The area of praise and worship can be a sensitive issue among churches. At Calvary we believe that everything should be done “decently and in order” as the apostle Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 14. In that passage the context is dealing directly with the gifts of tongues and prophecy. The command is that there should be an order to the exercising of spiritual gifts to avoid confusion.When it comes to the area of praise and worship in a congregational setting, the Bible doesn’t give us specific instruction. Our prayer is that the praise and worship time in our church be Jesus centered and non distracting. Having said that, every one has a different level of distraction. Someone who comes from a more traditional background might be distracted by drums and guitars and visa versa. Therefore, we have to find a good balance that works for our congregation. At Calvary we enjoy a little more freedom to express worship by the lifting of hands (Psalm 134:2, 1 Timothy 2:8), Standing (Psalm 135:2) and kneeling (Psalm 95:6). Typically when we see people stand up, the rest of the congregation will usually join them. We will also try to ask the entire body to stand when we see a general movement taking place among the people toward that.
The most important focus is that God is being worshipped in Spirit and truth (John 4:23). We know that there will be always be certain people seeking to draw attention to themselves during worship no matter where you go. We do strive to practice biblical guidelines to help prevent those people from succeeding in taking the focus off Jesus.