We sat down with Pastor Jeff Wells to hear his heart for worship at WoodsEdge. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
If you're talking to someone about worship, what scripture passages immediately come to mind that are crucial for our understanding of worship?
I think of John 4, when Jesus talked to the woman at the well, and He talks about worshiping God in Spirit and in truth. It seems to be something about it that we worship in truth according to who God is, which assumes that the Bible is part of setting the foundation for worship. And then we worship in Spirit, which is a little bit hard to get our hands around, but I think it's best understand the meaning as “from the heart.” It's not a formal, ritual, mechanic sort of thing, but it is from a deep place in our hearts.
For some reason, Psalm 96 has long spoken to me. It has a repeated emphasis on singing to God. It underscores the importance of music, which is only part of worship, but a big part of worship. It also has this great theme in it that God's glory and worship should be in all the nations.
Revelation 4 and 5 are other Christ-exalting passages, and many more.
Tell me a little bit about your own journey with worship. How has your personal worship changed through the years?
It’s been an interesting journey, particularly since I am very non-musical. When people talk about being “on pitch," I don't know what they're talking about. Yet I feel like I have a very deep heart for worship. Maybe it grew out of the Jesus Movement in the early 70s. I came to Christ about when contemporary worship music began, so I became exposed to it when I went to Oregon as a college pastor. At the outset, I found it very meaningful and rich, while also appreciating the hymns.
But here's a key part of my journey: when I was 29 years old, I realized that I did not feel loved by God. I believed it intellectually but didn't feel it deep in my soul. I felt God was just and holy and great and sovereign, but I didn't feel He was tender and loving and kind and gracious and slow to anger. I realized that my view of God really needed to change. Several things were part of that journey, particularly a desperate prayer for change and paying attention to the passages in the Bible about the grace and the goodness and love of God, but another important part of that was worship. God used the power of worship to transform my image of Him over the years. I think there's something about the power of really focusing on God and expressing love and adoration to Him that is soul-transforming.
I have some very deep convictions about the power of worship. If you're engaged in it, it's not enough to be in the room, it's not enough to be paying attention or to focus on what others around you are doing, but if you're looking hard at God and expressing emotion to God, I just think there's something unusually powerful about worship.
Worship has been very important to me for a pastor. I want the presence of God. Of course, we have God's presence everywhere, but I want a strong sense of God's presence in the room. I want the manifest presence of God. I want people to sense God is here. That means our worship can't be about looking good. It can't be about performance or ego. It's just like preaching. It can't be about ego. It's got to be about Christ.
What about worshiping corporately? What's important about being together?
It's powerful. God uses it. It's interesting that Christ would say some things like, “when two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in their midst.” You know, Christ is always with us, of course— “I'll be with you always to the end of age.” But clearly there is something special about when believers gather together to seek the presence of God. There’s something exponential; it's not addition, it's multiplication. The presence of God is poured out. God loves it when his people join together to praise.
I spend a few hours a day with the Lord in Bible study and prayer and intercession and things, but probably my favorite part is worship. I am a non-musical person, but I go to YouTube and turn on some of my favorite worship songs and I sing those to God. But when there's a whole congregation going hard after the Lord with an anointed worship leader who can bring us in the presence of God and it's not about them, it's about the Lord, it's powerful and soul-transforming. I think it's part of the whole sanctification process of becoming like Christ.
As we are looking forward to a Sunday, how should we prepare our hearts for worship? What kind of expectation should we walk into the room with?
I hope our people come expecting to meet God, to encounter God, to be in the presence of God, to feel the love of God, and knowing that he is going to do something soul-transforming— that he will use not just the preaching, but the worship to bring a deep healing to their soul and to their heart.
It's more of a sense of expectancy and faith that he's going to show up. When you have a percentage of the room that is really going hard after God, the room changes. The sense of the presence of God goes way up and people come expecting that that will be a very powerful time. Sometimes I find it's just overwhelming to me.
We have two worship venues every Sunday. Tell us about the differences between the Pavilion and the Worship Center. And what's the common thread through each of those venues?
The Worship Center is larger and a great place for worship, but the Pavilion is the nicest room on the campus. It's just a more beautiful and comfortable environment. Aesthetics go way up, but it's smaller. It's half the size. We have heartfelt, biblically accurate worship in both venues, with gifted and anointed worship leaders who desire the presence of God. We have such a high value on worship that we just want it very good. And, of course, the service has expository preaching from the Bible. It will be the same sermon in both venues, though occasionally we're going to make it a little bit different.
How would you want to see the worship that takes place on a Sunday or a Wednesday impact the rest of the days of the week for our people?
I would hope that every day they'd have to be spending some of their time just worshiping the Lord. That may be through song, but it also includes maybe reading the Psalms or just declaring the greatness of God's attributes. I wouldn’t want to limit worship just to singing. Ultimately everything we do for the Lord is in response to who God is. But in terms of worship and prayer, in many ways the heart of it is singing because it can grab emotion in ways that just talking doesn't. Both involve the head, but worship is a better vehicle to grab the heart too. There's something powerful about it. I hope that our people would so love to worship and enjoy the time with God and the people of God gathered, that they could not not worship.