick Anderson, and more. Some new topics for WorshipGod conferences include Growing as a Leader, Why Isn’t the Congregation Singing?, No Normal Sundays: Preparing Your Heart, and a panel on Unity in Diversity. In addition, we’ll be offering breakouts for instrumentalists, vocalists, songwriters, and tech personnel. If that’s not enough for you, you can register to attend one of the pre-conference intensives for vocalists, guitarists, and techies, taking place on Thursday from 1:30-5pm.
Shorter, Cheaper, and Closer!
We’ve shortened the typical WorshipGod conference schedule by a day, lowered the cost, and made the conference regional to make it easier for more people to come. I’ve learned that most of the attendees at our conferences are volunteers with full time jobs or family responsibilities. We want to do whatever we can to serve them.
Like every WorshipGod conference we’ll be giving some great stuff away and you’ll not only be encouraged by the teachers and bands, but by other attendees. If you’re looking for ways to be stretched in your role, build with your team, and encounter God in the process, WorshipGod Northeast will be a great opportunity to do all three.
Registration closes in just a few weeks, so head on over to register you and your friends.
Hope to see you there!
Are there any conferences coming soon to the Southeast?…I’m debating bringing my team to the Northeast conference if not.
Thanks for asking, Joseph. WorshipGod Midwest will take place July 27-29 in Louisville, KY. Website should be up next week. Other than that, no.
Are there any plans for holding any of the Sovereign Grace conferences closer to the Left Coast? Here in Seattle, we could use a healthy dose of what you are teaching.
Thanks for asking, Craig. We’re talking about possibly doing something in 2018. If we do, you’ll see it here.
Several people from my church’s worship team will be attending WGNE17, including myself and a student of mine. I am a string teacher (the violin is my main instrument), and she plays the cello. We both regularly play during services. Just a couple of questions:
1. Should we bring our instruments for the open rehearsals?
2. Would we be able to get a list of music (or the guitar charts – we improv off of those) to be rehearsed ahead of time?
Joanna, so glad you all are coming! You’re certainly welcome to bring your instruments to the open rehearsals. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to get you charts or a list ahead of time, but we can certainly provide some extra charts at the conference. Look forward to seeing you there!
It seems like there were only a couple of months for people to hear about WorshipGod Northeast before registration closed. I just found this post today. Was that because of capacity, or just time? If it was time, is there any way to be notified more than a couple months in advance?
Thanks!
Will, great question! We had a number of issues leading into it which delayed the promotion. This is a regional conference and the plans played out differently. If you can make it, we’ll be hosting WorshipGod MidWest July 27-29 in Louisville. You can get more info at: http://www.worshipgodconference.com. Thanks!
I attended the WorshipGod Conference in PA last month and have been trying to find the link to the recorded talks. I saw the link up on the screen during the conference and was wondering if you guys could link me? Thanks in advance!
Matthew, thanks for asking and for coming to the conference! I’m checking on this.