By: Clare Bruce
When it comes to worship music styles, there’s a broad spectrum. Some major on theological truth, while others major on experience, emotions and heart.
Matt Redman wants the church to equally embrace both, and that’s the message of his one-day ‘worship and theology seminar’, WOR/TH, that is coming to Sydney on Saturday, May 10th.
What is WOR/TH?
With the tagline, ‘Coming back to the heart (and mind) of worship’, the WOR/TH event aims to address the theological component of church music: challenging and inspiring today’s songwriters, worship leaders and their teams, “to fight for deeply biblical, relevant and poetic worship”.
The one-day + one-evening gathering is designed to feel like “both a classroom and a chapel – a mix of education and encounter”, and sold-out events have been held at Christian universities in the US, including Biola and Wheaton College.
Matt Redman is writer on many globally-loved songs, such as 10,000 Reasons, Blessed Be Your Name, and Heart of Worship and Son of Suffering, and has also done much writing on the topic of worship, with several books to his name. He came with the concept of up WOR/TH to create a space where church musicians “can think deeply about our sung theology in worship”.
WOR/TH events to date have brought together musicians including Matt Maher, Ben Fielding and Charity Gayle, as well as theology-focussed speakers such as Evan Wickham (church pastor and co-songwriter of Let Me See Jesus), and Dr Glenn Packiam (pastor, senior fellow at Barna Group, and author of Worship And The World To Come).
Darlene Zschech, Ben Fielding, Leonard Ray, City Alight
Contributors alongside Matt Redman at the Sydney event will include:
- Renowned worship artist Darlene Zschech
- US based musician Leonard Ray (Music Director for Tory Kelly, Matt Redman)
- Singer-songwriter Ben Fielding (What A Beautiful Name, Goodness of God, Mighty to Save)
- Sydney-based worship band City Alight
- Biblical theologian & lecturer Dr Michael Bird
The Details
- The Sydney event, sponsored by Compassion Australia, is on Saturday, May 10th at St Paul’s Anglican Church, Castle Hill. It will include a seminar in the day for songwriters, worship leaders, music directors and their teams, followed by an evening of Stories, Song and Worship from 7pm.
- Tickets to the daytime seminar start at $67.80 pp for student groups, $99 pp for general groups (eg church teams), and $130 pp for individuals; plus an additional $10 to stay on for the evening event.
- Tickets to ONLY the evening Stories-Song-Worship event, are $31.50.
Grab your Ticket(s) now
Article supplied with thanks to Christian Media & Arts Australia.
Feature images: Supplied