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CONTENTS:
Vision Statement & Purpose Statement

WHERE IS the Center?
Great Commission Worship & Arts Center (GCWAC) intro
Core Values
Worship Is...(some thoughts)
INDEX of the Great Commission Worship & Arts Center
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VISION STATEMENT:
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By the power and leading of the Holy Spirit, the Great Commission Worship & Arts Center seeks to effectively partner with Christ-centered churches, schools, missions, ministries, businesses and individuals in order to train, equip and release biblically established artists and musicians into their roles in seeing cities, nations and ethnic groups discipled into becoming whole-hearted, total-life worshippers of God.

Purpose Statement:
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We are a resourcing, researching, consulting, networking, mobilizing, partnership developing, development and coordination hub which serves ministries, schools, churches, missions and individuals which share similar vision.

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WHERE IS THE 'CENTER'?

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The GCWAC 'Center' is not a BUILDING 'center' - and probably will never be, as the type of CENTER it is is more like a CLEARING HOUSE of information, resources, opportunities, networking opportunities, etc. It is a COMMUNICATION, RESOURCE and NETWORKING HUB. A very strong value is DECENTRALIZATION and EMPOWERING OTHERS in what God has called them to do as it relates to the overall vision of seeing whole-hearted, total-life worshippers from every language, nation, tribe and people worshipping before the throne of God as presented to us in Rev. 7. Another major value is REPRODUCING/MULTIPLYING as simply as possible. Therefore, our aim is to network and develop PARTNERSHIPS with others of like vision in order release the synergy and dynamism available to us as we are united together and led by the Holy Spirit, while also presenting a witness of unity AND helping to most effectively use resources God provides with the least amount of overlap.

This HUB / CLEARING HOUSE is located in Surrey, BC, Canada
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GREAT COMMISSION WORSHIP & ARTS CENTER INTRODUCTION:
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Believers in BC, throughout Canada, and indeed throughout the nations are lamenting the fact that the media, music and the arts are being used so overwhelmingly by the enemy in our day!

As we enter into the new millenium, you can be encouraged that in response there is a growing heart-cry to see these aspects of our culture and other cultures reclaimed for the glory of God! You can also be encouraged that God is increasingly stirring the hearts of growing numbers of His musicians and artists with a growing passion to not only see this situation turned around, but, as the Holy Spirit leads, to participate directly themselves in order to see it happen!

Over the past number of years God has been raising up increasing numbers of Christian musicians and artists that have been/or are becoming more firmly established in their biblical understanding of the role of music and the arts in the Bible and of their roles as musicians and artists in the Church and in the Great Commission! Godly musicians and artists in many countries are being led by the Holy Spirit to begin to ‘take back the land’ from the enemy and to reclaim music and the arts for the worship of the One True God instead of allowing Satan to continue to have a heyday with it.

As musicians and artists begin to gain a heart understanding of the incredible biblical God-ordained role they have been called to in participating in God’s cosmic purposes to redeem whole-hearted worshippers of Him from every language, nation, tongue and tribe, their lives become greatly enriched as they find great joy in realizing that God made them the way He made them because He WANTS to use their creative gifts for His glory FAR ABOVE what they may have asked or imagined!
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This generation, around the world, is very receptive to the arts and most multi-ethnic groups are also responsive to the arts, especially when they’re being communicated with through their own culture’s indigenous art forms. If we want to cross cultures and reach the many ethnically and religiously diverse peoples around us, if we want them to see reflections of God’s glory in ways that are relevant to them and if we want to reach this generation, I believe one important approach is for the Church to utilize the gifts and the provisions that God has given His Body through His creativity which He loves to express through His musicians and artists in order to help to reflect His multi-faceted character. We need to encourage His artists and musicians to understand and live out their callings in a godly way. Thankfully growing numbers of pastors and church leaders are recognizing this need and helping to support these developments in tangible ways.

Sadly, in recent history (this past century especially), the Church has relegated music, the arts and the media to ‘the world’ for the most part, and as a result has largely lost it’s God-honoring voice in this major realm of influence in our cultures. I believe God is having mercy by raising up again a growing breed of artists and musicians who are passionate about using their gifts to help to raise up worshippers from all nations.

To give you a bit more of an idea of why reclaiming the media, music and the arts is so important, following are some helpful thoughts from the Loren Cunningham’s article “DISCIPLING THE NATIONS: Seven influential sectors of society hold the keys” from his book “Winning God’s Way”. Excerpts taken from: http://www.uofn.ch/lausanne/society.htm

“…The seven spheres of influence described below will help us shape societies for Christ. God gave us these handles to use in carrying out Matthew 28 and discipling nations for Him. We believe He is wanting all His people to see the importance of these seven areas and work in them to extend Christ's reign throughout the earth….
1) The Family and Health Care…
2) Commerce, Science and Technology…
3) The Church…
4) Government…
5) Education…
6) The Media….
7) Arts, Entertainment & Sports….

…Media-bashing has become a popular sport lately. Everyone from right to left in the political spectrum, as well as many Christians have become convinced that the media folks are conniving to rob them of their rights. But how many of us realize that this is a mission field of enormous proportions? According to a recent poll by Lichter and Rothman of 238 media elite, fifty percent claim to have no religious belief at all. Only three to five percent go to church or synagogue regularly. This is a rate of unevangelised people equal to many so called "closed countries." Pick your least favorite news reporter. Get his or her face firmly in your mind. Then realize that this is a person for whom Jesus Christ hung on the cross--this is an individual worth the sacrifice of the Son of God. It is hard to overstate the importance of the electronic and print media in shaping our society. Why then have Christians ignored this arena, leaving a vacuum for the unrighteous to fill? We can't complain of the lack of truth in the press if we are not willing to go among them, carrying the One who said He was the way, the truth and the life. Again, some will be led to penetrate the non-Christian media while others work in Christian networks and newspapers…

…Any territory which we abandon, Satan will fill. That has happened in the performing arts. Modern drama was born as a form of evangelism--the Church created morality plays to teach the truths of scripture to an illiterate public. We must recapture drama and every form of entertainment for Jesus, seeking Him for creative ways to show the world who He is”…

And people ARE doing this! In fact, there is a constant stream of testimonies of how God is breaking through to various people groups around the world as His power touches their hearts through music and the arts. It is important for believers to learn how to judge art and to realize that although not every song and not every piece of art has to clearly present the Gospel, when God-honoring music and art is created by someone who is expressing worship to God through their art or music, and where Truth or His character is evident through it in some way, God can powerfully use that to draw people into a place where they are becoming more and more open to Him and His work in their lives. Many people are being healed, others are giving their lives to Christ and becoming His disciples, many believers that have sung European/N. American hymns for many years in other countries are finding new joy and life in creating their own worship songs in their own indigenous styles! (some resources on this mentioned below)

Because of my own two adult passions of missions and music, and because of my own growing awareness of the needs mentioned above, these thoughts, feelings and ideas that kept swirling in my heart and head over the years have given rise to the gradually sharpening vision of the Great Commission Worship & Arts Center.

My own journey along this road began when I was young. I began to play piano at a young age and eventually played in Christian bands, including a Christian contemporary band which was also part of a mission music/drama team for one year. During that year I struggled with whether, after the term was over, I should be a musician – my passion, or a missionary, my other growing passion. Over the following years God began to increasingly lead me to see that He wanted me involved in BOTH music and missions! I was overjoyed! For many years, while working as Personnel Director in the Richmond office of a local mission, I did research on how music could be utilized in missions in a discipleship role (ie. church planting) rather than only in an evangelistic role such as in a music/drama team. As a result, I became increasingly interested in and involved in the whole area of “ethnomusicology” from a missions perspective – where the heart-music of a people is encouraged so that they can worship God through their own artistic expressions. For years we in missions have understood that in order for a missionary to communicate the Gospel effectively to a people, they need to also learn the ‘heart-language’. It is very similar with ‘heart-music’.

During these years with our mission, I also began to lay foundations for the Ethnic Worship & Arts Focus which has been functioning the past few years, and earlier on was asked to head up the Ethnic Division of the AD2000 Worship & Arts Network which is an international missions resource network.

In my early years with the mission there were some pioneers in the area of utilizing and encouraging the development of indigenous worship expressions, but in the past 6 years or so it has been absolutely amazing to me, as I’ve been consulting, networking needs with opportunities and sending resources around the globe, etc., how this whole realm, which began here and there in small ways, has been beginning to EXPLODE throughout the nations! I now have national mission leaders and pastors from Africa or India or elsewhere asking for help to reclaim music and the arts in their countries. And wherever my colleagues and I go to share this vision of utilizing music and the arts in missions, we’re constantly hearing people say “I’ve been waiting all of my life to hear how these two passions of mine go together! Hearing this is such an answer to prayer and such a longing in my heart!”

As a result, as I briefly alluded to earlier, a growing vision in my heart the past seven years or so has been to see the creation/development/establishment of a Greater-Vancouver-based GREAT COMMISSION WORSHIP & ARTS CENTER which would function as a resource/networking hub for a partnership of Christian music and arts ministries, missions, education facilities and individuals that share the following vision:

“By the power and leading of the Holy Spirit, the Great Commission Worship & Arts Center will effectively partner with churches, schools, missions and ministries in order to train, equip and release biblically established artists and musicians into their roles in seeing cities, nations and ethnic groups discipled into becoming whole-hearted worshippers of God.”
Increasingly there is a growing movement in many segments of the Body of Christ across the globe to intentionally partner together in order to function more effectively and in unity in order to see God’s purposes accomplished on the earth today.

As in the book of Nehemiah, if we want to see the ‘walls’ rebuilt and the Body of Christ repenting, renewed, revived, restored and rebuilt, we need to realize our need to work together and to serve each other in love. We need to each do our part where we’re at, working ‘side by side’ as they did in the rebuilding of the wall – valuing and affirming unity in diversity, and as we work together there is a spiritual synergy that takes place as the power of the Holy Spirit flows through loving relationships/partnerships, producing much more than any one group could do on their own.

We applaud the efforts of those in the Body of Christ both present and past who have grasped an understanding of God's intended purpose for the arts. Yet, we also recognize that in various eras and places the arts have gone into disrepair and ruin and like the wall in Jerusalem, need to be rebuilt.
NOW IS THE TIME for the biblical foundations to be re-established and to see the walls rebuilt! In order to see this happen, we will need to partner together!

One example of what this could potentially look like is the vision of the Great Commission Worship & Arts Center as seen above (which is in its early developmental stages). Perhaps this is similar to visions that some of you also have on your hearts? If this IS something that rings true with your heart and you wish to talk further, please contact GCWAC@DiscipleTheNations.org

WHY VANCOUVER? There are many reasons, one being that this is an area where there is a growing missions focus in Canada and some very encouraging developments are in the works. Another reason is the multitude of ethnic and religious diversity that exists here. Yet another reason is the growing media, music and the arts center that Vancouver is becoming. I personally believe that God has some significant things that He wants to do in this region through the reclaiming of the media, music and the arts which will also greatly impact Canada and the nations in the years to come.

As I have shared this vision with numerous individuals and various Christian leaders in the area, the responses have usually ranged from very enthusiastic to ‘how can I help??’!
SOME OF OUR CURRENT NEEDS: prayer partners, administrative assistant, web site and webmaster, suitable room for a resource library, a theatre that could be shared with another ministry/ministries that share common vision, funding, partners that share the vision, etc.

SOME OF THE TRAINING OPTIONS:

A biblical understanding of God the Artist;

A biblical understanding of the role of music and the arts;

Music and Missions/Music and the Missionary;

Songwriting Workshop (for multi-ethnic musicians);

How to judge art from a Christian perspective;

A biblical understanding of the role of godly artists/musicians in the Great Commission;

A biblical understanding of worship - and the artists and musicians as worshippers;

A history of music and the arts - especially in the Church;

Artists Changing Their World;

The Artist and Biblical Purity;

A biblical understanding of reclaiming the arts as an aspect of DISCIPLING THE NATIONS;

Interfacing Christianity and Art;

What God is doing in music/the arts around the world today;

Missions Minded Musicians as a Vital Part of Church Planting Among the Unreached;

Contextualizing Praise and Worship for the Church Planting Agenda;

Some Ways to Utilize Ethnic Music on Church Planting Teams;

Recommended Requirements For A 'Musicianary' Interested In Becoming Involved As A Vital Part Of Church-Planting Teams Among The Unreached;

Utilizing music and the arts/media to reach illiterate peoples; Encouraging Musical/Artistic Indigenous Worship Expressions In Local Ethnic Christian Fellowships, etc.

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU? to find out about specific ways that we can serve you, please contact Grace (below).

UPCOMING EVENTS: to find out about some of our upcoming events that are in the works for 2000, please contact Grace (below).

SOME RESOURCES TO GET YOU STARTED:

ETHNIC WORSHIP & ARTS FOCUS free, monthly email NEWSLETTER which, in addition to providing resources
and articles on the utilization of ethnic music and the arts, also includes articles and resources regarding biblical perspectives of the arts, reclaiming music and the arts, etc.

AD2000 WORSHIP & ARTS RESOURCE NETWORK:
This site is for: Musicians : Artists : Missionaries: Churches : Missions Committees : Worship Leaders: Sending Agencies : Trainers : Prospective Missionaries
Goal of this site: To become a hub of information
*To provide information on Worship in global missions.
*To encourage and enable musicians and artists to use their talents on the mission field.
*To provide access to information regarding use of music and the arts in evangelical missionary work.
*To connect missionaries and senders with resources, information and personnel talented in music and the arts.
http://www.ad2000.org/tracks/worship/index.htm - also includes the excellent Global Worship Reports

New site for 2000 (still under construction): www.worship-arts-network.com

Again, NOW IS THE TIME for us as God’s musicians and artists to respond to the stirring of the Holy Spirit in our hearts as He is in the process of raising up an army of worshippers who use the creative gifts He’s give us to see the desire of His heart come about – whole-hearted worship from every nation, language, tongue and tribe! Does this describe your heart and desire? If so, we’d like to talk with you!
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-- CONTACT INFO: GCWAC@DiscipleTheNations.org
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