I recently came across this list of Saddleback Church’s 12 Convictions about Worship and have been thinking a lot about worship in the Park Community Church context as we get ready to move into a new building and begin to explore potential how multi-site locations might further the work that God is doing in our midst.

Here is what Rick Warren says about their worship convictions:

Jesus’ ministry attracted enormous crowds. The Bible tells us that crowds followed him wherever he went. I believe that a Christ-like ministry still attracts crowds today. You don’t need gimmicks. You don’t need to compromise your convictions. You don’t need to water down your message. If you minister to people the way Jesus did, they’ll want to be around your ministry like they did his.

But how do you develop a worship service that’ll minister to those crowds each weekend? It’s important that you figure out why you do what you do before you figure out what your worship service will include. At Saddleback, 12 convictions determine how we minister to the crowds on the weekends. Here’s why we do what we do in our worship services.

1. Only believers can truly worship God.

2. You don’t need a building to worship God.

3. There is no correct style of worship.

4. While unbelievers can’t worship, they can watch believers worship.

5. Worship is a powerful witness to unbelievers if God’s presence is felt and the message is understandable.

6. God expects us to be sensitive to the fears, hang-ups, and the needs of unbelievers when they are present in our worship services.

7. Worship services do not have to be shallow to be evangelistic, and the message does not have to be compromised. It just has to be understandable.

8. The needs of believers and unbelievers often overlap.

9. It’s best to specialize your services according to purpose.

10. A service geared toward non-believers is meant to supplement personal evangelism, not replace it.

11. There is no standard way to design an evangelistic worship service.

12. It takes unselfish mature believers to offer an evangelistic worship service. This is the most important of all.

Here are the original posts with supporting thoughts by Rick Warren at pastors.com here and here. He goes more in-depth into each of his points in the articles, which are well worth reading.  What do you think?  What are your convictions about worship as we seek to introduce the God of the universe to all people in Chicago?