What does Tribe teach about worship?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on worship starts with a simple but disorienting claim: every person already does it. Brian Hunter puts it this way, God built into human beings a mechanism that will naturally devote allegiance, affection, and energy to something bigger than itself. Before a person knows Jesus, that something tends to be a career, a person, a cause, or ultimately themselves. One woman in the congregation described years of near-obsessive devotion to Bob Dylan before she knew the Lord, spending money and time in ways that fit any honest definition of worship, even without the word. Brian quoted Bob Dylan back to the room on exactly that point.
Brian draws a careful line between three things that often get blurred together. Thanksgiving is the natural human response to what God does. Praise is the natural human response to who God is, his character and attributes. Worship is something different again, it is the response to encountering the presence of God himself, and that encounter throughout Scripture tends to produce not celebration first but a kind of falling down, whether Moses at the burning bush or Saul on the road to Damascus. From there Brian organizes worship into three practical uses he calls combat, calibration, and celebration. For combat he points to 1 Samuel 16, where a tormenting spirit troubled Saul and David played the harp and the spirit left, connecting that to the experience of pressing into worship as a weapon against whatever is dogging a person spiritually. A woman in the congregation added that on October 7 she and her husband were in Israel, began singing a worship song about being surrounded, and peace came over them even as reports were coming in about what was happening around them.
Looking further ahead, Brian also teaches that worship is not just a present-tense discipline but a defining mark of the church in the generation of Jesus' return. He spent significant time in Revelation 5, pointing out that Revelation contains the second highest number of recorded songs in the entire Bible behind only Psalms, and that its central vision is a scene of worship around the throne. He argues the book is not meant to scare but to reveal Jesus, and that the closer a person gets to the Holy Spirit the more Revelation reads like a comfort rather than a threat. The standard he holds out for the congregation is a high one: "Let us not give casual worship to an extravagant God who has given everything for us."
Taught from Psalm 150 · 1 Samuel 16:14-23 · 1 Samuel 30:1-8 · Revelation 5:1-14 · Psalm 100:1-5
“In the generation of the return of the Lord, the church will be marked by worship.”
From Rising Lion： Facing War News with Worship, Not Fear
The passage taught · Numbers 23:24
24 Behold, the people rises up as a lioness. As a lion he lifts himself up. He shall not lie down until he eats of the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain.”
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- June 16, 2025 Rising Lion： Facing War News with Worship, Not Fear Brian Hunter connects Israel's Operation Rising Lion to Revelation 5, asking what it looks like for a church to be marked by worship as the world grows more chaotic.
- June 15, 2025 Rising Lion A Jackson Hole pastor connects Israel's Operation Rising Lion to Revelation 5, asking what it looks like for the church to be marked by worship in the days ahead.
- June 9, 2025 Three Uses of Worship Brian Hunter walks through Psalm 150 and three reasons to worship God through song: as a weapon in combat, a tool for recalibration, and a response to celebration.
- June 8, 2025 Worship in the Key of C A Wyoming pastor explores worship as more than singing, walking through Scripture to show how praise can be used for combat, calibration, and celebration.
- May 6, 2024 Worship Is a Sacrifice Tribe's worship team leads a congregation-wide conversation on what it really means to worship, from singing and Scripture to giving and daily obedience.
- May 5, 2024 The Ways We Worship A Jackson Hole congregation talks honestly about what worship really means, covering singing, sitting under Scripture, and giving as three connected acts of devotion.
Mentioned along the way
- June 2, 2025 Sweeter Than Honey Brian Hunter walks Tribe through Psalm 19, exploring how burying Scripture in your heart revives the soul, brings joy, gives wisdom, warns of danger, and yields lasting reward.
- January 20, 2025 Breaking the Law Brian Hunter walks through Matthew 12 to show how time with Jesus stretches our capacity for freedom and breaks the grip of religious rules that have no life in them.
- January 21, 2024 Clarity In Complexity Part 2 A Wyoming pastor draws on Habakkuk and Isaiah to show how worship brings clarity when life grows complex, pointing to signs of Christ's return along the way.
- May 8, 2023 Coronation of the King Brian Hunter compares the coronation of King Charles III with scripture's portrait of Jesus as King of Kings, tracing throne, anointing, scepter, and crown side by side.
- April 24, 2023 Kiss the Sun or Lick the Dust A woman's extravagant act of worship at Jesus' feet shows two ways every person will ultimately respond to him: with love and gratitude, or pride and rejection.