You know that question at the hairdressers, or the family gathering, or when you meet an old friend - “So what do you do in your job?” For us at Engage Worship it can be quite hard to pin down a simple answer to that question, because we do a lot of varied things! We create books and resources, lead training days, record songs and podcasts, mentor people, lead worship at conferences, run a website, write, draw, sing, edit…

But rather than focus on what we do, perhaps it’s better to share what our goal is: 

resourcing & training the local church
for Creative, Sustainable and World-Changing worship.

Let’s break that down a bit, starting with the second line:
 

God is the ultimate artist, the creator who loves variety, colour, texture and expression. In the Bible we see a wealth of creativity used in bringing him praise and glory: music, dance, architecture, meals, written and spontaneous prayers, visual symbols… and much more. Across the world, throughout church history and in the full spectrum of denominations and streams, every available artform has been employed to reveal something of God and help people respond to him. 

At Engage Worship we want to release each church into a greater breadth of creative worship expressions. This means making the most of the gifts and talents available to each local fellowship - not trying to be like the church or conference down the road, but an indigenous outpouring of artforms, spiritual styles and responses which are authentic and engaging to people in your context.

This variety helps churches to connect with a wider range of people: young and old, people from different backgrounds and cultures, and those with diverse spiritual styles. It helps us to express a wider range of responses and emotions towards God - joy and sorrow, searching questions and confident declarations, mystery and quiet trust. Finally, it gives us a broader glimpse of who our God is: this immortal, invisible, awe-inspiring infinite creator who will never stop surprising us, and yet who took on our humanity and walked in our shoes, sharing our pain so that we might share in his resurrection.
 

Each person involved in leading worship is a precious gift to their congregation, and their spiritual and emotional thriving is paramount to the worship life of their church. Jesus calls the weary to come to him and find rest. He transforms, equips and empowers by the Holy Spirit. He takes our small offerings of loaves and fishes, the things we feel are inadequate, and multiplies them to be more than enough for the congregations before us.

Engage Worship wants to encourage those in worship ministry to allow God to work in them from the inside out. We value spiritual formation in the secret places, which prepares leaders and creatives for resilient and fruitful service. We see this happening in a wide variety of settings and styles, helping each person grow, heal and be more devoted to Jesus in heart, soul, mind and strength.

In addition, we know that many churches struggle with a lack of time, resources and volunteers. We seek to offer accessible materials which are easily adaptable for your specific context. We want to encourage simple, repeatable acts of worship which can be led by a wider range of people and break the reliance on technology, production, buildings and professionally trained leaders.
 

God starts with each individual, but the revealed mystery of his will is “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph 1:10). Worship may begin in our hearts, in our churches, but it quickly spills out of the windows and doors, impacting our streets, homes, schools and workplaces. We sing and pray for God’s Kingdom to come, his will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Engage Worship provides resources that treat our gatherings on a Sunday as part of a seamless flow with the worship we offer in our “scattered” lives, Monday to Saturday. We believe that the home is an essential place of worship and spiritual development for families and friends. We believe that every sphere of society is a place where prayer and worship can make a difference: politics, commerce, healthcare, education, arts, leisure and more. That environmental care is an intrinsic part of our worship. That every region, country and culture has unique gifts and contexts for God’s love to take root.

In this light, Sunday gatherings become a hub where we can share the joys and challenges of the past week, pray for the world, lament the sorrows, bind up the brokenhearted and ask for empowering for the week to come. Our acts of worship need to create space for these kinds of responses, reminding us that the Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.
 

Resourcing & training the local church

So finally, back to what we do: we resource and train based on these three core goals of Creative, Sustainable and World-Changing worship. Our resources are intentionally varied. We aim to serve a broad range of the church, and so you will find fun, all-age ideas alongside serious contemplative ones; deep, text-based resources next to emotion-tugging musical or visual offerings. We intend for our resources to be adaptable, so feel free to tweak them so they fit your context. Over 500 worship ideas are downloadable for free from our website, and we also create books and digital resources which you can buy at reasonable prices.

Our training is also delivered in mixed modes. We run in-person training days for churches, networks and regions. We have also delivered online workshops and retreats to maximise accessibility, and we’ve put out a free 12 session video training course. We go to teach at conferences, colleges and events run by other people, and often lead live worship to model the kinds of approaches we want people to catch hold of. More recently we’ve been running retreats and exploring mentoring as ways to connect more directly with worship leaders and pastors. This has been extended to young adults in our Evergreen programme.

All this is for the local church. That part is important to us: we don’t do this stuff primarily to be used in conferences, festivals, megachurches or albums. It’s about the ordinary, small-to-medium sized local church that may not look flashy but, if you look under the surface, is most often serving God and its community in remarkable, beautiful, Kingdom ways. Whatever kind of church you are, we hope you’ll find something of use in our material, something that inspires creative, sustainable and world-changing worship to grow from the unique context you’ve been planted in.

Does this vision inspire you?
If you'd like to partner with us, visit our Support page.