Raw

In response to lots of different people and thoughts we are launching a series of nights entitled Raw.  It's quite hard to define exactly what they're going to be like, seeing as we haven't had one yet and they're intentionally quite open.  But I'll briefly outline my thoughts and some of the vision which has infused these nights.

First off I really like musical worship.  We all connect with God in different ways but personally I've always found that corporately and privately that sung worship has often been where I've met with God most easily and powerfully.  In our morning Sunday gatherings we have to cram in lots of different things and therefore I'm often left feeling as though I'd love a bit more time spent in musical praise!  Having had a few conversations with people has led me to think that I'm not the only one who thinks that.  Some people have also felt that there isn't as much "space" as they'd like, space meaning quite a lot of different things.

Hence we thought it would be really nice to have a time where we could intentionally create space to allow people to engage corporately and individually with God.  We already have the brilliant Stoked evenings which are a space where the focus is mainly on prayer.  With Raw we hope that there will be prayer and lots of other ways of engaging with God but the primary focus is on musical praise and worship.  Over the course of these nights we hope to break out of the Christian soft rock genre to give us some variety.

We want people to come and find freedom to worship.  Freedom to go deeper than they have before, together with others who are up for the journey and the challenge.  Freedom from having to maintain a facade.  We want to encourage people to be excited, passionate, honest and raw in their worship.  As Tim's been saying recently church may be messy but there's life there.