Worship Matters

Last month I had the privilege to lead a few songs at John Piper’s Gravity and Gladness seminar, and participate in a Q&A with Dr. Piper. It was somewhat of a surreal experience sitting next to John answering questions about worship. I first heard the audio of John preaching this series around 2000. As I [...]

WorshipGod11: The Gathering, (Aug. 10-13), is a little under three months away. I’m excited that Bryan Chapell, Ray Ortlund, Jr., Thabiti Anyabwile, Craig Cabaniss, Enfield, Sojourn, Shai Linne, Don Whitney, and a few others will be joining us as we reflect on what kind of story our meetings are telling. One of the 40 seminars [...]

Our church is in the middle of a series on 1 Peter and we’ve been talking a lot about suffering. Peter starts off by telling us that we will be grieved by various kind of trials, “so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may [...]

I’m in the sixth day of using Prof. Grant Horner’s Bible reading plan and thoroughly enjoying it. It involves reading from 10 different sections of the Bible each day, using bookmarks to keep your place. Each time I read I come away with a greater appreciation for God’s sovereignty over history and am already starting to [...]

I’ve been reading in Isaiah recently and have been freshly reminded of God’s hatred for idols and his passion for his own glory: Is. 43:11 I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. Is. 44:6    Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: [...]

If you lead worship, you may not think of yourself as a biblical counselor. Maybe that should change. Last month I had the joy of leading the singing at the CCEF conference. While I was there David Powlison asked if we could chat about the relationship between singing congregationally and biblical counseling. There are a [...]

I didn’t know what a “drabble” was until just recently. It’s an extremely short work of fiction of exactly 100 words in length. Nicole McLernon, 21 year old daughter of my good friends Mike and Patty McLernon, recently wrote a “super-drabble” – ten drabbles in a row. She based it on some of the lyrics [...]

Last month my church started memorizing great hymns of the faith. We’ll be memorizing a hymn a month for ten months. Ken Boer, who oversees music at Covenant Life, explains on the church website why we’re doing this: Memorizing hymns is one of the ways we can obey Scripture’s command to “let the word of [...]

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 [...]

Yesterday I posted some quotes I found in John Flavel’s book The Fountain of Life, written in 1671.  I regularly try to read old books because it introduces me to the perspective of godly saints who aren’t distracted or influenced by the technology, glitter, and philosophies of our current age.  Of course, they had their [...]

Got back yesterday from the Straight Up conference at Harvest Bible Chapel in Chicago, IL. I was there with CJ Mahaney, who spoke on “A Divine Perspective” from 1 Cor. 1:1-9. I’ve probably heard that message 5-6 times and never tire of being challenged to notice more of what God is doing in those around [...]

I don’t know Terry Stauffer personally, but he attended the Together for the Gospel conference in 2006 and blogged on a hymn we sang there, How Sweet and Aweful is the Place. He’s a pastor in Alberta, Canada. That was all I knew. Until yesterday. Yesterday, someone left a comment on the post where I [...]

Over at the Sovereign Grace website, we’ve finally posted 29 WorshipGod08 seminars for you to listen to or download for free. . . . Here’s the list: Band on the Run (Bob Kauflin) Building Bridges: Pastors and Worship Leaders (Bob Kauflin) Caring for Your Sound System (Darryl Wenger) Copyright Law and Church Music: The Eight [...]

Last week I asked people to answer the question, “Why does worship matter?” in 100 words or less. I said I’d pick the top 20 answers and send them a copy of Worship Matters, so that they could post a review on their blog. I received some great answers from as far away as Australia. [...]

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 [...]