Worship Matters

No, this isn’t me interviewing Tim Smith. It’s Tim interviewing me, which he did this past March when I was out for the Text and Context conference at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Tim is a good friend, and someone who thinks carefully about what biblical worship is and should be. Although our church situations [...]

At the end of September I’ll be speaking at the Desiring God National Conference, The Power of Words and the Wonder of God. To help promote the conference, they videotaped interviews with all the main speakers, which include Sinclair Ferguson, Paul Tripp, and Mark Driscoll. Scott Anderson spent about 90 minutes asking me various questions [...]

This is the third clip from a longer video in which Tim Smith, worship pastor from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA, asked me various questions related to worship. In this portion, Tim asked me about the relationship between music and worship. In it I talk about some of the factors that have made music [...]

Last November I was in Seattle at the Acts 29 Resurgence conference and had the opportunity to spend some time with the Mars Hill Worship Pastor, Tim Smith. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Tim and talking to him about topics including the Psalms, Jonathan Edwards, physical expressiveness in worship, and how to organize music [...]

Recently a discussion developed over at the New City Church blog about a paragraph in my book. Here’s the paragraph in question: Even though musicians aren’t necessarily “elders” or “teachers” their presence in front of the congregation week after week implies that their life is worthy of emulation—not flawless, but demonstrating the fruit of the [...]

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. [...]

Here are two more outlines from messages I gave at the Christian Musician Summit in Overlake, Washington. On Saturday morning, I had the privilege of speaking to the entire group on the topic of “Does God Even Like Our Music?” I figured in a conference of almost 3000 musicians, it’s important to know whether or [...]

I had the privilege of teaching two seminars at the Christian Musician Summit today. The first was on Healthy Tensions, the second on A Worship Leader Job Description. The folks I addressed were both great groups – attentive and encouraging. That was really commendable because my voice hasn’t quite recovered from my cold earlier this [...]

Recently a Roman Catholic bishop suggested that Christians could pray to Allah. Al Mohler posted a response on his blog. He wrote: From its very starting point Islam denies what Christianity takes as its central truth claim — the fact that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father. If Allah has no [...]

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. [...]

In the latest issue of Christianity Today, Chuck Colson has an article entitled “Soothing Ourselves to Death.” He begins with this paragraph: When church music directors lead congregations in singing contemporary Christian music, I often listen stoically with teeth clenched. But one Sunday morning, I cracked. We’d been led through endless repetitions of a meaningless [...]