A generation ago, Christianity went through a massive shift. The formality of corporate worship gave way to ‘intimacy’, and we were forever changed. The ongoing work of the Spirit released us into a ‘spiritual intensity’, but our ultimate longing has always been a weighty encounter in the presence of God that is less about our contribution and more about our surrender. REVERE is a musical journey from intimacy to intensity into the fear of the Lord, where we fall down and cry out: “Holy, holy, holy are you Lord Almighty.”

Marshall McLuhan, the father of modern-day communications, famously said: ‘The medium is the message.’ Throughout history, the medium of our worship has communicated what we truly believe about God. Whenever we have been in seasons of faith and healthy dependence, the medium has been reverential songs and liturgies that are soaked in honesty and humility, the Psalms being a case in point. Whenever we have taken our eyes off the mark, we have replaced these with idols that we have been able to make with our own hands, substituting vulnerability with human ingenuity. If we are, to be honest, we are facing this internal tug of war in the church today. God forbid that our skills to produce and finesse cause us to move away from the simplicity and mystery of full surrender.

The act of worship has become a business and a church growth catalyzer. but there is nothing like the catalytic agency of the glory of God. The long-term goal of REVERE is for worship to become worship again, free of contradictions and philosophical conflicts. REVERE can hopefully cause a ripple effect for the church to pivot from a preoccupation with contemporary worship music, and its functionality in achieving church growth, to a sober focus on the person of Jesus, so that worship can be accurate and honest and not a Trojan horse for human ambition.

Our hope with REVERE is to gently help steer the church away from a production culture where the emphasis can, mistakenly, become a love for worship, to a reverential culture where the focus is, clearly and firmly, a love for Christ. In hopes of helping people experience the manifest presence of God, oftentimes described, in the bible, as ‘the glory’, the weight, substance, and gravitas of The Eternal.