Side Note: I also like: “What matters Most”

Respectfully
Kriscinda Davis

By now you’re probably in FL for Glorify - wish I could be there, but I need to stay home this time.

So many great suggestions here. My thought was “Worship Matters: From Generation to Generation.” This subtitle actually holds two meanings. First, you’re imparting what God has so graciously taught you to the next generation (and to our our generation). Second, worship DOES matter from generation to generation - styles may change, but true worship of God does not.

Another suggestion: Theology-Driven Worship for a High-Speed Generation (since 20-something generation is all about technology and everything being available at your fingertips, in seconds!)

Just a couple of thoughts. So many opinions, and so little time….

I look forward to reading your book!

Subtitle Suggestions:

God’s Word leading you in leading worship

Leading worship with mind, heart, and hands

At the risk of sounding alarmingly beholden to culture, I would suggest that the subtitles you’re considering at the moment, will not, I’m afraid, reach out to an “atheological twenty-something worship leader.” They would work fine for a “theological twenty-something worship leader,” but if you’re truly trying to reach those who associate good worship with a congregation full of raised hands, closed eyes, and pursed lips, then you’re going to need to grab them with something much more touchy-feely or in-your-face. Then, in classic bait-and-switch style, you can hit them with what, I have no doubt, will be your very meaningful content. I’m afraid that if you use the subtitles currently under consideration, you’re going to end up preaching to the choir and missing your target audience. Maybe I’m getting cynical in my middle age, but having worked with both atheological and theological twenty-something worship leaders for the past 15 years, I know that, at least initially, you often have to reel them in with something pyrotechnical. Once you have them, many will listen with ears to hear, but you still have to get them first, in all but the rarest of cases.

Hence, I would argue for something much bolder and, yes, more crass than anything on the docket at the moment. Here are some off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions. I’m sure there are better ones in this vein:

Worship Matters . . . and You Don’t (at Least by Comparison)

Worship Matters: Why It Does and What You Can Do About It

Worship Matters: Put Down Your Guitar for Just a Minute and Find Out Why

Worship Matters: Becoming Leaders after God’s Own Heart

Worship Matters: Coming back to the Soul, Mind, and Strength of Worship as Well

Again, I resonate so completely with your theology of worship that it pains me even to suggest these things. But we do no one any favors by assuming folks are already at a certain place when they’re really not. Yes, yes, some twenty-something worship leaders are there, praise God, and, in fact, I see reason to hope in this regard; the theological fiber of the young worship leaders I work with in 2007 is several notches above that which I encountered in 1997, and that’s a great thing. But there’s more work to be done here, and your book, Bob, is the kind of thing that more young folks need to read. Hence, using twenty-something verbiage or attitude will be helpful, I think, in grabbing the attention of those that might otherwise pass by a title that looks a little too heavy, theologically speaking.

If you go with something like the above and I end up being wrong, yours won’t be the first book to survive a bad title or subtitle. But if you go with one of the current options and I end up being right, yours also won’t be the first really, really fabulous book that doesn’t get read because of a title that fails to grab its intended audience.

Blessings for all that you do and the decisions forthcoming. I appreciate your work very much.

Sincerely,

Warren Anderson
Dean of the Chapel
Lecturer in Worship Arts
Judson College
Elgin, IL

(obviously we do not, but we can lead people to see that Christ currently is before the throne and our worship is through Him)

or

2. “Equipping the Leader for God-Centered Worship”

3. “Engaging the Leader in Biblical Worship”

whatever you choose - i am excited to read the book! the content seems great