Encyclopedia > Contemporary Christian worship movement
Contemporary Christian worship is not easily defined, it finds its expression in many forms such as house churches, renewed traditional churches and new church movements such as from the Vineyard movement, Hillsong Music, Integrity Music, Maranatha! Music, Christian City Churches and various others. Much of the expressions refect the cultures in which they sit and range from Pentecostal through to Charismatic and Evangelical. The Vineyard Movement is a combination renewal and church planting movement which can also be considered a Christian denomination. ... Hillsong Church Australia worship leader Darlene Zschech Hillsong Music collectively refers to the Christian music produced by the Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia as well as offshoot churches, Hillsong London and Hillsong Ukraine. ... CCC Oxford Falls Logo Christian City Churches Pastors Phil and Christine Pringle // Christian City Church International Christian City Church International (C3I) currently (2003) consists of over 100 churches situated throughout Australasia, New Zealand, North America, and the European community. ... The Pentecostal movement within Protestant Christianity places special emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. ... Charismatic is an umbrella term used to describe those Christians who believe that the manifestations of the Holy Spirit seen in the first century Christian Church, such as speaking in tongues, healing and miracles, are available to contemporary Christians and ought to be experienced and practiced today. ... The term evangelical has several distinct meanings: In its original sense, it means belonging or related to the Gospel (Greek: euangelion - good news) of the New Testament. ...
Some of the more influential voices in this movement are Rick Warren (Saddleback Church), Bill Hybels (Willow Creek Community Church) and the late John Wimber (Vineyard). All of which have had a significant influence on the modern contemporary Christian worship. A further development is the Emergent church movment who seek to bring a new expression of Church for the post-modern culture. Saddleback Church is an Evangelical Christian church in Lake Forest situated in southern Orange County in southwestern Southern California. ... Willow Creek Community Church is a large American nondenominational church in the suburb of South Barrington, Illinois near Chicago, Illinois. ...
Music is a central component to this movement and many new writers have emerged since the 1970's who are resourcing the church with modern songs.
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The Association of Former Pentecostals a non-profit organization uniting former Pentecostals and Charismatics, many of who recount "expressive worship" as part of the hypnotic environment that kept them trapped in emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually abusive church atmospheres.
Throughout most centuries of Church history, Christianworship has been primarily liturgical, characterized by formal, set prayers and hymns done in a particular order according to specific rituals, whose texts were rooted in, or closely related to, the Scripture, and particularly the Psalter.
A great deal of emphasis was placed on the forms of worship, as they were seen in terms of the Latin phrase lex orandi, lex credendi ("the rule of prayer is the rule of belief")—that is, the specifics of one's worship express, teach, and govern the doctrinal beliefs of the community.
Thus, unity in Christianworship was understood to be a fulfilment of Jesus' words that the time was at hand when true worshippers would worship "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23).