Whether you’re a worship leader, a pastor, a church leader, or a congregant, having the basic building blocks of a philosophy of worship is vital. When you have your philosophy in place, it helps guard against the type of decision-making that will ultimately hurt or mal-form you and your congregation. When you lead and make decisions from your philosophy, as opposed to from your hip, your leadership becomes much more purposeful, wise, and (when your philosophy is borne out of theological reflection) … Read More
On the Assumption that the New Testament is Vague on Worship Practices Because God Wants Freedom
A Great New Worship Book I’ve been plowing my way through what I think is one of the best worship books to come out this year, Robbie Castleman’s Story-Shaped Worship: Following Patterns from the Bible and History. In her introduction, she helps dispell a myth that I long believed–namely, that the New Testament is vague on worship practices so that post-NT-era worshipers would not unnecessarily codify the contextualized practices of the early church into hard and fast rituals. Castleman says: … Read More
Addressing Blind Spots for Non-Denominational Worship Leaders
As the years go by, I become more grateful for the journey and leadership of modern worship leader and pastor, Glenn Packiam. God has planted him in the non-denominational, Pentecostal tradition and has given him a voice, along with a gift for writing both songs and prose. He’s an Integrity recording artist with some great albums out there. In fact, I think his latest album, The Mystery of Faith, is his best yet and is a testament to his most … Read More
Worship as an “Echo from the Future”
I was recently re-reading through sections of Mike Cosper’s book, Rhythms of Grace (check out my review here), and I came across this brief concept that he had pulled from a lecture by Jeremy Begbie: [Worship is] an “echo from the future,” a foretaste of something we’ll see come to fruition when Christ returns and all things are made new, a not-yet life that we taste in part already. Today, we gather in exile, in the world but not of it, … Read More
What is Spirit-Led Worship?
When I enter into dialogues about worship with other leaders from other traditions, I sometimes get the sense that certain traditions think they have the corner on the market when it comes to being truly “Spirit-led” and “Spirit-filled.” I’ve even heard, both first- and second-hand, criticisms of services I’ve led or been a part of that seem utterly “devoid of the Spirit.” Many times, those criticisms could be translated quite accurately as “lack of emotional fervor.” While I’m all for … Read More
A Comprehensive Collection of Short Explanations of Various Elements of Liturgy
For over five years, while Pastor of Worship & Liturgy at Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church in Denver, CO, I wrote weekly “column notes” for our four-page order of worship. These brief notes would appear in a long, narrow strip on the right side of our bulletin, and their main function was to educate our worshipers about what we were doing in worship and to inspire a more whole-hearted understanding of and participation in worship. Over those five years, I watched … Read More
Rightly Parsing “Being a Clean Vessel” for Worship Leaders
Christianese Sometimes we evangelicals forget how much we “ghetto-ize” our vocabulary. Videos like this one humorously remind us of how foreign our conversations can sound. One of the phrases that often gets tossed around in ministry circles, especially in the spheres of worship leading, is “being a clean vessel.” We pray prayers like these before worship services: Lord, we just want to be clean vessels this morning as we come to You. We don’t want our sin to get in … Read More
Worship as Amnesia’s Preventative Medicine
The Old Testament’s “Deuteronomy Glasses” Most Old Testament scholars point to the book of Deuteronomy as one of the most significant books in that part of the canon. It sums up the entire Pentateuch (the first five books of the OT), and it is the lens through which many of the other books–especially the historical books and the prophets–were written and heard by their original hearers. In fact, some scholars are so convinced by Deuteronomy’s influence that they call Joshua … Read More
The Sunday After a Really Great Sunday
Last week, I posted about one of those rich, powerful Sundays that happened at Coral Ridge. It was one of those days when many gathered were caught up in the gospel-story and deeply impacted as we entered, confessed, remembered our pardon, gave, listened, received, tasted, and saw. My charismatic brothers and sisters call it “God showing up.” It’s one of those sweet moments where a little bit more of heaven is cracked open for the viewing and God manifests Himself … Read More
In Worship, We Forget About Ourselves in Order to Remember Who We Really Are
It’s All About You, but it Radically Informs Me Growing up in church, I used to sing a verse from a chorus which encouraged: Let’s forget about ourselvesAnd magnify His nameAnd worship Him I appreciate the sentiment and intention. We want worship to be God-centered, God-focused, and God-directed. “He must increase, I must decrease.” And most of us have well heard the penetrating critiques of the “me-centered” worship that has characterized not a small part of our modern evangelical doxology. … Read More