Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

And remember, the goal of practice isn't doing something until you get it right. It's doing it until you can't get it wrong.

Worship is about what we love. What we live for. It's about who we are before God.

Worship is God's gift of grace to us before it's our offering to God. We simply benefit from the perfect offering of the Son to the Father through the power of the Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). Worship is our humble, constant, appropriate, glad response to God's self-revelation and his enabling invitation. Apart from this perspective, leading worship can become self-motivated and self-exalting. We can become burdened by the responsibility to lead others and can think that we might not be able to deliver the goods. We subtly take pride in our worship, our singing, our playing, our planning, our performance, our leadership. Ultimately we separate ourselves from the God who drew us to worship him in the first place. That's why biblical worship is God-focused (God is clearly seen), God-centered (God is clearly the priority), and God-exalting (God is clearly honored). Gathering to praise God can't be a means to some "greater" end, such as church growth, evangelism, or personal ministry. God isn't a genie we summon by rubbing the bottle called "worship." He doesn't exist to help us get where we really want to go. God is where we want to go. So God's glory is the end of our worship, and not simply a means to something else. In the midst of a culture that glorifies our pitiful accomplishments in countless ways, we gather each week to proclaim God's wondrous deeds and to glory in his supreme value. He is holy, holy, holy. There is no one, and nothing, like the Lord.

We attempt to worship God apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. We trust in our own wisdom, plans, creativity, and skill. We forget that worship of the triune God includes the Holy Spirit.

Remember, God can use us, but he doesn't need us.

But being moved emotionally is different from being changed spiritually.

The better (i.e., the more accurately) we know God through his Word, the more genuine our worship will be. In fact, the moment we veer from what is true about God, we're engaging in idolatry. Regardless of what we think or feel, there is no authentic worship of God without a right knowledge of God.

A divine perspective on skill will both motivate us to develop skill and protect us from exalting it.

The Great God values not the service of men, if the heart be not in it: The Lord sees and judges the heart; he has no regard to outward forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be employed therein. It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the whole heart engaged steadfastly for God.

God hasn't called us to be successful or popular-he's called us to be faithful.

Trying to lead worship without electrical power can be a humbling experience. Trying to lead without spiritual power is far more serious. But normally not as obvious.

Faithful leadership doesn't always result in being commended, applauded, or appreciated.

None of us can claim credit for our abilities.

Good theologians are increasingly humbled and amazed by the God they study.

A worshiping community is made up of individuals whose lives are centered around the Savior they worship together each week. A worshiping community expects to encounter God's presence not only on Sunday morning but every day. A worshiping community recognizes that passionate times of singing God's praise flow from and lead to passionate lives lived for the glory of Jesus Christ.

In Music Through the Eyes of Faith, Harold Best defines excellence as "the process of becoming better than I once was.

No importa lo que pensemos o sintamos, no hay una adoración auténtica sin un conocimiento correcto de Dios.

adoración no es principalmente acerca de música, técnicas, liturgias, canciones o metodologías. Es acerca de nuestros corazones, es acerca de qué y a quién nosotros amamos más.

The books I typically find most profitable for leading worship aren't daily devotionals that bring God down to my level, but theology books that stretch my understanding of God. (ch. 8)

Christ's command to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth should inform and shape our theology of musical worship. It's unwise and unbiblical to think that churches in Bolivia, Indonesia, Uganda, and elsewhere must conform to an American definition of 'appropriate worship music'. When someone insists that we should only use 'the best music' to worship God, I scratch my head. Is the best music simple or complex, written or spontaneous, short or long? Do they mean the best aesthetically, pragmatically, emotionally, or historically? We usually already have in mind what we mean by 'best' and it often says more about our preferences than our theology. As I understand it, the 'best music' enables people to genuinely and consistently magnify the greatness of the Savior in their hearts, minds, and wills. (ch. 12)

That’s why biblical worship is God-focused (God is clearly seen), God-centered (God is clearly the priority), and God-exalting (God is clearly honored).

There is an error to avoid, the danger of seeing the loving obedience of Christ as primarily and exclusively for the sake of man, when, in fact, it was primarily out of love for God that he accepted the cross

God wants us to delight in him (Psalm 37:4). He is exalted when all our energies are directed to one end—being satisfied in who he is.

What size does God appear to be when our mind is preoccupied with all the cares, worries, and concerns of life? Very small.

I was a lover of myself rather than a lover of God (2 Timothy 3:2, 4). And it was killing me. The unresolved conflict in my heart spilled over into my mind and body and led to that fateful January night in 1994.

Worship leading is not a musical function, it’s a pastoral function.

Worship matters. It matters to God because he is the one ultimately worthy of all worship. It matters to us because worshiping God is the reason for which we were created. And it matters to every worship leader, because we have no greater privilege than leading others to encounter the greatness of God. That’s why it’s so important to think carefully about what we do and why we do

Worship is about what we love. What we live for.

Reconocer el corazón de Dios por todos los pueblos La variedad musical comunica el corazón de Dios por todas las generaciones, las culturas y las razas. No usamos música diferente porque queremos tener a todos felices o porque estamos apuntando a un servicio donde haya diversidad. Es el evangelio el que nos pone juntos, no la música.