Some bands are artistically innovative boundary breakers with an unwavering ability to cast their nets wide and attract an audience that literally spans all walks of life. Others put their focus exclusively on unabashed praise and are so anointed they can literally usher listeners into the presence of God with a single strum of a chord. And while Worth Dying For certainly fits both impressive character profiles, the California-based troupe of praise purveyors is actually something much grander in the form of an all encompassing movement spanning worship, the arts and the church as a whole.

On the musical side of the coin, Worth Dying For is currently readying the release of Live Riot, its third national long player and fitting follow-up to 2011′s Love Riot. The collection of 10 brand new songs and a few live versions of already familiar material was culled from a praise service at the Ammunition Conference, which the group hosts annually to unite worship leaders and speakers from all the world over. However, the members of this ministry team don’t just serve on stage but literally roll up their sleeves in the trenches, as evidenced in their forthcoming FEARLESS church planting efforts in Los Angeles.

“Worth Dying For is a faceless army of worshipers that’s not about certain people in a band or ministry,” explains co-founder Christy Johnson. “We really believe in investing in people and raising them up. We don’t use people to make ministry happen. We use ministry to make people happen and we love seeing when someone starts out as an intern and is later able to get up in front of people and usher thousands into the presence of God.”

Indeed, the journey of all Worth Dying For’s facets is an unconventional one, dating back to 2007′s self-released debut Ammunition and winding through 2008′s self-titled label debut on Integrity Records (which found the troupe leading worship on Creation Festival: The Tour). Come 2011, the group returned to the self-releasing route on Ammunition Records, the home of both Love Riot and Live Riot, the latter of which features original members Christy Johnson, Josh O’haire and Sean Loche, as well as new worship leaders Dalisha Turner, Deanna Joven, Nick Morris, Rochelle Leguern and Sarah Agbayani.

“What we want people to experience whenever we play or when they listen to Live Riot is not a band that wants to get up there and perform for people, but one that’s all about making His presence known,” continues Nick. “Our hunger personally is for God to resonate and I think people catch onto that. You can’t take people anywhere you haven’t been.”

Adds Sean: “Our goal is to always disappear and remove ourselves from the equation. We hear testimony after testimony about someone who wanted to end their life and get connected to God, someone who had a broken leg and was healed, or someone who had their purity restored. The last thing we want with this album is to feel like it was a concert and just a lot of fun. We want people to encounter the power of God, fall more in love with Him and change their life for the better.”

In order to help facilitate those goals, it doesn’t hurt that Worth Dying For just so happens to be a razor-sharp musical collective with some of the most intriguing sounds of any musical scene. Perhaps christianitytoday.com described it best: “Taking the adrenaline up a notch while bursting through all the worship clichés—all while remaining reverent—makes for an assertive and musically alluring album. Even with the vertical lyrics, the band would easily fit modern rock radio, switching between synth-spiked pop, power ballads and screamo.”

Although the moments of worship are deep, high-energy praise songs like “Freedom Is Rising” and “One Love” keep listeners on the edge of their seats, while modern worshipers will also be drawn in by ballads like “Risen from the Grave” and the prophetic style of “Spirit of God.” The album also includes explosive new live versions of already established fan favorites, including “Savior,” “Higher” and “Love Riot.”

“We’ll go from a song that has driving guitars, loud drums, and screaming in one song to a soft, melodic, ballad in the next. You can hear our musical influences which range from As I Lay Dying, to Coldplay, to LeCrae,” continues Sean, before Christy interjects. “And sometimes there are very spontaneous moments of worship led by the Holy Spirit where a song can stretch out like nine, ten or even fifteen minutes. We’ve never captured that on a CD before until now and it’s a very powerful account of the raw passion we’re all experiencing.”

Worth Dying For also draws comparisons to other seminal modern worship collectives including Planetshakers, Jesus Culture and Hillsong United. Indeed, much of those similarities stem from their shared format of being a worship team, church community and forum planners, which is where the Ammunition Conference comes into play.

“Long story short, my husband and I started a camp to coincide with Spirit West Coast Festival six or seven years ago under a tent with music and speakers,” recalls Christy of the venture she spearheaded with her husband/pastor Jeremy Johnson. “It grew to the point where we were attracting students and pastors from all over the nation so we thought” why not have a conference in our home church in February in addition to the camp in the summer? Ammunition Conference started two years ago and last year it doubled in size to about 3,000 people. We wound up stopping the camp aspect to put all our efforts into Ammunition and we’re currently in the process of branching out to various locations across the nation.”

Opportunities for Worth Dying For’s unique ministry umbrella are sure to grow all the more as 2012 finds the church plant FEARLESS getting off the ground with a mission that’s just as bold as the group’s soul stirring musical expressions. “We were traveling to an event with our team to lead worship and Jeremy heard God speak to Him,” unveils Christy. “For him, although the team was loud and having fun, the sound drowned out to dead silence in his mind. At that moment, he heard God speak, ‘In 5 years, you will plant a church with this worship team.’ It happened that my dad is the pastor at Calvary Temple where we were serving and 5 years later, he released us and the team to go into L.A.”

For the first year, the group will build a ministry team throughout L.A., then love on the city in general with the goal of salvation, in turn, creating the need for a physical church and subsequent service. From there, FEARLESS will be officially up and running with Worth Dying For leading worship alongside a full-fledged multi-media team for maximum ministry impact.

“We want to create a church that’s not just powerful or relevant but both where the anointing in the room can’t be denied. Even if you’re on drugs or alcohol, you can come out changed by the power of God. We aren’t planting a church in L.A., but we are planting a team of 30 people. This team is going to love on that city and out of the love of God that is shown, the church is going to be born. That’s what the disciples did and that’s our plan to see culture changed,” shares Christy, followed up by Sean. “That’s where the name FEARLESS came from. We’re going into one of the biggest cities in the world to give them the gospel, shake the fear off and do what God’s called us to do. We want to impact culture and reach this generation for Him.”

Adds Pastor Jeremy: “We are called to build the church that God put inside us, not the church that we found in a leadership book or we have seen work somewhere, but simply the church we would love to attend. In all honestly, I don’t have all the answers to how this movement will look a year from now, all I have now is the ‘go.’ I feel like I’m running at a mountain that I really don’t know how to get up, at least not yet! However, as with everything God calls us to do, the only way to find out is to run at it full speed.”

In fact, that faithful following of God’s will all tie back around to the whole Love Riot/Live Riot theme, which Christy so eloquently sums up. “It’s about turning a city upside down, not just telling other people to do it, but literally infiltrating a city with the love of Christ. There are so many riots of discord and racism in so many cities, but if we could just change that to be a riot of compassion and love, we will literally change a city and empower an entire generation to turn their voice into a weapon against the works of darkness.”

worthdyingfor.com

Descriptions:

Gray Sheep
This shirt depicts a sheep. We are all sheep. The Bible draws many references to us being sheep and Jesus being the Good Shepherd. The question is are you part of the 99 or the 1.

Blue 1
This shirt has a 1 with the word ONE over and over again, with the theme text in the middle.

Applications
2012 Adult Application
2012 Student Application

If you would like more information contact Tina.

Beginning in September each year, over 70,000 junior and senior high school students begin preparing their entries for the District and National Fine Arts Festivals. Students may enter as many as 58 categories offered in 8 main divisions: Art, Communication, Dance, Drama, Exhibition, Instrumental, Vocal, and Writing.

Fine Arts Strategy (pdf)
52 Ways to Use Fine Arts (pdf)

2012 Sectional Fine Arts Information:

Date: February 18, 2012

Location: 2012 Coordinators & Festival Locations *UPDATED 1/17* (pdf)

Cost: $25 per person plus$5 per additional category after the first.

Registration Deadline: January 17th for Creative Writing, Short Film and Website Design. January 30th for all other categories

Theme: Relentless After The One

Registration Forms:

Information Packet (pdf)

Sectional Check List (pdf) *UPDATED 1/18*

Sectional Fine Arts Payment Form (pdf)

Sectional Group Registration (pdf)

Sectional Participant Form (pdf)

* Mac users, for best results use adobe reader to view and print the forms.

Rule Book:

2012 Rule Book (ag.org)

2012 District Fine Arts Information:

Date: April 4-6

Location: Bongiorno Conference Center

The District Fine Arts schedule is always made available on the Wednesday 1 week before the District Festival.

Please direct all Fine Arts questions to Marion Holt at agfinearts@aol.com or by calling 724.972.1756

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cost: $95.00 per person (Student cost may vary depending on church expenses.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Register Online Now at My PennDel

Registration:
Church Roster

Downloads:
Information Sheet
Parental Release – Required
Tentative Schedule

Media:
Poster (pdf)
Bulletin Inserts (3 page pdf)
Video Slides 16×9 (Week 1) (Week 2) (Week 3)
Video Slides 4×3 (Week 1) (Week 2) (Week 3)

Videos:
Sam (mp4) (Vimeo)
Corinne (mp4) (Vimeo)
Heather (mp4) (Vimeo)

Fonts:
Alégre Sans NC (dafont.com)
Star Avenue (dafont.com)

You may select the STL Summit location that best suits you.

Dates & Locations:
October 31st - Harrisburg
Keynote: Chet Caudill
Location: Harrisburg First AG – 4100 N Progress Ave, Harrisburg
Youth Rep Contact: Rob Gillen (South Central East Section) or Jessica Bryan (South Central Section)

November 1st – Newark
Keynote: Chet Caudill
Location: Praise AG – 1421 Old Baltimore Pk, Newark
Youth Rep Contact: Steve Miller (Delaware Section)

November 3rd – Bensalem
Keynote: Chet Caudill
Location: Christian Life Center - 3100 Galloway Rd, Bensalem
Youth Rep Contact: Shawn Bentley (Greater Philadelphia Area Section) or Eran Holt (East Central Section)

November 4th – Scranton
Keynote: Chet Caudill
Location: Green Ridge AG - 825 Green Ridge St, Scranton
Youth Rep Contact: Jim Paisley (Northeast Section)

November 7th – Monroeville
Keynote: Roger Kuykendall
Location: Monroeville AG - 4561 Old William Penn Hwy, Monroeville
Youth Rep Contact: Steve Bradshaw (Southwest Metro Section) or John Jackson (South Central West Section)

November 8th – Hermitage
Keynote: Roger Kuykendall
Location: First AG - 1455 N Keel Ridge Rd, Hermitage
Youth Rep Contact: Shawn Galla (Northwest Section)

November 10th – State College
Keynote: Roger Kuykendall
Location – State College AG - 2201 University Dr, State College
Youth Rep Contact: Zac McDonald (North Central Section)

Speed the Light Summits begin at 10:00am and conclude at 1:00pm. A catered luncheon and refreshments are included. There is not cost for registration.

Registration

Dates:
October 22-24, 2011

Location: 
Bongiorno Conference Center, Carlisle PA

Cost:  
Free for children of AG Credential holders.
$91.00 for children of non-AG Credential  holders who are pastoring at an AG church.

Registration Form:
Information Sheet – Youth

SPEAKER Mike Holt

DATES Friday night, September 2nd, with registration from 6:00pm – 7:30pm. Advance will conclude with breakfast on Monday morning at 9:00am, September 5th.

WHO MAY ATTEND All youth enrolled in grades 7-12 during the 2011-2012 school year may attend. Please do NOT bring children under the age of 12 or infants.

Forms and Information (PDF)

ONLINE REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS - Online registration is only available for Assemblies of God churches in the PennDel District.

Click Here for online registration (Read instructions first!)

More info…

2011 Calendar

2010-2011 Event Calendar

2012 Calendar

2011-2012 Event Calendar