Our gathered worship, physically distanced at The Friary is now significantly different to the worship we enjoyed together pre-COVID – particularly given the fact we are unable to sing together.

What was once so familiar and precious to us, is currently not an option. Many of us find ourselves wondering how we praise and worship God, given that one of our main ways of expressing this is no longer an option together.

But, to adapt the title of Matt Redman’s well-known song, as the singing fades, we are being invited back to the heart of worship!

Gathered together again physically, God is inviting us to draw near, to give ourselves to Him, to encounter Him in a new way. For many of us, this is not an easy change in posture.

In the video below, Gavin shares his experience from a recent leadership meeting in which the church leadership team spent about an hour ‘worshipping without singing’. He describes a journey which starts at a mindset of striving and ‘doing praise’ and is gently led into an intimate encounter with God as he starts to listen and follow the leading of the Spirit through a number of different ways.