Vineyard Worship Leaders' Retreat 2003
We arrived at Lee Abbey in glorious sunshine at the end of a busy week. It was great to be welcomed with such hospitality into this faith community of over 80 individuals from all over the world.

The view from the front of the Abbey is awesome - rolling hills plummeting to reveal the glistening bay.

In the evening Peter Davids (PD) introduced us to his topic of 'a biblical perspective on woship leading' through the illustration of the people of Rohan and their King. They call out "command us o King" - a great expression of what worship is.

The following day PD took us through the old and new testament asking what is our model for leading? He concluded that in the new testament there is no mention of worship leading, in fact there is very little mention of singing. In the OT we're faced with a different culture, the Jewish temple (which he vividly contextualised for us with his slaughter house-come-butchers description).

In the NT the physical 'temple' was superceded by the 'people' and therefore we can’t easily fall back on the OT as our reference point.

PD explained the living sacrifice involved in true worship. How our songs are merely a fragment of our day to day service of those around us. When we come to sing songs it is merely one aspect of our whole week spent worshipping.

In the evening Dan Wilt spoke on living in ‘sacred style’, how the church is in a phase of transition. We are called both ‘home’, to the centre and to the edge. His desire was that our interaction with the world will change from a monologue to a dialogue, no longer seeing the churches’ role as telling the world what it is not.

We will look beyond the walls of our buildings and see God working in the lives of those all around us, no longer limiting His work to our domain.

That’s my summary done with – all in all a cool weekend.