Church (S)hopping

“Church hopping” is a phenomenon, particularly prevalent in the early Charismatic movement, when Christians would move from church to church, conference to conference, to chase down the best teachers and the most, well, charismatic speakers. As a result, many Christians became dislocated; whilst they heard great teaching, there was no space for them to apply […]

Keeping It in the Family

Today, we see another phase of our journey closing off as Ling and I visited one last church before settling in to our new church. And what a great way to end this chapter! We visited Churchlands Christian Fellowship and were really impressed by the worship: very Spirit-led and engaging with a “mosh pit” full […]

Wineskins, Patches and Paradigm Shifts

I think Christianity has been one of the most enduring faiths because of its ability to reinvent itself within the parameters of its core tenets and beliefs. It is a revolutionary faith. One of the things I love doing is to look at paradigm shifts in the church, particularly in the context of worship. Certainly, […]

Apostolic Worship and the Revolutionary Spirit

Last night, I was watching a Jackie Chan film called 1911 which chronicled the 1911 Chinese Revolution led by Sun Yat Sen. I have always wanted to read up on Chinese history, but the expanse of it was always too intimidating and I never really knew where to start. 1911 was a precis about the […]

One Thing is Needful

As some of you may know, we’ve been spending a few months now visiting different churches throughout Perth. Since the start of the year, we have made a more concerted attempt to settle in a home church so for the last couple of weeks, we have started going to Faith Community Church (FCC) to absorb […]

Worship and Performance

When I was learning to lead worship, one of the things that I was taught early on was that worship is very different to performance. The two things don’t mix and in fact, I was told that performance made worship impure, for “no flesh should glory in God’s presence”. I think a lot of that […]

Epochal Songs of the Praise and Worship Movement

I have been leading worship for the last 19 years within the Charismatic Renewal and I have seen the style (and to some extent) the content of our worship evolve. Rewind 20 years back and it would have been unimaginable for the church back then that we would sing the types of songs we sing […]

A Heart for Revival

I am writing this post from Singapore, where I am currently on holidays. Singapore holds a special place in my heart. It was the place where I experienced two spiritual milestones that shaped in me a heart for revival. I went on my first short term mission trip to Singapore in 1996. You might say: […]

Introduction to the Apostolic

Recently, I came across a phrase which gave definition to the sort of worship which I feel God has anointed me for: “apostolic worship”. In a later post, I intend to unpack that term a bit more fully, but for now, I want to shed some light on the word “apostolic” because I think that […]

Holy Worship Team, Batman

In a previous post, I talked about how an apprehension and understanding of the grace of God will transform the way we approach Him in worship. In this context, I want to pose the question: who is qualified to serve on the worship team? In the olden days, we used to impose a high requirement […]