Worship Matters

My top recommended book on a biblical theology of worship is David Peterson’s Engaging with God. If you’re responsible for leading in your church, either as a pastor or a musician, I think you’ll serve people more faithfully and biblically if you read it. I go through it every year with my interns and never [...]

Over at his blog, Between Two Worlds, my friend Justin Taylor has posted links to a number of messages on worship that were given at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. Speakers include David Peterson, John Frame, Kevin Twit, Harold Best, Keith and Kristyn Getty, Michael Card, Jason Harms, and yours truly. Over 50 [...]

This past weekend I spoke at the Christian Musicians Summit on Why Theology Matters to Christian musicians. When Christian musicians get together, our tendency is to assume we all have our theology down and we can focus on honing our chops, discovering new gear, and improving our techniques and methodologies. Or maybe we think that [...]

This past weekend I had the joy of speaking on various topics at the Christian Musician Summit in Overlake, WA, near Seattle. It was a very encouraging time, and I met quite a few people who were currently using Worship Matters with their worship team. Great hooking up with old friends and making some new [...]

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of speaking to the parents and youth of my home church on the topic of listening to music for the glory of God. The parent/youth ministry is currently discussing the book, Wordliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World. My message was something of an adaptation of a [...]

A while back I recorded four brief videos (3-4 minutes each) that serve as an introduction to the four sections of my book, Worship Matters, but can also be used as stand-alones. They deal with four areas: The Leader (what do I love the most?) The Task (what exactly is a worship leader trying to [...]

My friend, West, left a question on another post. He was asking about comments I’ve made to the effect that it isn’t a worship leader’s responsibility to lead people into God’s presence. Only Jesus can do that. West wrote: Heb. 9 through Heb. 10:1-22 call us to enter the Most Holy Place confidently. John Frame [...]

I received this question from Tracy: My husband has recently become a Pastor in a small Outback Queensland (Australia) church and holds a complementarian view of women in ministry. This is a very uncommon viewpoint in the church movement my husband is Pastoring under. We have had queries as to if I will lead worship [...]

More than once I’ve heard Christians claim that worship should be fun, or act like they had a responsibility to prove that Christians knew how to “party” in church. I’ve always been uncomfortable with that connection, so I started thinking about the place of “fun” in worship, if one even exists. I’d like to address [...]

This question was sent in by Larry: Yesterday, I was listening/singing to the song, ‘I Will Glory in my Redeemer’ [by Steve and Vikki Cook]…I was struck especially by these words: I will glory in my Redeemer, My life He bought, my love He owns. I have no longings for another, I’m satisfied in him [...]

This question came from Jeff: One of the members of my worship team is struggling with the line from one of your songs, Glory Be to God. The line is “Being’s source begins to be.” She feels that it communicates that God is not eternal, that there was a time when the second Person of [...]

Typically, I answer a question on the blog on Fridays. It ain’t happening today. Along with preparing for the conference next week, I’m attending my nephew’s wedding this weekend. But I have a great resource to recommend. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, has posted three helpful articles on worship. [...]

One more time, this is the definition for a congregational worship leader I’ve proposed: An effective corporate worship leader, aided and led by the Holy Spirit, skillfully combines biblical truth with music to magnify the worth of God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, thereby motivating the gathered church to join him in proclaiming [...]

If you’re just joining us, I’m currently describing what I think is the biblical role of someone who leads the church in congregational worship. We’ve covered this in the first 14 posts: An effective corporate worship leader, aided and led by the Holy Spirit, skillfully combines biblical truth with music to magnify the worth of [...]

Richard wrote in to ask, “How do you understand the regulative principle of Worship, and do you agree with and practice it at your church?” Some of you right now are thinking, “What in the world IS the regulative principle?” The regulative principle is one of a number of ways used to describe how God’s [...]