Reason #2 to Come to the HBC Glasgow Open House

For the past four or so years I hear one commentary on people's experience of the church in Scotland more than most. Across coffee shop tables all over Glasgow people seem to say the same thing. 'I can go to churches that will teach me the Bible but without an opportunity to express how excited I am to follow Jesus, or I can go to churches where the music is good... but I wouldn't trust my future to the teaching.'

Why should impactful, faithful and transformative Bible teaching and dynamic, engaging, life-altering worship be mutually exclusive? We certainly don't think that they should. After all the goal of them is the same... that in our hearts we would make much of God.

At Harvest we want our worship to have an intensity about it. Not the kind of forced intensity that can so easily smack of hypocrisy or descend into emotionalism. We want them to have the intensity that comes from being Biblically true and rich in describing what we know personally about Jesus. We want the songs that you sing with us to gloriously open up the story of your rescue by Jesus, we want them to direct you to Jesus at every opportunity- that is why one of the pillars of our church is the desire to lift high the name of Jesus in worship.

Really we want you to feel like you are singing the story of what God has done for you. Too often my own personal experience of worship is that I like the words and the tune is fine but I feel like I am singing someone else's song or singing words that have me reaching for the dictionary when I get home. We want you to be able to own the songs we sing by allowing you to use words that you would use, put to music that you would probably listen to, so that you will find yourself singing the truth that the song contains later in the week. We love songs that are high on scripture content... I sometimes call it scripture memorisation by stealth.

Music has that unique quality of allowing us to remember things like where we were when we heard that song or the time of our life that song represents. God's Word points us to how important singing worship together is for remembering truth, for helping us cling onto who God is in difficult times.

If you want to hear more about worship at Harvest Glasgow you could listen to this audio message.

We also believe that God's Word has something transforming to say to you every week. This transformation is not on some moral level or the fruit of a Sunday message more akin to a life-coaching seminar. Neither should it have the dull and crusty feel of a theological lecture- why would we want to bore people when we want them to adore Jesus. We don't just want you to have a better understanding of what happened in the text we are reading together but what needs to happen in our lives as a result of that.

We want you to see how the Gospel is meant to change your life in an ongoing sense as well as an eternal sense by helping you to use it as a lens to look at the things you encounter in your life every day. In short we want you to be able to trust both your future and live out your present in the confidence that God's Word is designed to give you.

Our desire for our church family, our vision for this local church is ongoing life transformation. We would love for you to come and find out about how you could come and have your life be changed by being part of Harvest Glasgow. So why not come along, even if just to find out more?

So, reason number two is this: You can find worship and preaching that engages your soul here.