40 years on… 17. Worship at Stoneleigh

I am fascinated how much chatter my last blog about Stoneleigh Bible Week has produced! Thank you to all those who left comments on the Friends of Newfrontiers Facebook page where I put a link.

Lead worshippers
Many of you mentioned how much you loved the worship. What an important part worship rightly played at Stoneleigh. After all, that is one of the key ways we can both honour God and hear from him! How grateful I am (we all are!) for God sending us such a wonderful team of musically trained worshippers to give us the lead. In these days, when so much of sung worship has become ‘performance’, I look back on those days at Stoneleigh with great gratitude. To quote Matt Redman, the singers and worship band helped us as lead worshippers rather than worship leaders. We were all able to get caught up in their slip-stream and participate! Thanks so much to Kate Simmonds, Lou Fellingham, Stuart Townend, Dave Fellingham, Paul Oakley and to The Stoneleigh Band and the choir. You served us well!

Good Theology
Further, the songs were packed with good theology. Some would say that we learn more theology from what we sing than from what we hear preached (sorry preachers!). Whether the comparison is true or not, we were daily being fed with memorable truth as we learnt new songs. We are so grateful to Stuart, Dave (with his shofar!), Paul and others who studied diligently to ensure we had such a deposit in our souls. Who can forget such songs as In Christ Alone (Getty and Townend) and one of the older content-packed hymns to a modern setting Before the throne of God above (Bancroft and Bradbury). (Click on the title to listen)

They are on Spotify
Have you discovered the worship albums on Spotify? Adrian Warnock kindly uploaded these and many other Newfrontiers worship songs. I encourage you to listen here. What a feast – indeed what a banquet!