In his opening address to ‘Seeking God’s Face’ Worship Conference attendees, Dr. Neal Plantinga lovingly described a church in which 3 to 4 generations work together, their main objectives being to seek the lost, social justice, and freedom in union with Christ. He continued with detailed descriptors of an intergenerational church that meaningfully worships and serves the Lord together. We were left wondering where this church is, and it soon became apparent that he was speaking about a perfect church, one that exists only in the imagination. This dream church serves as a model for all of us – a church where God’s people ‘thrive because they cause others to thrive’, desiring their gifts to be part of the church’s gifts, a church where worship is authentically Biblical and thoughtfully planned. This is the church where the hungry are fed, the sorrowing are comforted, the complaining challenged, a church for every generation.
Conference workshops were well planned, with practical and specific seminars on leading a worship team. Paul Ryan, resource development specialist at the Calvin Institute of Worship, described vertical worship habits based on the Psalms that include praise, lament, trust, confession, thanksgiving.
Dr. Plantinga spoke on writing and using prayer to accompany songs, hymns and spiritual songs in a morning workshop. In his afternoon session, he described a ‘thicket of paradoxes’ regarding Jesus as God and Son of God, Shepherd and Lamb, prince and servant, citing the Nicene Creed, and many Scripture passages from the Gospels. Jesus Christ, mediator of all creation was a carpenter in his father’s shop. “Jesus Christ may be known but he is also hard to know” was a repeated theme, and as Jesus’ followers, pondering this mystery is part of our journey with him.
Raising our voices together, worshiping God with a representation of the universal church was a time of ‘seeking God’s face’.