About — The Worship Roundtable

WHAT IS THE WORSHIP ROUNDTABLE?

We are a community of kingdom-minded worshippers, creatives, and leaders striving to worship Jesus in Spirit and Truth with love and excellence

Our desire is to be Kingdom builders, and not throne sitters. This isn’t about one church or another getting the credit for the things that God does, instead it’s a movement of unity and cooperation that gathers believers together to partner in the kind of work that magnifies only the Name of Jesus

We are worship pastors, leaders, directors, and creatives, pushing past the boundaries of our own organizations and prioritizing partnerships, community, and unity.

We aim to worship God wholeheartedly. We seek to worship Him in heart, soul, strength and mind, by the power of the Holy Spirit, ministering always through Love, with our best, most excellent offering we can bring because He is worthy of our highest praises

HOW IT ALL STARTED:

**JIMMY THORPE**
***Founder of The Worship Roundtable***

I’ve served in my local church for over 14 years and something I’ve learned is that unity doesn’t happen accidentally. Someone has to make the first move. Personally, I’ve always tried to get to know worship and creative folks from other churches and develop friendships and relationships with them. I’ve honestly just followed in the footsteps of my lead pastor as he does this very thing with pastors and church leaders and has modeled it so faithfully to me.

This has helped me feel very connected to most of the churches in our area where I have a good working relationship with them and they with me. But then I realized, “Is this a bottleneck for unity in our worship community?” The problem that presented itself was that there was no opportunity for community amongst worship / creative leaders outside personal relationships and individuals churches.

Another driving force behind the Roundtable is to attempt to meet a desperate need of practical teaching / coaching / mentoring, and discipleship for our friends in the worship / creative community. It’s astounding how few people leading worship and creatives teams have not been / are not presently mentored / discipled.

Prayerfully, a solution I believe God has inspired here is the Worship Roundtable.

WHAT IS A WORSHIP ROUNDTABLE GATHERING LIKE?

We meet as a small group, 10-12 people, get together, connect, have coffee, eat cookies, and build friendships. We want to create spaces that people who share such an amazing calling and skill set can comfortably and organically build friendships. The hope is that you may have walked in only knowing one person, but you’ll leave with a group of partners you can trust to point you to Jesus and help you on your way.

Then we start the roundtable. And as you can imagine, the significance of the roundtable is that every one regardless or title or position is on equal ground and welcome in the conversation. Also, this is an ecumenical gathering, so not only will different church styles will be represented, but different denominations as well. We will have differences and that will be beautiful. The strength lies in the diversity of the group. As we navigate the topics, it’s not that loudest voice that will be best received, but the one closest to the heart of the Father, hopefully inspiring us all to push toward the middle taking steps closer to unity.

Our topics will hover around 3 main subjects: Spiritual Matters, Leadership Matters, and Technical Matters. The leader will be in charge of posing the questions or topics and everyone else will have an opportunity to weigh in as we sharpen our skills and understanding together.

Then we close in prayer. Praying for each other and each church by name. Praying that God would have His way in our city and that if He’s willing, that we may have a part in it.

WHAT WE BELIEVE:

The Bible is divinely inspired and is the final and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct. God and all His ways are perfect existing eternally as a Trinity of persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Although created in God’s image, man is estranged from God by sin and incapable of right relationship apart from grace. Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son, fulfilled our humanity in a life of perfect obedience stands as Mediator between God and us.

Jesus conquered death by death on the cross, defeating sin and reconciling us to the Father. The Holy Spirit renews our hearts pursuing and persuading us to repent of our sins, and to confess Jesus as Lord. By the same Spirit we are led to trust in divine mercy, whereby we are forgiven all our sins, justified by faith through the merit of Christ our Savior, adopted into God’s family as His children and enabled so to live in the world that all people may see our good works and the Gospel of grace at work in our lives and glorify our Father who is in heaven.

God, by His Word and Spirit, creates the one holy, church, united in the bonds of love, endowed with the gifts of the Spirit and summoned by Christ to preach the Gospel and to administer the sacraments, and to carry on the ministry of reconciliation. God’s redemptive purpose will culminate in the return of Christ to raise the dead, judge all people and establish His glorious kingdom. Those who are apart from Christ shall be eternally separated from God’s presence, but the redeemed shall live and reign with Him forever.

WHAT WE BELIEVE ABOUT WORSHIP:

When we worship corporately we are striving to worship in both Spirit and Truth, with Love and Excellence. We recognize that worship is so much more than singing, but as we are called to sing together corporately, we aim to do so with a posture of humility, a desire to magnify Christ and minimize us, in a manner that edifies the body and pleases the Lord.

We acknowledge styles and preferences ebb and flow, methods and traditions change, but the God we serve is timeless and unchanging. We serve at His pleasure and worship for His pleasure.