Music Ministry

In this section, when I refer to the worship portion of our service, I am referring to the musical aspect of worship. However, when we talk about worship here at ENS we are not solely referring to the music. Worship should be a way of life in every believer. We should be worshipping God in our lifestyle, relationships, and acts of service as well as in our personal time with Him. We believe that church is a training ground for soldiers. It is a place of growth and community to prepare every Christian to be a witness in his or her circle of influence. Mature Christians should be discipling new Christians and adults should be modeling a passionate pursuit of God and the resulting personal transformation in front of the kids. Worship was commanded, by God, as part of this process.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:16

What is worship?

In a nutshell, worship is the act of responding to God’s love or, a loving interaction with God. A relationship with God can be compared with a relationship with your spouse – Eph 5. In an ideal relationship we serve the other out of love not obligation. As in any relationship, the more you give to the other person the closer you grow to them and the more you get out of the relationship.
God always initiates the love but then as we respond it creates a cycle and results in a deeper intimate relationship. Intimacy, defined as a mutual unveiling, requires trust and faith. The whole reason Christ came was to restore a personal relationship that was lost. In other words, He desires to be close to us. As we respond to Gods love by unveiling our hearts before Him, He begins to unveil His glory before us and we find ourselves worshipping in spirit and in truth. To realize that the God of the universe desires us even more than we desire Him is an amazing and humbling thing. Intimate worship comes from setting ourselves aside and letting his love overtake us and embrace us.

Why Modern Music?

Music was created by God to be used for His pleasure and His glory. To take something holy like praise music and use it for our pleasure or simply as a tool to attract people is nothing short of sin. So why do we use modern contemporary music for our worship? When we sing we believe that we should be singing from the heart. Some people and churches can sing hymns with passion. Others need a newer music style that they can relate to. Here at ENS we sing both contemporary praise music and hymns, not to please man but to offer as many avenues as possible for people to truly worship from the heart. We make sure the songs are doctrinally sound since, often times, a song will stay in a persons mind longer than a sermon.

Corporate Worship

In our individualized society we have a hard time understanding the need and importance of corporate worship. While we know that worship is a personal thing that should be going on in our hearts constantly, we are all members of one body. Corporate worship is simply a culmination of a week of personal worship. We are all members of one body. When we come together for corporate worship it is an entirely different realm. We are no longer one individual person offering a sacrifice to God, we are now one small part of a grander body joined together, as the bride of Christ to worship the Bridegroom. It is no accident that in Eph 4 & 5 where it talks about the diversity of gifts and the body working together as a whole it also talks about worshipping with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Throughout Scripture the command to praise or worship is usually addressed to God’s people, not one individual. I am not downplaying personal worship but corporate worship is so much more powerful when the entire body is seeking God’s face. To come in expecting God and seeking his face, not his hand, should be a normal attitude of the worshipper. The reason people feel the presence of God during a worship service is because, for a brief time they are completely exposed before God and have emptied their hands and hearts enough to receive what He has to offer.