Sing ALL the Songs Sunday with Gusto

Some helpful thoughts from Greg Gilbert on corporate singing (the rest of the article can be found here).

I think we ought to encourage every member of our churches to sing every song in the service with gusto, even if they don't particularly resonate with the song. Every Christian has a certain set of hymns and songs that deeply resonate with them---the melody, the words, an experience they had when they first heard it---and our natural tendency is to give those favorites everything we've got . . . but then sort of check out when the next song is one we don't particularly like. But here's the thing: When you sing in a congregation, you're not just singing for yourself; you're singing for every other member of the congregation, for their edification and building up in Christ, too. In I Corinthians 14:26, Paul tells us that when we come together, everything we do--including our singing--is done for each other. Singing hymns is not just an opportunity for each of us, as individuals, to worship God in our own way. It's an opportunity for the church, as a whole, to worship God together. That means that even if you don't like a particular song, it's likely that someone else in the congregation resonates with it deeply---they feel about it the same way you feel about your favorites---and so you have a responsibility to love that person by singing that song with all the heart you can muster. In other words, don't check out on songs that aren't your favorites; sing them! And sing them loud and heartily, not because you particularly like them, but because you may be helping to edify another brother or sister whose heart is engaged deeply with those songs. Worship isn't finally an individual experience; it's corporate. And everything we do--everything, Paul tells us, including our singing---should be done for the building up of the saints.

Preparing for Corporate Worship

Some excellent thoughts from Kent Hughes on preparing for Sunday morning corporate worship: On Saturday:

• I have asked Christ to make me sensitive tomorrow to needs of people in the body who are hurting.


• I have solved the "Sunday clothes hassle" by making sure that what I will wear is ready today.


• I have spend time in confession so all will be right between myself and my Lord when we meet tomorrow.


• I have determined to get to bed early so I will be refreshed and ready for church tomorrow.


• I have planned on sustaining the delight of this time with Christ and his people by guarding against Sunday afternoon infringements.

On Sunday:

• I have gotten up in plenty of time so I will not feel rushed.


• I have programmed my morning so I will not just arrive at church on time, but get there early.


• I have eaten a good breakfast, so an empty stomach will not detract from my worship.


• I have my Bible in hand plus a pen and paper for taking notes.


• I have left for church with a great sense of expectancy because I know Christ will be there.

Disciplines of a Godly Man, pp. 118-119.

Music: Gift or God?

Here is a great article by Bob Kauflin about how a gift from God (like music) can become an idol.

Tips for Corporate Scripture Reading

If the Bible really is God’s Word, if it is His authoritative self-disclosure, and if it is the only source of faith and practice, then reading the Bible in our corporate worship services is one of the most important actions on any given Sunday.

Here is what Paul commanded a young church planting pastor:
“Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13).

The reading of the Scripture is a corporate act of worship. It is not an option. Failure to read God’s Word to God’s people is disobedience to God and unloving to the church.

So, here are 5 important tips for corporate Scripture reading (in no particular order):

Read the Scripture:
1. Prayerfully
As you read, ask God to use His Word to accomplish His purpose in people’s lives. If God’s Word is as powerful as it says it is (Ps. 19:7-11; Heb. 4:12), read it with as much expectation as you would have if you were throwing a grenade into the congregation.

2. Accurately
By this, I mean two things: (1) labor to read the Bible with the correct pronunciation and (2) read from a reliable translation. If we believe that every word of the Bible is inspired by God, then we must try to read it accurately. Also, it could be distracting to people if we fumble through pronunciation. If you don’t know how to pronounce a particular person’s name or place, listen to someone read that passage from an audio Bible as you prepare.

3. Affectionately
Does the Bible bring joy to your heart? Has God spoken to you from this passage? Read the Bible with joyful passion. Communicate through your tone and facial expressions that you love this book. Often, reading the Bible with affection will challenge God’s people to listen attentively to God’s Word. However, we must guard against being overly dramatic in our reading. If we are trying to manipulate the text, thinking that we are making it interesting, we are denying its intrinsic power and authority.

4. Seriously
Corporate Scripture reading is not a time to clown around. This is God’s Word we are handling. We should read the text seriously. We are in the presence of God and He is addressing us. The people need to sense your reverence and awe as you open God’s Word.

5. Clearly
What good is it to read God’s Word if we read it in a way that no one understands us. We need to be careful to articulate the words and phrases clearly. We should not try to speed read the text so that we can move on to something else. We need to slow down and communicate as clearly as possible. Don’t mumble God’s Word.

Here are a few other random tips for corporate Scripture reading:

• Prepare to read God’s Word to God’s people. Read the text over and over throughout the week before you are to read it corporately.


• A brief introduction to the passage is often helpful in getting people ready to hear it. Set up the context of the passage or alert the people to what they should listen for.


• Introducing the reading with a declaration of the power and authority of the Bible adds weight to the reading (for example: “This is the infallible and inerrant Word of God”).


• Introducing the reading with an invitation or admonition to hear or pay attention to the Word could be useful in snapping someone out of just drifting along (for example: “Listen carefully to God as He speaks to us from His Word”).


• Having people stand while you read the Scripture is a good way to ensure that all attention is focused on God’s Word.


• Read from an actual Bible. Don’t make a habit of reading from a screen or from just a printed piece of paper. You want to make clear to everyone that you are reading from God’s Word.


• Don’t apologize for reading long portions of Scripture. It’s ok to prepare people for a lengthy passage, but never feel like you have to justify reading the Bible.

Mark Dever says, “Carving out time in our Sunday morning service to read Scripture aloud, without comment, every week, makes a statement about the value we place on God’s Word. It says we are eager to hear the Word of the Lord—we desire it. It acknowledges that the life and growth of our local churches depend on the power of God’s Word, and that we really believe that “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). It acknowledges our own weakness in that we continually need to be reminded of what God has said. It says we’re willing to listen to God’s Word, to sit under it in order to be instructed, assessed, and evaluated by it. It says we’re willing to agree with its presentation of reality and with is estimation and judgment of us. It says we’re willing to submit to its verdict and commands without qualification. Yet if the regular public reading of Scripture says all this, what are we saying if we neglect it” (The Deliberate Church, pp 81-82)?

God Commands Joyful Worship

Here is a Spurgeon quote from my sermon on Psalm 100:

“Those who serve God with a sad countenance, because they do what is unpleasant to them, are not serving him at all; they bring the form of homage, but the life is absent. Our God requires no slaves to grace his throne; he is the Lord of the empire of love, and would have his servants dressed in the uniform of joy. The angels of God serve him with songs, not with groans; a murmur or a sigh would be a mutiny in their ranks. That obedience which is not voluntary is disobedience, for the Lord looketh at the heart, and if he seeth that we serve him from force, and not because we love him, he will reject our offering.
Let us show to the people of the world, who think our religion to be slavery, that it is to us a delight and a joy! Let our gladness proclaim that we serve a good Master.”

Shout for Joy!

Have you ever thought about the fact that shouting is commanded in Scripture?

Psalm 66:1: "Shout for joy to God, all the earth..."

Shouting is a very undignified thing to do. Important people don't shout. Prideful people let others do the shouting.

What or who do you shout for? A sports team? In anger? To get someone's attention?

Shout in joy for God.

The Call to Worship

I'm not an expert on the history of worship services. I have not taken any surveys. I simply want to make a basic observation: It seems to me that one of the aspects of corporate worship that the modern church growth/seeker sensitive movement has pushed to the side is the Scriptural Call to Worship.

For centuries, worship services have started with a clear, hearty, and compelling call to worship God. Someone stood up, read God's Word, and said something like, "In light of who God is and what He has done, let us worship Him."

I don't get to attend a lot of different worship services (for obvious reasons). However, in the last 10 years, I have noticed that something very different begins most services. You almost expect something funny or loud to begin a corporate gathering. As a college student, I can remember countless gatherings where the Bible wasn't even opened until after the singing. Or, I've come to expect that whoever "starts" the service will begin with a joke to ease everyone into the atmosphere.

I'm not saying that every corporate gathering has to look the same or follow the same order of service. I am saying that there are good and Biblical reasons to normally begin with a Scriptural Call to Worship. Here are a few:

1. God is the initiator of worship. As in every aspect of life, God is the first-mover. God initiated the creation of the world. God initiated the nation of Israel. God initiated the plan of salvation. God initiated our personal salvation. God will initiate the end of this age through the coming of Christ. This is the pattern of everything: God initiates. So, we should reflect this pattern (as much as possible) in our corporate gatherings.

2. Worship is a response to God's nature and actions. God initiates; we respond. God reveals Himself; we worship Him. God speaks; we listen and obey. We need to position ourselves under God's Word as quickly as possible when we gather.

3. Worship is based on the character of God. If we try to worship God apart from His self-revelation, we will end up worshiping a false god. God is a specific God, with attributes and desires and plans. The only way to ensure that we actually worship God is to fill our minds with how He has revealed Himself.

4. We cannot worship God apart from the work of Christ. The main reason we need a Call to Worship is to be reminded that apart from Christ, our worship would be completely unacceptable to God. We must always approach God through the person and work of the Son.

Bryan Chapell's new book has a great chapter with examples and resources on the Call to Worship: Christ-Centered Worship.

For 3 years, my church read through the Psalms as a Call to Worship. You can read my post on that here.

Son Centraility in Worship

These are wise and instructive words from Bryan Chapell's new book, Christ-Centered Worship.

"The redemptive flow of biblical worship inevitably makes our liturgy Christ-centered. This does not mean that Christian worship diminishes the honor of any other member of the Trinity. God the Father makes our worship Christ-centered by redeeming us through the work of his Son, and giving the Spirit to testify of him. Because worship is a response to this witness of redemption, the grace God provides through his Son is the thread that sews the service together. We do not gather simply to extol some attribute of God or to reflect the relationships of the Trinity. We do not gather merely to confess our sin. Our shame would destroy us, if his grace did not provide our pardon. We do not worship only to learn our obligations. God's law would be our death, if the Lamb had not been slain for us. Christian worship inevitably makes Christ's work its central theme."

page 113.

Perspectives on Christian Worship

Perspectives on Christian Worship is a new book with 5 authors arguing for 5 different understandings of corporate worship. I've got to get it just to read Lig's response to Dever and Dever's response to Lig.

Meditations on Corporate Worship

Worship is the joyful response of people to the glorious God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. Worship is to be an active part of a Christian’s life, both personally and corporately. All of life is to be lived for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31); and, the local church is to gather regularly, uniting a congregation of worshipers into a unified body to respond to God, engage with God, exhort one another, and be an example to unbelievers.

Here are a few guiding principles for corporate worship.

Corporate worship should be:

God-focused – Worship is to be focused on the Triune God of the Bible. Believers should boldly and humbly approach the throne of God with confidence through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We were created by God for God. We exist to glorify God by enjoying God.

Christ-exalting – Worship is to be specifically focused on exalting the person and work of Jesus Christ. All good things come to us by virtue of the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. Thus, we are to celebrate our Savior each time we gather to worship.

Spirit-empowered – Worship is to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. In worship, we are to yield ourselves to the power of the Spirit and allow Him to say and do whatever He pleases

Bible-saturated – Worship is to be informed by God’s Word. The Bible contains God’s instructions for how we are to worship Him. Thus, we are to saturate our worship gatherings with His Word. The songs, prayers, readings, preaching, and ordinances should be permeated with Scriptural truth. When we gather to sing praise to God, the content of the songs is more important than the particular style in which they are sung.

Joyfully-reverent – Worship is to be both joyful and reverent. The Bible says that God is pleased when we find our greatest joy in Him and when we have a proper reverence in His presence. God is holy and should be praised in the way He has ordained in His Word.

Participatory/Congregational – Worship is to be congregational in nature. When the church gathers, we must guard against a spectator mindset. Each believer should fully participate in every aspect of the worship service. We do not gather to all individually meet with God. We gather to corporately worship our great God with one heart and one voice.

Practically, at Christ Baptist Church, these guiding principles are cultivated in these ways:

· We intentionally choose each song according to whether it is biblically accurate, theologically rich, God-centered, and helpful for building up the church.

· We don’t mind breaking the “flow” of a service by including Scripture readings and prayers. We are far more interested in hearing from God’s Word than we are in creating an artificial feeling.

· We prefer our music to be simple in order not to distract from the content of the songs. Our volume is intentionally low in order to allow the voices of the people to drive the worship of God.

· We are intentionally and overwhelmingly in favor of participatory singing (all the congregation singing together).

· We read a lot of Bible in our services.

For the Glory of Christ,
Pastor Justin

What is True Worship?

I preached on true worship from John 4:21-24 Sunday. I drew out 4 truths from the text and offered some implications. You can listen to the audio here.

1. God is seeking true worshipers. We are not the ones who are seeking God. God is the One who is seeking us. He is not just seeking true worship. He is seeking true worshipers.

2. True worship is informed by the character of God. Worship is a response to the revelation of God. God is the initator. He reveals Himself and we respond appropriately.

3. Only true worship is acceptable to God. True worship is described as worship in spirit and truth. True worship consists in genuine affections for God rooted in the truth of God. God hates both false and vain worship. God loves true worship.

4. True worship is only possible in and through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the enabler of true worship. Apart from Him, all our worship would be in vain.

Implications/Applications:
1. We must think of worship as encompassing all of life.
2. We must not confuse "forms of worship" with the essence of worship.
3. We must value content far more than style.
4. We must allow the Bible to inform, guide, and saturate our worship.
5. We must look to Jesus who died for our false and vain worship.

Worship Matters: Get This Book!

I love this book! Worship Matters is very different from any other book I've ever read. It is not deep theologically. It doesn't contain ideas that are hard to grasp. It is just downright practical. I recommend that every pastor, "music guy", praise team member, etc. read this book. Bob Kauflin is uniquely qualified to write this book and has served us well with this volume.

Here is a short list of things I like about this book:

1. It is Christ-centered.

2. It puts music in its proper place in the life of the church (which is anywhere but central).

3. It is filled with personal illustrations, examples, and nitty gritty details.

4. It teaches us how to recieve both criticism and encouragement.

5. It places worship in its Biblical context.

6. It reminds us that how we relate to people is more important than the style of music we play.

7. It elevates the local church.

8. It teaches humility.

9. It summarizes why there are better songs than "Above All" (pages 224-225 for those who are curious).

I don't agree with Bob on every issue. However, I completely agree with where he places the emphasis: on the gospel.

Worship Matters: Chapter 9 (and 11)

Chapter 9 of Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin is an excellent read. I would encourage all those who got this book at T4G, and anyone else who has it, to read this chapter on why the cross is crucial to our worship.

Chapter 11 is all about the importance of God's Word in our gatherings. Read and apply.

The Worship of God

I've been pondering something I heard Matt Redman say a few years ago. He advocates that there are some actions and emotions that should only be reserved for worship.

I'm not sure what Redman means, but I think it is a good thought. For example, how often does our praise of sports stars exceed physically and emotionally our worship of God? I'll never forget seeing Mark McGwire break the single season HR record with #62. The crowd was electrified! EVERYONE was jumping, shouting, clapping, hugging, etc. Those were only the physical responses to that home run. Just think of the emotional responses driving those physical actions. Anyway you slice it, it was an elaborate display of worship.

I remember thinking as I watched how sad it was that God is not praised with as much energy and passion. I was immediately convicted that my own worship of God was not unique at all.

What do you think? What actions/emotions should be reserved for God alone?

Pictures of "worship"?

Yesterday, I posted an expression of my love for my wife along with a picture that, I think, shows the heartbeat of Jeanna and I's relationship. We exist to magnify the Lord together. Our gratefulness to God for how He has saved us and called us to be His own is reflected in that photo.
An anonymous commenter (if you've got something to say, please attach your name) mentioned that he/she thinks it is "weird" to have pics of people "worshiping." This got me thinking.


Reasons some people are uncomfortable with pictures of "worshipers":
1. Whoever is taking the picture is obviously not "worshiping."
2. Worship is percieved as a private act, not to be shared with others.
3. It could be percieved as "worshiping" to be seen by men ("I better look like I'm worshiping in case she takes my picture").

If you have other reasons, please let me know.


However, here are some of my thoughts:
1. All of life is worship (1 Cor. 10:31). If we cannot take pictures of worshipers, we cannot take pictures of Christians. We have a tendency to think of worship only as singing worship songs or hymns. If you don't like pictures of worshipers, don't take a picture of two Christians hanging out at the coffee shop. This really is the main argument against the first reason above: that the person taking a picture is not "worshiping." My understanding of the Scripture is that taking a picture of a Christian gathering for the glory of God is just as much an act of worship as raising your hand and singing, "no power of Hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand..." with all your heart.

2. Worship is not mainly a private act. Worship cannot be complete totally apart from the gathering of God's people. If you simply shut your door and "worship" God with no relationship to His body, you are not a true worshiper. Thus, we should never gather and "shut everyone else out." God desires worshipers together, with one voice, to praise the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 15:6). We should be aware of each other when we gather.

3. I abominate the pride and hypocricy of the third reason above. Shame on us if we simply want to be seen and praised by man. However, Jesus said, "Let your light shine before man, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven" (Matt. 5:16). So, there is a sense in which we should want others to see our good deeds in order that God may be praised. The issue is motive.

A MUST Read

You must read chapter 12 of Give Praise to God. Everyone who went to T4G has this book and all other church leaders must get it. But don't wait to read chapter 12 by Donald Whitney. Pick it up and turn to page 289 and sit for a while with this chapter. This chapter alone is worth the $19 you will pay for it.

Then, lets dialouge about its contents.