I’m completely, freely, sold out, sincerely abandoned. 

This was the powerful first line of a song used at Heritage Park Temple’s Sunday morning service as the congregation was invited to consider their faith journey and how fully they were surrendering to God’s will for their lives.

From June 6 – 8, NEON met and worshipped with members of the Heritage Park Temple Corps in Winnipeg. We were blessed to engage with leaders who wanted to learn how to serve their congregations through their leadership in corporate worship times.

Friday night, Simon Gough was able to meet with local leadership and dig into some of the aspects that go into assembling a worship set and how we can do our best, as leaders, to facilitate the interaction between God and His people during corporate worship.

Saturday was a full day. We were able to spend a lot of time talking about, and working through, the practical elements that help a worship team play and lead well together. Members of NEON worked with instrumentalists from Heritage Park Temple as they played through repertoire, and focused on what helps us work together well as a worship team.

In the afternoon, members of the Heritage Park Temple Band joined in, and we looked at how the worship team and the brass band can work together in worship. There are more resources to achieve this than ever before. NEON was joined by Mississauga Bandmaster and Canadian Staff Bandsman Rob Brown, who helped give perspective from the brass band’s point of view. The worship team and brass band worked together looking at the practicalities and functions of how the different groups work together and what works, what doesn’t, and why.

This full day of rehearsing and learning was followed by the highlight of the weekend, a worship service on Saturday evening that was directed by the congregation. This was a throwback to the ‘hymn sing’ events many corps have held, where a list of songs was displayed and the congregation could pick a song that has significance for them. They were able to select a song if they shared a testimony of why this song had meaning to them. We experienced an amazing evening of sharing and worship unfold, where God was truly present in our midst.

On Sunday we shared in worship again as the band and NEON used some the pieces that they had worked on together for the congregation. Emajean Hobbin shared her testimony of how the power of Jesus is real in her life and how He calms anxiety when she calls on Him. This flowed well into the sermon from NEON Executive Officer Captain Shawna Goulding who gave the congregation time to consider their faith journey to this point. She asked them to consider what they needed to surrender and how they could be even more abandoned to God’s will in their lives. The lyrics of the bridge and chorus of Abandoned (Ben Hastings) were a focus for the congregation as they responded. May they be as significant for you as they were for us in worship.