Urbana 2000 Convention

The One Thing We'll Be Doing Eternally
A quick summary of the Bible might be: God loves and people worship, over and over again. Even when people don't worship God as they ought, he continues to love them because his goal is to find for himself those who will worship him in spirit and truth.

When we truly worship God, he is pleased (Ps. 69:30-31). Throughout Scripture, the nations are called repeatedly to worship him (e.g. Ps. 117). The culmination of history as we know it will be people of every ethnicity worshipping God at his throne (Rev. 7). It is the one thing we can say for sure we'll be doing throughout eternity. Because of all these things, it seems reasonable that worship be a top priority-thinking about it, talking about it, practicing for it, and of course, doing it.

But What IS Worship?
Worship is a life completely surrendered to God (Romans 12:1)-daily obedience fueled by God's love for us and ours for him. Worship is also communing with God through music, prayers and liturgy (liturgy just means the way we corporately express our devotion to God).

These two definitions of worship ought not be pitted against one another as if one were true worship and the other not. They are not mutually exclusive and in fact feed each other synergistically: We are commanded to meet together (Heb. 11:25) and to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Col. 3:16) that we might be spurred on to live lives of worship. When we are living obedient lives our corporate worship is authenticated and deepened.

The reality today is that many people are being impacted by corporate worship. They love encountering God particularly through music. Music's influence on hearts and minds has been so pervasive that worship and singing have become synonymous for a whole generation of people.

When asked what makes attending InterVarsity gatherings attractive, numerous students have replied that worship (meaning the singing type) is the number one thing they look forward to. It would be easy to write off this trend as emotionalism, sensualism and even idolatry (of music), or to say that students have their priorities backwards and need to be corrected.

We believe, however, that God is offering the world a gift through this generation's passion for corporate and musical worship. He wants to meet with us in these times! And he wants our corporate worship to transform our lives into worship.

What We Value in Worship Music
Because music has tremendous potential to help us hear from and express ourselves to God we are putting much thought into the musical worship we will experience together at Urbana 2000. Here are our top priorities for the music we will use at Urbana.

1. We want to find and create the kind of lyrics and styles that meet students where they are. We would like to see songs and other expressions of worship that are, in essence, indigenous to college students and their unique experiences. We hope to see songwriters, musicians, and worship leaders called out from the current student generation and consecrated to bear musical fruit that gives expression to their deepest longings and needs and to their highest praises and adoration of God.
2. At Urbana 2000 there will be an emphasis on our role in calling all nations to worship God. With that in mind, we will sing songs from various cultural contexts. We also will use musical styles that represent our own country's growing ethnic diversity. With God's help, we want to honor him and his multiethnic creation by developing worship that is a reflection (though a dim one) of the heavenly gathering of representatives from every tribe, tongue and nation.
3. While achieving cultural relevance is important (Jesus was very relevant to his original audience), continuity with the past and with the singing saints who have preceded us is also valuable. We seek to be students of worship forms and expressions from previous generations (even the early church) that our worship might be enriched by the wisdom of the ages and the insight of others.
4. We also strive to create music that is of the highest quality, and we encourage others to do the same. Worship music should be done well. There are skills involved that need to be developed. Greater depths of creativity can be plumbed only when basics are mastered. Likewise, worship experiences should be thoughtfully planned and not haphazardly thrown together. People will be more greatly served if we put time into developing our musicianship and the times of worship we lead. The most compelling reason for giving more time and energy is because God is worth it. Excellence is a godly characteristic.
5. Finally, we are committed to producing musical arrangements that others will be able to reproduce back on campus or in their church. In this way, we hope to serve worship leaders and musicians who attend Urbana and are on the lookout for new musical ideas.

Jesus anoints artists to express the gospel in a way that goes straight to the human heart. Our vision is to cooperate with him in what he is doing by giving more concentrated effort to developing our creative gifts, and by encouraging and empowering musicians and worship leaders to do the same to the glory of God.

Sundee Frazier
Urbana 2000 Worship Leader

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