Here at NCC, you’ll find a safe and welcoming place where you can encounter the living God. You will be inspired by the worship, encouraged by the message, and feel welcomed by our amazing community of people:
Warm, friendly, diverse community
Down-to-earth, practical teaching based on the Bible
Opportunity to receive personal prayer from our trained prayer team
When you visit us please introduce yourself to a pastor, a hospitality team member, or the person sitting next to you. We would love to meet you. Come by the Connections Table at your campus to get your own Bible and a copy of the Next Steps guide. You can complete this workbook on your own, but we encourage you to do it with a friend or two, or with an NCC small group.
We bless the LORD and bless each other as we worship.
Worship is a lot more than singing . . . but the singing is what ignites and unites our hearts.
Singing together to God is a powerful thing—spiritually, psychologically, even physiologically. There is a monastery in Britain where the monks play music and discovered that a cow serenaded by Mozart produced more milk. At Tallahassee Regional Memorial Hospital, a study of premature babies found that 60 minutes of lullabies reduced the baby’s hospital stay by five days. There’s a bakery in Nagoya, Japan that’s famous for its Beethoven bread. They claim that “Symphony No. 6” helps the bread rise. And there are horticulturists in Denver who have experimented with different musical selections in different greenhouses and have found that Bach causes a sonic bloom.
Music lets the child in us play, the monk in us pray, the cowgirl in us line dance and the hero in us surmount all obstacles. But God has given us a soundtrack where when our life becomes alive, singing is a superpower. God is rejoicing over you with singing (Zephaniah 3). God is singing songs of deliverance all around you all the time (Psalm 32).
God is singing songs of deliverance over you all the time.
Worship is what you were created to do.
It’s singing back to the God Who sings over us, Who sings around us. All we’re doing is singing back. And when we do, we join an angel chorus. We are mirroring what is happening in heaven as the angels, the elders, and the living creatures sing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come, worthy of glory and honor and power and praise. And they never stop singing. You can’t not worship. And if you don’t worship the almighty creator of the heavens and the Earth, you will substitute something else. That’s the way we’re designed.
There is no part of your life or of your day that can’t be transformed into an act of worship.
Worship is a lifestyle. Worship is what we do with our heart. It’s a muscle. It’s a language. Worship is worth-ship. It’s ascribing ultimate worth and honor and glory to God. “Every good and perfect gift is from above,” says James 1. It’s all from God. It’s all for God. Worship is giving credit where credit is due. And whatever you don’t turn into praise, turns into pride.
There are 1000 ways you can worship. Worship God with a gratitude journal. Worship God by serving, breaking a sweat, and loving people. Worship God with your giving. Worship is anything that glorifies God. 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”
Worship is a weapon.
Have you looked around you? We live in a fallen world. We are born on a battlefield between good and evil. Worship is the dividing line. Worship is a weapon. 2 Chronicles, 20:12 says, “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” You can complain about your circumstances. You can crawl into a fetal position. You can do lots of different things when you don’t know what to do, but here’s the real answer: when you don’t know what to do, give God some praise. Give God the worship he deserves. As Charles Spurgeon said, “I’ve learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages.”
2 Chronicles 20:21 says, “The king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his mighty splendor.”
The battle belongs to the Lord. When we worship, our God fights for us. When we praise God in spite of circumstances—when we praise God, future tense, when we prophesy our praise, when we begin to praise over our circumstances, worship is a weapon. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. It reminds us of who God is. This is when and where and how healing happens, deliverance happens, breakthrough happens. Words of wisdom, words of knowledge, and the miracles of God begin to manifest themselves in Jesus’ name.
“While they were worshiping . . .”
When we worship, it begins to shift the atmosphere. When we worship, it begins to shift our attitude. When we worship, it elevates our faith. It activates the gifts of the spirit. The tipping point, the turning point is Acts 13:2: “While they were worshiping . . .” At that moment, God begins to turn the church inside out. What happens is this: every missionary journey Paul goes on, every church that Paul plants, every epistle that Paul writes— traces back to this genesis moment, “while they were worshiping.” Praise takes the ceiling off of everything—because God inhabits the praises of his people. This is when and how and where healing happens and deliverance happens and revelation happens.
