Simply Worship planned
its first event at the end of 2005 together with the vision, "WORSHIP
that GLORIFIES God which TRANSFORMS people who will in turn IMPACT society".
The concert was such a success that we decided to hold an event every
term leading up to a New Year's event in 2006.
Our key areas of focus are:
1. Unity - to see the whole church come together to worship
God, leaving the things that have traditionally caused division within
the church at the door i.e. denomination, culture, language, generation
and style, etc.
2. Impact – two of the key elements of Simply Worship are to see people being
transformed and society impacted. We are not interested in just hosting
another big worship concert where a feel-good, self-focused expression
of Christianity is practiced, but rather we emphasise that real worship
begins, in a sense, once we've left the venue,
as we go and live a lifestyle of worship (Romans 12:1-2). Next year we
intend to do service events that stem directly
from, as well as alongside, Simply Worship. We will join together for
worship events and in turn incorporate such events towards serving various
communities.
3. Free Admission - worship should always be freely available, and therefore we do not charge
people to come to our events and have thus far been very fortunate to
have had venues and music equipment sponsored, but as we grow and expand,
we are going to need ongoing support.
4. Intentionality - we realise that the aspects of division we are trying to overcome, are
not just going to happen effortlessly, therefore we need to be proactive.
These types of events are automatically presumed to be for younger people,
which is why we invite older people to join in and be a part of it. In
addition, having launched in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, we draw
a predominantly white crowd and therefore our current focus is on building
relationships with interracial communities in order to make the events
more relevant to our population.
5. Prayer - Before, during, after. We see prayer as an integral part of worship,
which is why we have a boiler room during the course of the events where
people can pray and cry out to God. There is no better way to celebrate The New Year,
than to wholeheartedly worship God as we were created to do, together with
the church throughout the Cape and beyond.