What is a Founding Cohort?

Biblical Worship is a 16-week live course exploring worship
through Scripture, formation, and practice.

Let’s Start With a Cohort

A cohort is a group of learners who take the same course at the same time and progress through the material together.

Unlike a self-paced online course, where you may watch videos and complete assignments mostly on your own, a cohort learns as a community. Everyone wrestles with the same ideas, asks questions, tries things out, and brings their experiences back into the conversation.

That creates something a normal online course often cannot.

The cohort becomes an idea factory.

One person notices something in Scripture that another person missed. A pastor sees how a principle might affect a church's culture. A worship leader sees how it could change the way a team approaches rehearsal. A musician asks a question that opens an entirely different conversation. Someone else tries the concept during personal worship and returns the next week with an experience that helps the whole class see it differently.

The teaching is still important, but learning doesn't stop when the teaching ends.

In a typical session, we might explore a biblical principle of worship together and then discuss what that principle looks like in real church life. Students bring their own experiences, questions, challenges, and insights into the conversation. Those different perspectives help everyone see worship through lenses they may never have encountered on their own.

Over time, something else begins to happen.

You form relationships with the people learning alongside you. You begin to see how God is working through their questions and experiences, as well as your own. The growth becomes both personal and communal.

That is what makes a cohort more than simply taking an online course.

You are not just receiving information.

You are learning, practicing, questioning, discovering, and growing together.

What Makes It a Founding Cohort?

Biblical Worship has been a personal project of mine for nearly 20 years.

Over that time, I have studied worship throughout Scripture, taught pieces of it, practiced these ideas in ministry, and continued developing a deeper understanding of what biblical worship actually looks like. It has now grown to the point where I can begin writing the book and teaching the material as a complete course.

But twenty years of study does not mean I have thought of everything.

Worship is lived out in real churches, real families, real ministries, and real communities. Pastors, worship leaders, musicians, and believers all bring different experiences into that conversation. Those experiences matter.

That is where the founding cohort comes in.

A founding cohort is the first group invited to learn the material while also helping shape how it develops for future students. If you want to see how the full course is structured, you can explore the Biblical Worship Founding Cohort here. You are not simply receiving a finished course. You are helping test the ideas, explore their applications, ask the difficult questions, and discover where these biblical principles meet the realities of church life.

In many ways, the founding cohort becomes a testing ground.

We will take concepts that have been developing for two decades and put them into conversation with the Body of Christ. Students will be encouraged to question, experiment, share experiences, and bring honest feedback into the room.

You might notice an application I have never considered.

A pastor may recognize how a principle could affect the worship culture of an entire congregation. A musician may discover something that changes the way a team approaches worship. Another student may raise a question that exposes an area that needs greater study or clearer teaching.

That interaction is part of the process.

Founding students may help refine assignments, test new activities, suggest questions for future classes, and identify areas where the teaching needs more clarity or depth. The goal is not simply to prove that the material works. It is to discover how these biblical truths can be taught and practiced faithfully across many different ministry settings.

Twenty years of study built the framework. The founding cohort is where that framework meets the Body of Christ.

That is what makes this first group different.

You are not just taking Biblical Worship.

You are helping shape what Biblical Worship becomes.

What Does the Biblical Worship Cohort Actually Look Like?

Each week, we gather live on Zoom and explore a different topic within Biblical Worship.

The rhythm is simple:

Learn. Discuss. Study. Practice. Reflect. Apply.

We begin with teaching rooted in Scripture. Then we open the room for discussion, questions, observations, and application. Because everyone is moving through the material together, the conversation becomes part of the learning process rather than something added on afterward.

From there, the ideas move out of the classroom and into real life.

Each week includes assignments designed to help you engage the topic personally through Scripture, worship, reflection, and practical application. You are not simply being asked to remember what was taught. You are being invited to test it, pray through it, practice it, and notice what God reveals along the way.

Then we come back together.

Students bring their questions, discoveries, struggles, and insights into the next conversation. Something that began as a teaching point may become much richer after several people have lived with it for a week.

This is especially important in Biblical Worship because many of the practices we will explore are ancient biblical expressions of praise and worship that are either unfamiliar or poorly understood in much of the modern church.

Rather than simply defining them, we want to ask deeper questions.

• What did these practices mean in Scripture?

• What do they reveal about God?

• How do they form us as worshipers?

• And what might faithful expressions of them look like in the church today?

The founding cohort gives us room to explore those questions together.

We will meet weekly for 16 weeks in an evening class. The course is designed at a collegiate level, but no previous theological or musical training is required. What matters most is a willingness to take Scripture seriously, participate in the conversation, and let your understanding of worship grow.

You do not need to arrive with all the answers.

You just need to be willing to explore.

What Are the Assignments?

Each week, the assignments are divided into four movements:

Study. Practice. Reflection. Wisdom.

Together, they move the material from your head into your life.

Study

We begin with Scripture.

You will spend time studying the passages connected to that week’s topic, looking beyond the classroom teaching and engaging the Word personally.

Scripture is deep enough that no single lesson can exhaust what God has revealed. The goal is not simply to repeat what was taught in class, but to slow down, observe the text, ask questions, and allow the Holy Spirit to deepen your understanding through the Word.

Practice

Then we practice what we are learning.

Each weekly topic includes an opportunity to engage in praise and worship connected to that biblical principle. This is where ancient practices found throughout the Psalms, the worship of Israel, and the broader biblical story begin to move from something we read about into something we actually experience.

The goal is not to recreate ancient Israel or imitate a practice merely because it is old.

The question is:

How does this biblical expression of worship point us toward Christ, and what might faithful worship look like for believers today?

Practice gives us the opportunity to explore that question beyond theory.

Reflection

After studying and practicing, we slow down and reflect.

• What did you notice?

• What challenged you?

• Did anything change in the way you understand God, worship, or yourself as a worshiper?

• Is there an area where Scripture is inviting you to grow?

Reflection creates space for prayer, journaling, and honest examination. Sometimes the most important part of learning happens after the teaching is over, when we give God room to reveal what needs to take root in us.

Wisdom

Finally, we ask how what we have learned should affect the people and places God has entrusted to us.

You may be a parent, musician, pastor, worship leader, small-group leader, or simply a believer who wants to worship God faithfully. Whatever your role, biblical truth must eventually become something we know how to live.

Wisdom asks:

• How should this change the way I worship?

• How might this affect the way I lead?

• What could this teach my church, family, or ministry community?

• What practices should change because of what I now understand?

The goal of Biblical Worship is not simply to accumulate more knowledge about worship.

Knowledge puffs up, but wisdom is a gift.

Knowledge can tell us what Scripture says. Wisdom teaches us how to faithfully live what Scripture reveals.

That is why the final movement of each assignment is Wisdom. We are asking God not only to help us understand worship, but to show us what that understanding should change in our lives, our ministries, our families, and the people we influence.

Study gives us understanding. Practice gives us experience. Reflection gives us perspective. Wisdom teaches us what to do with what we have learned.

Who Is the Biblical Worship Cohort For?

Biblical Worship is designed for pastors, worship leaders, musicians, ministry leaders, and believers who want to understand worship more deeply through Scripture. If you want to see how the full course is structured, you can explore the Biblical Worship Founding Cohort here

• You do not have to be a worship leader.

• You do not need formal theological training.

• You do not need to be a professional musician.

What matters most is a willingness to explore what the Bible actually says about worship and to let that understanding challenge assumptions, traditions, habits, and preferences.

For pastors, this course can help build a stronger biblical framework for teaching worship and shaping a congregation's worship culture.

For worship leaders and musicians, it can bring greater depth and purpose to what happens on the platform by connecting musical practice to the biblical theology underneath it.

For ministry leaders, it can provide language and principles for helping others grow as worshipers.

And for believers who may never step onto a platform, Biblical Worship can deepen personal faith by revealing that worship is far larger than music, style, or a Sunday morning service.

The course is designed at a collegiate level, which means we will take the material seriously and dig deeply into Scripture. But the goal is not academic complexity for its own sake.

The goal is formation.

You are not expected to arrive already knowing the language, practices, or theology we will explore. In fact, much of the course focuses on rediscovering biblical ideas that many Christians have never been taught.

You need curiosity, humility, and a willingness to grow.

If you have ever wondered whether there is more to worship than what you have experienced in church, this cohort is designed to help you explore that question.

What Will You Walk Away With?

The goal of Biblical Worship is not simply to finish a 16-week course.

It is to leave with a deeply biblical understanding of worship that continues to shape your faith, your ministry, and how you respond to God long after the cohort ends.

As you engage Scripture, practice these biblical expressions of worship, and wrestle with them alongside the cohort, worship moves beyond preference, tradition, musical style, or church culture.

You begin to see worship as something Scripture defines.

And when Scripture begins defining worship, it changes the worshiper.

My hope is that your faith in Christ becomes deeper, higher, longer, and wider as you rediscover practices of praise and worship that may feel new to us but have been present in Scripture for thousands of years.

By the end of the cohort, you should be better equipped to:

• Understand worship through a biblical framework rather than primarily through personal preference or church tradition.

• Recognize important biblical expressions and practices of praise and worship throughout Scripture.

• Engage those practices personally in your own relationship with God.

• Explain biblical principles of worship clearly to others.

• Discern how ancient biblical practices can be faithfully expressed in the modern church.

• Bring greater biblical depth into worship ministry, pastoral leadership, small groups, family discipleship, or other areas of influence.

• Evaluate worship practices by Scripture rather than simply by what is familiar or popular.

• Develop new worship practices rooted in biblical truth.

• Help foster a deeper culture of worship within your church or community.

• Continue growing as a worshiper whose understanding and practice are centered on Christ.

For some students, that may profoundly affect how they lead worship.

For others, it may change how they pastor a congregation, disciple their family, participate on a worship team, pray privately, or simply enter a Sunday gathering.

The application will look different depending on your calling and your sphere of influence.

But the foundation remains the same:

We are learning to allow Scripture to form the way we worship God.

Ultimately, Biblical Worship is not about producing better performances or creating a particular style of church service.

It is about forming worshipers.

Worshipers who know whom they worship, understand why they worship, and are increasingly able to respond to God according to what He has revealed in His Word.

Ready to join the Biblical Worship Founding Cohort?
Explore the course, schedule, pricing, and enrollment details.