CURRENT SERIES INFO:
This month our Pastors will go over several character traits that God wants us to exhibit in our lives. They will be drawing heavily from the book of James, so keep your program stuck in that one! It’s a quick read with some important wisdom on being the best follower of Christ you can be!
EXPERIENCE not SERVICE
We use the term “Experience” rather than “Service” when it comes to worship at FOF! We want each even to be a fully immersive experience and not a “service” someone just sits through or endures. We incorporate all five senses of the body plus our intellect, emotions and physical movement into a unified focus of celebrating our God and His love for us. Directing all of this is the Holy Spirit who guides our human spirits into an intimate time of glorifying God.
“True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers that the Father seeks. God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
- John 4:23-24 (NIV)
MESSAGES not SERMONS
Pastor G calls his speaking time “messages” or “talks” rather than “sermons” because we want to use culturally relevant terms that are appealing to people with little church background. People here “sermon” and often have a negative image of a fire and brimstone preacher yelling at them and telling them how awful they are and how mad God is at them. In contrast, we often hear people say of Pastor G: “He’s more of a teacher than a preacher!” Greg sees that as a HUGE compliment and says “Good! That’s exactly what I was going for!”
BLOWING KISSES
One Greek word from the Bible that scholars translate “worship” is the word “proskuneo.” Literally, this word means “To kiss toward something.” We love this idea, that worship is blowing kisses toward our heavenly Father. All the way back in Pastor G’s opening message when we launched FOF in 2003 he stated a core belief of ours. He said: “Christianity was never meant to be a religion ABOUT God. Christianity was always meant to be a relationship WITH God.”
BY DESIGN
All our worship experiences are designed to help us get to know God a little bit better and learn to love God a little bit more. Three other guidelines impact the design of these worship experiences as well.
(1) CELEBRATIVE: Biblical, corporate worship is more celebrative in nature. Private worship is more reflective in nature.
(2) ENCOURAGING & INSPIRATIONAL: We don’t want to beat you down. The world does that enough already. We want to build you up and challenge you on to greatness.
(3) PREPARATORY: We don’t want to just give you “pie in the sky” theology or “wishful thinking” or load you up with a bunch of doctrine and knowledge that you can’t apply. We want to give you relevant, real-world, practical steps based on Biblical principles that work in your every day life.
MODERN MUSIC
“Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.”
- Psalm 33:3 (NIV)
Scripture uses this term “new song” to refer to how we are to worship God with music and singing nine times! Great hymns were written several hundred years ago and we’re not knocking them. A lot of churches in our area do hymns and do hymns well. We feel God has called us to “sing a new song.” Literally thousands of amazing worship songs are begin written every year by gifted and anointed worship leaders all over the world. We believe these will be the “classic hymns” three hundred years from now. We have a band with drums, cymbals, guitars and keyboards! They play skillfully and we shout for joy!
DRAMA/FILM
We incorporate acting and the power of multi-media to help bring the messages across to our audience as well. Sometimes a well acted dramatic piece can get a message across better than any other medium. We strongly encourage people with gifts in theater and film production to come join our team. We are expanding the role of this ministry all the time.
GRAPHIC DESIGN/THEME SETTING/DECOR
Because we intentionally design our Celebration Experiences to impact all the senses we utilize artists as well. Paintings, sculptures and though provoking sets and design elements help create the immersive atmosphere we are striving to create. Our goal is that as you walk into the worship auditorium you will be surrounded by the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and touch of that day’s main idea or Scriptural principle. Creative elements like a real casket, a six foot wide crown of thorns sculpture and a giant curtain blocking the entrance to the auditorium are just a few examples we have used in the past.