QUOTES ON WORSHIP

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"As is true with many terms used among Christians, the word "worship" can become a cliché devoid of significant content if we don't stop to consider its meaning."
- Jerry Solomon -

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William Barclay - "The humblest and the most unseen activity in the world can be the true worship of God. Work and worship literally become one. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever; and man carries out that function when he does what God sent him into the world to do. Work well done rises like a hymn of praise to God. This means that the doctor on his rounds, the scientist in his laboratory, the teacher in his classroom, the musician at his music, the artist at his canvas, the shop assistant at his counter, the typist at her typewriter, the housewife in her kitchen -- all who are doing the work of the world as it should be done are joining in a great act of worship."


Craig Barnes - "The worship service features two sides of a sacred conversation. Those who lead in worship need to help people recognize themselves in the presence of God. They must also speak God’s words to the people so that they will know they are on holy ground. That is the experience people are longing for in worship. But before such a sacred conversation happens in worship, it must happen for those who lead in worship in their own soul."
("Reflections on Worship’s Meaning and Purpose" - Thinking About Worship - Calvin Institute of Christian Worship)


Harold Best - "The Scriptures include or allude to just about every approach to worship there is: organized, spontaneous, public, private, simple, complex, ornate or plain. Yet there is no comment anywhere about any one way being preferred over another. Rather, it is the spiritual condition of the worshiper that determines whether or not God is at work. This fact alone countermands the tendency to assume that if we could just find the correct or fashionably relevant system, all will be well and God will come down. This doesn't imply that we have no responsibility to make intelligent and sensitive choices or to be creative. But whatever these choices eventually are, they are incapable all by themselves of establishing the superiority of one system over another."
(MUSIC THROUGH THE EYES OF FAITH, chapter 7, "The Nature of Worship, Faith, Grace, and Music Making," Harper Collins, 1993, p. 146.)


Paul E. Billheimer - "Surely that which occupies the total time and energies of heaven must be a fitting pattern for earth."


Lamar Boschman - "When I worship, I would rather my heart be without words than my words be without heart."


"Our entire being is fashioned as an instrument of praise. Just as a master violin maker designs an instrument to produce maximum aesthetic results, so God tailor-made our bodies, souls and spirits to work together in consonance to produce pleasing expressions of praise and worship. When we use body language to express praise, that which is internal becomes visible."
(p.60 "A Heart For Worship")


Steve Bradbury - 'It is far too easy, within the current upsurge of creative input in the realm of worship, to find ourselves chasing spiritual or aesthetic experiences, as if the highest achievements of our whole pilgrimage on earth was to enter some kind of praise-induced ecstasy. I wonder sometimes whether it is worship we worship, whether what we experience in music and song is actually our primary motivation, rather than honouring God. Fundamentally, authentic worship is about pursuing that which pleases God, not us. It is about lives lived in service to God and neighbour, lives which are 'living sacrifices', which are engaged in God's work in the world.'
(Target Magazine)


Geoff Bullock - "We've made worship self-centred instead of God-centred. We lobby for what we want: 'I don't like the songs', 'I don't like the volume'. It's as if we're worshiping worship instead of worshiping God."


"Worship is not a musical experience. Musicians, singers and worship leaders can no more create a worship experience than an evangelist can create a salvation experience. Both worship and salvation are decisions - decisions that only individuals can make."


"Worship is not a result of how good the music is or whether my favourite songs are sung. It is not a consequence of whether I stand or sit, lift my hands or kneel. My worship must be an expression of my relationship with God - in song, in shouts and whispers, sitting, walking, or driving the car. Worship is my response to God.


If worship is a decision, then the greatest worship happens when someone who doesn't like a church's music or liturgical style prays, 'Not my will but yours be done, God - I'll worship you in spite of it.' "


John Burg - "Worship leaders and worshipers alike should strive to present a majestic God with the best they have to offer."
(Approaching a Majestic God - Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod © 2001)


Philip Butin - "We worship in the context of divine grace. It is God who is at work in our worship. We can rest knowing that the success of a service depends on God, not exclusively on our own effort. We don’t worship in order to gain God’s favor. We worship because of God’s prior favor to us, because of God’s invitation of us. This has redeeming implications for thinking about aesthetics, the motivation of worship leaders, and the content of each worship service."
("Reflections on Worship’s Meaning and Purpose" - Thinking About Worship - Calvin Institute of Christian Worship)


John Calvin - "Lawful worship consists in obedience alone."


Steve Camp - "It is easy to praise the Lord from the heights of His love, but it is rich to worship Him from the depths of His love. If you are in a time of testing or trial may I encourage you today to stop and worship the Lord. Find comfort in His word and in the obedience that comes from surrendering our will and rights to Him. Job prayed in the course of his trials, "Though He may slay me, I will hope in Him." Our Lord is sovereign - He is in control of all things. There is mercy in the wilderness dear friend. Come to Christ Jesus today, worship Him in spirit and truth, and drink of His mercy as He molds you to Himself."
(from his 1994 release, Mercy in the Wilderness)


"There is no greater love song to proclaim than the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord at Calvary, but yet others feel content to sing about the chaff of this world. What the New Testament church wrestled with the least is what our industry craves the most--money. How dare we think we can play politics with God, with His truth and with His church. We can't negotiate with sin no matter what kind of capital is at stake--and that really is the issue here."
(A Call for Reformation of Contemporary Christian Music)


"I am concerned that there exists in CCM today a pervasive growing attitude of unteachableness, unaccountability, and a lack of submissiveness to the Word of God and the authority of the local church. It seems today that anyone who challenges the CCM industry as to its current practices and alliances according to the standard of God's Word is labeled as divisive, condemning, and unloving. While those that are constantly operating outside of the purview of God's Word are labeled as innovative, visionary, and kind? Tolerance is not a spiritual gift; it is the distinguishing mark of postmodernism; and sadly, it has permeated the very fiber of Christianity. Why is it that those who have no biblical convictions or theology to govern and direct their actions are tolerated and the standard or truth of God's Word rightly divided and applied is dismissed as extreme opinion or legalism?"
('Corporate Worship' for the Church? Chevrolet and the Word of God, An Open Letter to the CCM Community)


Joseph S. Carroll - "The Lord Jesus loves us with all His heart. He desires that we love Him with all our heart; and until we do, we will never know the sweetness of His love for us. We will have some faint concept but that is all. With how many people do we share the secrets of our heart and with whom do we share them? We will be intimate with the person we know loves us, the person we know is committed to us, the person who has given himself or herself to us, and with none besides. It is so with our Lord. There must be response of love to love."
(HOW TO WORSHIP JESUS CHRIST, Moody Press, 1984, p. 30.)


D.A. Carson - "Timid, tame domesticated adoration plays no part in heaven's chorus"


Michael Catt - "If we are going to worship in Spirit, we must develop a spirit of worship."


Oswald Chambers - "Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard a thing of blessing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded [Exodus 16]. God will never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself, it has to be given back to Him that he may make it a blessing to others."
(MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST, Barbour & Company (http://www.barbourbooks.com). Selected mostly from talks given during the years 1911-1915, these devotionals were first published in 1935 by Dodd, Mead & Co., renewed in 1963 by Oswald Chambers Publication Association, Ltd.)


Stephen Charnock - "When we believe that we should be satisfied rather than God glorified in our worship, then we put God below ourselves as though He had been made for us rather than that we had been made for Him."


"Without the heart it is not worship; it is a stage play; an acting a part without being that person really...a hypocrite. We may truly be said to worship God-though we lack perfection; but we cannot be said to worship Him if we lack sincerity.....”


Clement of Alexander - "Worship is celebration. All of life is a festival: being persuaded that God is everywhere present on all sides, we praise him as we till the ground, we sing hymns as we sow the seed, we feel his inspiration in all we do."


Henry Sloane Coffin - "If there is one characteristic more than others that contemporary public worship needs to recapture it is this awe before the surpassingly great and gracious God."


J.N. Darby - "Worship is the honour and adoration which are rendered to God by reason of what he is in himself, and what he is for those who render it."


Brian Doerksen - Speaking on Intimacy in Worship: "If intimacy in the "narrow" sense means we sing to God, in the broad sense, intimacy means we live our whole lives in the presence of God. If we give ourselves away to other loves, to other gods, we will lose intimacy with God, or we will try and manufacture it in a way that is shallow and purely physical. This is an empty encounter for both God and us. We cannot spend our entire week in pursuit of the world, and then wonder why our worship on Sunday feels flat. Real intimacy cannot be created by simply singing the right songs. Intimate worship really hap-pens when the songs come as an overflow of a heart full of love. Real intimacy is like marriage, and it only works as we forsake all others. Intimacy is reverent, not flippantly casual as some might say. I believe that the more intimate, the more reverent it actually becomes. A husband and wife approach physical lovemaking on their wedding night with great reverence. Intimacy in marriage is so powerful because it is so reverent. Without reverence, intimacy in marriage will most certainly die. Without reverence, we will not experience real intimacy in worship.


. . . Intimate worship will always be our highest calling and aim in this life, and then, when we pass on to the other side, it’s only going to get better."
(Intimacy: Our Highest Value in Worship - The Cambridge Music Group, P.O. Box 1720, Cambridge, ON N1R 7G8, CANADA)


Rev. Larry D. Ellis - "Worship as God desires it brings us into His presence. We experience Him in communion with us. As Christians, we need to experience both private and corporate worship. However, both expressions of worship must be personal. I believe that worship is a participatory event. Our role in leading worship is to help our congregation experience the presence of God."
("Formulation of Our Vision of Worship Ministry within the Christian Church " - St. Gabriel the Archangel Episcopal Church, Cherry Hills Village, Colorado, USA.)


Gayle D. Erwin - "Whenever the worship leader begins to feel that the worship service belongs to him and that his worship understanding surpasses that of the pastor, trouble has arisen that will usually mean the exit of the worship leader."


"An effective worship leader realizes that he is an extended hand of the pastor and that the pastor is actually the worship leader. The worship leader must never assume that he is more in touch with the action of the Holy Spirit than the pastor is. God has placed the pastor in responsibility and the worship leader must never subvert that position. The worship leader must never feel that worship is incomplete if the pastor signals a time to end. To oppose the pastor's discernment is an arrogance that can only destroy the worship leader's effectiveness."


"The best leader will try to become invisible as quickly as possible. He realizes that his best servanthood is to be merely a bridge to focus the attention of the people on God and will try to be as unnoticed as any bridge would be. Leadership does not mean an opportunity to show off skills or knowledge, only an opportunity to show the face of God."


Eddie Espinosa - "Worship leading is both worshipping God and drawing others into worship. Worship leading is setting down at the same banquet table and eating together. No one feels left out. I am encouraging you to eat and you are encouraging me to eat. There is a sense of communion and fellowship."


Bob Fitts - "Worship touches God’s heart, and in turn, he infuses ours with his passion and compassion."


Richard Foster - "As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life."


“The divine priority is worship first and service second”
(“Celebration of Discipline”, p. 140).


"To worship is experience reality, to touch life. It is to know, to feel, to experience the resurrected Christ in the midst of the gathered community. It is breaking into the shekinah (glory) of God, or better yet, being invaded by the shekinah of God."


Rick Founds - "We were created to worship. It is not an option. If it is not the Lord of Heaven, then it is someone, or something else, but we all worship. It is something that is built into the nature of every created being. The glimpses of heaven that we receive from scripture show us this fact."
("PREPARE TO WORSHIP" - ©MCMXCIX Rick Founds)


Don Francisco - " Each of us in the Body of Christ has the ability, because of His love for us, to minister to and bless the Lord. We can bring joy to God just as a loving son or daughter does to their parents, and as a friend to a friend. Worship from the heart is one of the best gifts you can bring to your heavenly Father. When we worship Him, not because of fear or pride or obligation, but out of an overflow of love and gratitude, we bless and minister to God. This is a privilege that He has given to all His sons and daughters.


A worship leader is not necessarily more 'spiritual' than anyone else; he or she simply is willing to help a group of people reach a place of loving intimacy with God via music. This requires a few abilities: A knowledge of music fundamentals, a basic ability to sing while accompanying oneself on guitar or keyboard, familiarity with a few worship songs, and some personal experience in private worship. That's all. The rest you learn by doing."
("Am I Worthy to Minister" - Music Ministers Newsletter - Rocky Mountain Ministries)


Rob Frost - "Worship is the opportunity for busy people to touch the eternal, for sinners to glimpse the holy, for broken people to be enfolded in his perfect love. Worship is moving beyond our self-centered lives to meet the one who created us for something better."


Penny Fulton - "God loves worship; He takes joy in our voices singing love songs to Him. He responds emotionally to us. But the focus is seeing God’s face, coming before Him in utter dependency, speaking the glory of His splendour. It is speaking the truth in the midst of a dark world, confirming God’s dominion over anything that tries to bring us down. Worship, simply put, is our love words to Jesus. Most of us go through days with the thoughts of the world intruding on our thinking. We lose sight of God. We begin dribbling prayers rather than knowing the truth and speaking from God’s point of view.


When we put everything aside, give up our control and simply sing love words to God, something wonderful happens. The truth begins to set us free from a small mindset of unbelief. God emotionally responds to our spiritual sacrifice. He is so big and so generous that He actually takes us into His own experience of gladness. Certainly that isn’t the focus of worship, however, it’s a delightful by product."


A.P. Gibbs - "The term, "worship," like many other great words, such as "grace" and "love," defies adequate definition. The meaning of these words, like the exquisite perfume of a rose, or the delightful flavor of honey, is more easily experienced than described.


Some definitions of value:


"Worship is the overflow of a grateful heart, under the sense of Divine favor." Here the writer has emphasized the fact that worship is a spontaneous thing. It is not something which has to be laboriously pumped up, but that which springs up, and overflows from a heart filled with a sense of the greatness and goodness of God. . . .


"Worship is the outpouring of the soul at rest in the presence of God." Here the accent is on the spiritual condition of the one who worships. The believer is at rest. . . .


"Worship is the occupation of the heart, not with it's needs, or even with it's blessings, but with God Himself." Here the distinction is between prayer, praise, and worship. . . .


One more definition:


"Worship is the upspring of a heart that knows the Father as a Giver, the Son as Savior, and the Holy Spirit as the indwelling Guest." . . . .


"Salvation is something received by us as a free gift from God (Rom. 6:23). Worship is something presented by us to God, as a willing acknowledgment of our deep appreciation of what He is, and all He has done." "
(WORSHIP: THE CHRISTIAN'S HIGHEST OCCUPATION by A. P. Gibbs, (Walterick Publishers).)


Kris Grooms - "Most worship leaders are where they are because they're pastor is not musically inclined. Hence the reason why your in charge of the music. The idea to begin with is to get the pastor's vision for worship and follow that. This is where the first problem may occur. What if your vision is different than his? Then unless you can willingly submit to the pastor's vision, don't take the position! (Better to be an unemployed worship leader, than a disgruntled one...)"


Donald Gowan - "In order to avoid ... the self-deception of thinking that emotional or aesthetic or intellectual ‘highs’ are worship, I follow the Reformed emphasis on the Word of God, read and preached, as central to worship, believing (knowing from experience) that this does produce divine-human encounters similar to those described in various ways ... in the materials that have been surveyed."


Keith Green - "The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, "Well done, thy good and faithful servant," is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life. Glorifying the only worthy One has to be a minister's most important goal!"


Gerrit Gustafson - "Worship is the act and attitude of wholeheartedly giving ourselves to God, spirit, soul and body. Evangelism is the activity of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ and calling mankind to wholehearted devotion to him.


Worship Evangelism, then could be defined as: wholehearted worshippers calling the whole world to wholehearted worship.


You could describe the relationship like this: If you truly meet God, you will worship; and if you truly worship, others will be drawn to God.


The Kingdom of Priests is the international, trans-cultural, wholehearted, Spirit-filled community of reigning worshippers in heaven and on earth."


Jack Hayford - "Worship changes the worshiper into the image of the One worshiped"


"The heart of the issue in worship is this: My life needs God's presence to work God's purpose in my life."


"... tradition must be confronted, questioned, and adjusted if God’s maximum benefits are to be realised during worship. I had been ignorant of worship [...] Consequently, I had grown to depend on preaching alone as the instrument bringing people to repentance."


"Worship is the pathway and the atmosphere for people to discover their royal calling in Christ, their high destiny in life, their fullest personal worth and their deepest human fulfillment. Worship is a means by which God's presence can be realised consistently. Worship is an opportunity for man to invite God's power and presence to move among those worshipping him."


Michael Horton - "[God] answers the call neither of the organ nor of the guitar, but promises to be present in the weakness of preaching".
(In the Face of God. The Dangers and Delights of Spiritual Intimacy, Word, 1996, p. 145)


Don Hustad - "Worship is the expression of the Christian believer's relationship with God. However that relationship is very complex, since God is at one and the sametime our Creator, Redeemer (through Jesus Christ), Sustainer, Indweller (bythe Holy Spirit), Friend, and Judge. It helps to remember that we approach God individually as a created one, a redeemed one, a sustained one, an indwelt one, a befriended one, and a judged one."
(JUBILATE II: CHURCH MUSIC IN WORSHIP AND RENEWAL, Chapter 5,"The Nature of Christian Worship in Relation to Its Musical Expression," HopePublishing Co., 1993.)


Thomas Jefferson - "Worship requires only a man and God."


Bob Johnson - "You cannot lead others in something you are not currently experiencing. The best way to lead others in worship is to worship God yourself. Spirit-filled worship keeps our relationship with God current. We must be filled to "overflowing" with the Holy Spirit so that we can minister to others out of that "overflow".
("Keys to Effective Worship Leading" - © 2001 ZionSong Ministries. All rights reserved.)


Graham Kendrick - "Worship is God's enjoyment of us and our enjoyment of him. Worship is a response to the father/child relationship."


Jerry Kerns - "The whole person, with all his senses, with both mind and body, needs to be involved in genuine worship."


Dr. Jack Kinneer - "What is worship according to the Word of God? Worship is the gathering of God's people in the presence of the Lord, on the Day of the Lord, around the Table of the Lord, to hear the Word of the Lord, to do the supper of the Lord, to pray the Lord's prayer, to sing the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, and to share with the poor of Christ. This is the worship that is acceptable to the Lord. And this is the worship that will nurture and nourish our faith through all the troubles of this life to eternal life."
(From Worship According to the Word by Dr. Jack Kinneer - Echo Hills Christian Study Center)


Brother Lawrence - "There are three things in this question to which it is necessary to reply.


FIRST: To worship God in spirit and truth means to worship God as we ought to worship Him. God is Spirit, so we must worship Him in spirit and truth, that is, by a humble and true adoration of spirit in the depth and center of our souls. God alone can see this worship; we can repeat it so often that in the end it becomes as if it were natural to us, and as if God were one with our souls, and our souls one with Him.


SECOND: To worship God in truth is to recognize Him for being who He is, and to recognize ourselves for what we are. To worship God in truth is to recognize as a very present reality in our spirit that God is infinitely perfect, infinitely worthy of worship, and infinitely distant from evil, even beyond His divine attributes Who will be the man who, lacking in wisdom though he may be, will refuse to employ all his strength to render his respect and worship to this great and infinitely worthy God.


THIRD: To worship God in truth is further to admit that we are entirely contrary to Him, and that He is willing to make us like Himself if we desire it. Who will be so imprudent as to turn himself away, even for a moment, from the reverence, love, service and continual adoration which we most justly owe Him?"
(c. 1611-1691) in THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD, translated by Robert J. Edmonson, Paraclete Living Library, 1984.)


Bruce H. Leafblad - "God is the first priority of the church. Not people. Not ministry. Not growth. Not success. God and God alone occupies the place of ultimate and absolute priority in the church.


Worship is about the priority of God in our affections. To worship God aright is to give Him our first, best love. This love properly belongs to God and to no other. To love anyone or anything else more than God is idolatry. Worship is the highest form of love-a love we give exclusively to God. In true worship we declare and express the priority of God in our affections. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30 RSV) In true worship, love is the supreme affection, and God is the exclusive object of our greatest love. At its center, this divine-human encounter we call worship is a love affair of the highest and holiest order. We value, we cherish, we praise, we celebrate, we receive the love of God that has rescued and redeemed us and that continues to pursue us day after day; and we respond to that love by declaring and expressing our deepest, our highest, our strongest, our first, best love to the Lover of our souls. This is the "real action" in worship. And this is what worship is really about-the priority of God in our affections."
(" Worship 101: Recovering the Priority of God" - CCLI Worship Resources)


David Legge - "Perhaps the reason true worship is scare in the church today is because we have mistaken it for these expressions of worship. People think that to worship is to sing: 'Let us worship together', and then they begin to sing - that is not worship. The preaching of the word of God is not worship. Meeting around the Lord's Table, intrinsically, of itself, does not equate with worship. Could it be that we have substituted outward rituals for what God says is an inward reality and expression called worship? We have to ask today, as we sing these carols, as we pray, as we praise God through the choirs and through the readings and in so many ways: how is our worship? Have we lost worship among all the trappings of expressions of worship? If we have lost her, where is she to be found? Would we recognise her if we saw her again? Perhaps it's that long since we met her that we have accepted a poor substitute for her without realising it?"
(taken from "What Is Worship?" Copyright 2001)


Richard C. Leonard - "Worship is the central focus of a vital Christian faith, and the most distinctive activity of the church of Jesus Christ. The biblical words translated "worship" (Hebrew shachah, Greek proskuneo) mean, literally, to bow down or bend the knee. Such was the ancient gesture of honor to a sovereign and superior authority. To worship is to offer the oath of covenant loyalty to the Great King, and to affirm our faithfulness as his servants. For this reason, the worship of God through Jesus Christ lies at the heart of all Christian expression."


"Worship, . . . is the ascription of honor to a King. We worship in order to express God's greatness and to give him the praise that is his due."


C.S. Lewis - "It is in the process of being worshiped that God communicates His presence to men."


"The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance."


"We only learn to behave ourselves in the presence of God."


Erwin Lutzer - "Worship is not an external activity precipitated by the right environment. To worship in spirit is to draw near to God with an undivided heart. We must come in full agreement without hiding anything or disregarding His will."
Erwin Lutzer, Pastor to Pastor: Tackling the Problems of Ministry (Kregel Publications, 1998), 80.


In worship, our hunger for God is both satisfied and increased. In His presence, we desire "all the fullness of God" and we want to be done with sin, we want to church purified, and we long for the return of Christ. We are even homesick for heaven.
Erwin Lutzer, Pastor to Pastor: Tackling the Problems of Ministry (Kregel Publications, 1998), 80.


John MacArthur - " . . . Worship is “honor paid to a superior being.” It means “to give homage, honor, reverence, respect, adoration, praise, or glory to a superior being.” In Scripture, the word is used indiscriminately to refer to the homage given to idols, material things, or to the true God. So the word in itself is not a holy word, it only describes honor given to a superior being.


The common New Testament word for worship is proskuneo, which means “to kiss toward, to kiss the hand, to bow down, to prostrate oneself.” The idea of worship is that one prostrates himself before a superior being with a sense of respect, awe, reverence, honor, and homage. In a Christian context, we simply apply this to God and prostrate ourselves before Him in respect and honor, paying Him the glory due His superior character.


Essentially, then, worship is giving - giving honor and respect to God. That is why we, as Christians, gather together on Sunday. We don’t gather to give respect to the preacher or those in the choir, we gather to give honor to God. The sermon and the music are just to be the stimuli that create the desire in our hearts to honor Him."


"God will not accept the worship of a false god, nor will He accept the worship of the true God if offered in the wrong way. Why? Because the worship of the true God is very specifically established in Scripture, along with the proper mode and manner."


"God will not accept worship that is offered to Him in an unacceptable manner. It’s unacceptable to reduce God to an image, a material representation, an idol, or anything that is a result and product of one’s own thinking. I often hear people say, “I worship God as I perceive Him to be.” Well, if your definition of God doesn’t square with the Word of God, your worship is unacceptable-even though you may identify it with the true God."


"Worship doesn’t occur in a vacuum, nor is it stimulated by artificial gimmickry. If you have to be in a church building or hear a certain kind of mood music to worship, what you’re doing isn’t worship. You should be able to worship God on the freeway during rush hour. But to do so, your heart must be right. You see, when we come together in the assembly of the saints to worship God, if it isn’t an extension of a worshiping life, true worship won’t occur. That is why Hebrew 13:15-16 tells us to assemble collectively to “Offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.” But we don’t forget “to do good and to share” as a way of life, or we’ll never generate any worship on Sunday. Worship must be a way of life!"


"True worship changes people. If you’re not changed after you worship, you haven’t been worshiping. No one can draw nigh into the presence of God without changing - It can’t be done! If worship doesn’t propel you into greater obedience, call it what you will, but it isn’t worship. It isn’t worship unless you come out of it with a greater commitment to obedience. As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy expectancy or it isn’t worship. The results of worship are that God is glorified, Christians are purified, the church is edified, the Lost are evangelized."


"When you go to church to worship, the issue is not how well prepared the choir or the preacher is. The issue is, How well prepared are you to worship God?"


Real, meaningful worship with God's people is not optional. It's not a suggestion. It's not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Worship on the Lord's Day should be the crowning joy of our week. It's our opportunity to engage our minds toward God. To enjoy His people. To bask in His presence. To corporately drink from His Word. To give of our talents and resources. To encourage and to be encouraged. To offer praise.



Ralph Mahoney - "Whenever His people gather and worship Him, God promises He will make His presence known in their midst. On the other hand, where God's people consistently neglect true spiritual worship, His manifest presence is rarely experienced."


Paul Martin - "'When I come through the door of the church, what am I bringing as my contribution to worship?' The truth came to us: worship is not a spectator sport, it is not a product molded by the taste of the consumers. It is not about what we can get out of it; it is all about God."
(Worship Leader Workshop Magazine)


Ralph Martin - "We are a singing people. And there is a reason for this. The reality of God and Christ and creation and salvation and heaven and hell are simply too great for mere speaking; they must also be sung. This means that the reality of God and his work is so great that we are not merely to think truly about it, but also feel duly about it. Think truly and feel duly - that is, feel with the kind and depth and intensity of emotion that is appropriate to the reality that is truly known."


William Mickler - "David's worship was a key to David's success as a king. David's worship and the dominion he enjoyed were connected to each other. We need to know this. It is as we bow before Jehovah's throne in worship that we properly position ourselves to receive the blessing and power we need to comprehensively reign in life by Christ Jesus.


The object of David's worship was Jehovah, the "I AM THAT I AM," the unchangeable, omnipotent, transcendent, holy, merciful God. We worship the same Jehovah, and Jesus Christ His only begotten Son. Our mortality must bow before the immortal God. Our flesh must yield to the Holy Spirit of God. Our humanity must acknowledge and praise its maker"
("Bowing to Jehovah" - © 2001 ZionSong Ministries. All rights reserved.)


Marianne H. Micks - "When we worship together as a community of living Christians, we do not worship alone, we worship 'with all the company of heaven.'"


Samuel H. Miller - "Worship is the highest act of which man is capable. It not only stretches him beyond all the limits of his finite self to affirm the divine depth of mystery and holiness in the living and eternal God, but it opens him at the deepest level of his being to an act which unites him most realistically with his fellow man."


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"Worship is the logical response of the created toward the Creator.

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under His care. (Ps. 95:6-7)

The chief end of man and all heavenly host is to glorify God. Failure to do so yields grave consequences.



For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts ... (Rom. 1:21-24a)

Worship must be done God's way to be acceptable. It must flow from a heart that is humbled and bathed in His holiness. Outward expression means little if not founded upon one's redemption, focused on the God of Scripture, and first felt in the heart.


Worship is more than a service. What happens within the walls of a building is reflective of what is happening throughout the week in the lives of each member. And, what happens corporately fuels the individual's everyday life.


The style or form worship takes can be as varied as the number of believers who gather to worship. Personality, background, and cultural differences influence the way one is able to best express himself. Obviously, because "God is not a God of disorder but of peace" (1 Cor. 14:33), everyone cannot be doing what is right in their own eyes when the Body meets together. There must be a "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph. 5:21) as you "speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" and as you "sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks..." (Eph. 5:19-20).


Fundamental to accepting our differences is the understanding that the process is merely the means of worship and not the worship itself. Music, whatever the style, is not worship. It is a vehicle or tool. Clapping, raising of hands, or whatever outward manifestation, is only a means of worshiping.


What truly matters is not what we get out of the worship service but what we give to God. In worshiping, self needs to be put on the altar. Being blessed is a by-product, not the motivation for worship.


When the church grasps ahold of the on-going, all-encompassing nature of worship, and emphasizes God Himself more than the means and place of worship, people will see themselves for who they are. Like Isaiah we will cry out "Woe to me! .... I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips ..." Humbled, we will begin to understand the grace and forgiveness of the Lord. We will respond "Here am I. Send me!" (Isa. 6:1-8) People will see our good deeds and praise and glorify our Father in heaven. (Matt. 5:16)


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Don Moen - A worship leader's purpose is to direct a congregation's worship toward the Father. If you know you are appointed by God to lead His people into wholehearted worship - whether you're a trained worship leader or not - God's anointing will be there. Don't allow your own sense of inadequacy to keep you from stepping out in obedience and dependence upon the Lord.
(from Integrity's Hosanna! Music website (c) 2000 Don Moen)


Sally Morgenthaler - " . . . before any of us can engage people in the authentic, interactive adoration of God, we must first of all become worshipers. That may mean stepping down off the platform and getting our lives in sync with God. It may mean sitting in the pew and learning how to worship for the very first time. Depending on our situation, it may mean a process ranging from weeks to years. But, face facts we must. There is only One worthy of our praise (Rev.4:11) and that One desires truth, not pretense; being, not performance. If and when we step back up and get behind the microphone, we must do it as an instrument, not the object of praise. And we must be willing to cast off our "glittering image" so that we reflect only the glorious image of Christ."
("Leading vs. Performance" - CCLI Worship Resources Jul/Aug 1997)


Stephen M. Newman - "The ministry of worship and the ministry of music are two different things. For the most part, they are the same in presentation. However, the outcome is what makes them different. Worship and leading worship is a specific gift apart from music. Music is only the tool to help facilitate worship. I require of all our worship people to first be worshipers, and then musicians. You may come back with "but the music will suffer!” I disagree. I still feel that God requires those who lead to be gifted and called. He will gift those He has called to this ministry. It is easy to reason things out by using gifted musicians to lead worship, but the outcome will not be everything that God would have. You will see a difference in your worship participation, because people tend to see through performance as compared to true worship. If your teams are not worshipers, they will stifle the spirit of corporate worship. You may still achieve worship, but it will not be the same. Pray that God will send you gifted worshipers. He will be faithful if you will be patient and faithful to this standard."


"Since true worship is about God and not about us, what is it that He desires? Does He desire a song and dance? He does desire our best, but what is it that He wants more than anything? I believe it's our hearts, our love, our commitment, and our faithfulness to Him. I don't believe that God is impressed with our big programs that we put together for our people. I believe that He is moved by one of His children coming before Him with a broken heart as He pours out his heart in thankfulness for what God has done in his life. I believe God is moved when one of His children sings to the top of his lungs in praise to the only God who is worthy of praise. God is moved by our praise and worship, and not by our fancy programs to impress man. "
("Teaching Worship" - Experiencing Worship, A Resource for the Worshiper & Worship Leader)


Brian Onken - "if believers are going to worship genuinely, we need to "connect" with God. Since worship is the communication between two lovers, we must make this connection. We don't need any particular emotional charge, but we do need to connect with another person - a divine Person - in worship.


If I am going to connect with God, then I will have to make the worship service a personal expression of my heart. On occasion, I have gone through a worship service mouthing the words to the songs, affirming with weak "Amens" the message, and bowing no more than my head at prayer, only to leave feeling no closeness with God. But the problem wasn't with the songs, the message, or the prayers - the problem was that they had not become my expression of worship."
("Making the Connection" - CCLI Worship Resources May/June 1996)


John Owen - "That God is to be worshipped, and that according to his own will and appointment, is a principal branch of the law of our creation written in our hearts, the sense whereof is renewed in the second commandment; but the ways and means of that worship depend merely on God's sovereign pleasure and institution."
(The Works of John Owen, Introduction to the Worship of God, 1667)


Andy Park - "You can't give what you don't have. Every worship leader has to have a time for re-fuelling. If all we ever do is give, give, give, eventually we won't have anything left to give. We can keep going through the motions, but there won't be any joy in it, because we're too exhausted. Take some time to smell the roses. Take some time to sit with Jesus and listen to him. Don't let your fear of rejection by other people make you afraid to take a rest. God calls us to rest so that we can be restored, refreshed and made ready to serve him again."
(Worship Leaders' Moment: Stop to Refuel - The Cambridge Music Group, P.O. Box 1720, Cambridge, ON N1R 7G8, CANADA)


Ben Patterson - "We who worship the true, living God would be better if not completely different if we worshiped him better. For to worship Him as we ought is to become what we ought."


"Our deepest need can be filled only as we come to our Creator in worship."


"To worship is to ascribe worth to God, to bow down and serve God, to engage in ritual drama – the story of God's mighty acts of salvation in Jesus Christ"


Terri Pettyjohn - "Tune in to any talk show today and you will notice the marriage fixers are driving home the point that love is not a noun it’s a verb. It’s more than just the words that you say, it’s the things that you do everyday whether you feel like it or not. Now, in the dictionary I find that love is still listed as a noun, so I decide that if Webster could be wrong about love, maybe he could be wrong about other words, too. Sure enough, worship is listed as a noun, too. The definition ends with: “to offer prayers, attend church services, etc”. No wonder the church isn’t doing worship correctly, they’ve been practicing Webster’s definition without adding what the Bible has taught about worship! Can you imagine the impact we would have on the unsaved community when worship becomes what we do and not what we say? When our church attendance is overshadowed by what we live and not what we preach?
("Worship Devotional" - Experiencing Worship, A Resource for the Worshiper & Worship Leader)


John Piper - "Worship must must have heart and head. Worship must engage emotions and thought.


"Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship."
(Desiring God, expanded edition, p. 76)


"All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and his Son among all the peoples of the earth. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.... When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever."
("Let the Nations be Glad")


Isobel Ralston - "Worship is the only gift we can bring to God that He Himself has not first given to us."


Matt Redman - "This world is full of fragile loves—love that abandons, love that fades, love that divorces, love that is self-seeking. But the unquenchable worshipper is different. From a heart so amazed by God and His wonders burns a love that will not be extinguished. It survives any situation and lives through any circumstance. It will not allow itself to be quenched, for that would heap insult on the love it lives in response to. These worshippers gather beneath the shadow of the Cross, where an undying devotion took the Son of God to His death. Alive now in the power of His resurrection, they respond to such an outpouring with an unquenchable offering of their own."


"Many of us as worship leaders and those involved in worship teams, will now and again find ourselves in a place where we have somehow lost some of our focus. Maybe we’ve been giving too much output without enough input. Maybe we’ve become so busy that we’ve become distracted. I’ve met so many musicians this year in that place, and I’ve been there myself. The main thing is that we need to get back to the heart of it all. Sometimes it’s good to drop a few things for a while to give yourself some space to re-focus."


"It seemed like we'd lost something at our church. There's a dynamic that occurs in worship when people throw themselves into it, bringing an offering to God, and he inhabits our praise in a wonderful way. It felt like we'd lost that. So the pastor made a brave move: he "banned" the band! For a while we just led worship with an acoustic guitar, or sometimes just voices. One time we decided to worship without music altogether. Even though music is such a wonderful way of expressing our devotion to God, we wanted to see what would happen without it once. I guess the point of all this was to strip everything away to check where our hearts were at. As the song says,


When the music fades,
All is stripped away, and I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that's of worth
That will bless your heart

I'll bring you more than a song
For a song in itself is not what you have required.
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear;
You're looking into my heart.

I'm coming back to the heart of worship
And it's all about you
All about you Jesus.
I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it
When it's all about you,
All about you Jesus.

King of endless worth
No one could express
How much you deserve.
Though I'm weak and poor
All I have is yours, every single breath.

The song was birthed at that time, just as it felt like we started to come back to the heart of worship."
(The story behind "The Heart of Worship" from The Heart of a Worship Leader: A Talk With Matt Redman By Bruce Adolph)


H.H. Rowley - "The first element in worship is adoration. The Hebrews expressed this by their posture and not alone my their word. For they prostrated themselves before God. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. They did not come with an easy familiarity into the presence of God, but were aware of his greatness and majesty, and came with a sense of privilege to His house."
("Worship in Ancient Israel" p. 257)


J. Oswald Sanders - "Worship is the loving ascription of praise to God for what he is in himself and in his providential dealings. It is the bowing of our innermost spirit before him in deepest humility and reverence. Worship is the adoring contemplation of God as he has been pleased to reveal himself in his son and in the Scriptures."


Chuck Smith - "The first basic form of prayer is worship. It is a spontaneous result from the greatness of God and His nearness to me and His love for me, I naturally respond with deep, inner worship of Him. . . . Worshipping God for His creative genius is a form of prayer -- that consciousness of who He is and what He has done inspires worship. When I recognize the wisdom and power of God, I stand in awe of Him. Thanksgiving and praise arise spontaneously as I become conscious of the goodness of God to me that I know I do not deserve. . . . Sometimes we verbalize our worship; often we don't. It's simply an overwhelming feeling within our hearts as God Manifests Himself to us in a thousand different ways. We just say, 'Ohhh, God is so good!' We worship Him and commune with Him in the recognition of His love and grace."
["Effective Prayer Life", by Chuck Smith., pgs. 3-5]


Bob Sorge - "We must never assume that simply because people are gathered together in one place, they are necessarily ready to worship. They seem to be ready, but they must in fact be brought to a place of readiness. The people do not need whipping—they have been battered by the world all week long! Rather, through loving understanding and prophetic anointing, the leader should bring them to a place of open surrender to the Holy Spirit."
(from The Art of Exhortation - Worship Update,4th Quarter 1993; Copyright ©1993 Vineyard Music Group)


Kelly Sparks - "Worship is specifically accomplished when those that know God, take notice of all that is true about God. Worship is grounded in truth! The more we know God the deeper our worship will take us. Our worship must never be based on anything except the truth of God. Those that worship solely for the experience, or to be noticed, or to gain recognition, or for traditions sake are missing the mark."


"God is not moved or impressed with our worship until our hearts are moved and impressed by Him."


Byron Spradlin - "Worship is the intentional attitudes and actions of focusing on God. It is the life-discipline we ought repeatedly to exercise and develop. It grows out of the foundational motive of deep and wonder-based gratitude to God for His salvaging and sustaining us.
(Artists in Christian Testimony)


Jessica Leah Springer - "As John 4:23 says, Its time, as worshipers of God, to give him all we have. For when he is exalted, everything about me is decreased. So many times we stand in the way of really stepping into the secret place of worship with God. Just abandon tradition and the "expected" ways of Praise & Worship and get lost in the holy of holies with the sole intention of blessing the Fathers heart."


Charles H. Spurgeon - "Many may be met with who know God, but never glorify him as God, because they never adore him, and worship him, with the love of their hearts. They go to church or to some place of worship regularly, and sing psalms and hymns, and they may even have family-prayer at home; but their heart has never adored the living God with living love. Their worship has a name to live, but it is dead. They present to the Lord all the eternal harvest of worship, but the corn is gone, only the straw and the husk are there. And what is the value of your husky prayers? your prayers without a kernel, made up of the straw of words, and the chaff of formality? What is the value of professions of loyalty from a rebel? What is the worth of professed friendship to God when your heart is at enmity against him? Is it not a mockery of God to present to him a sacrifice "where not the heart is found?" When the Lord has to say—They come as my people, and they sit as my people, and they sing as my people, but their heart is far from me,—can he take any pleasure in them? May not God thus complain of many? Oh, let it not be so with you! I know that there are some here against whom that charge would lie if we preferred it—that they know God, but they do not glorify him as God, for they do not love him. The name and service of God are much on their tongues, but they do not delight in him, they do not hunger and thirst after him, they do not find prayer and praise to be their very element, but such service as they render is merely lip-service, the unwilling homage of bond-slaves, and not the delighted service of those who are the children of God. Oh, my brethren, if we accept Jehovah as the living God, let us give him the utmost love of our souls. Will you call a man brother, and then treat him like a dog? Dare you call God your God, and then act towards him as though he were not worthy of a thought. With what joy does David cry, "I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds!" This is the kind of spirit with which to deal with the Lord. Oh, to rejoice in God all the day, and to make him our exceeding joy! Thus, and thus only, do we glorify him as God. Without the fire of love no incense will ever rise from the censer of praise. If we do not delight in God we do not fitly adore God."
("Knowledge. Worship. Gratitude.")


David Swan - "Worship is not a matter of skill and technique. It is not confined to just singing some songs during a weekend church service. It is a lifestyle and daily experience. True worship flows from the life of one who has an intimate relationship with God. It is the response of our spirit to the presence of God"


Ray Stedman - "Worship is our occupation with God himself, with the greatness of his being."


John Stott - "To worship God . . . is to "glory in his holy name" (Ps. 105:3), that is , to revel adoringly in who he is in his revealed character. But before we can glory in God's name, we must know it. Hence the propriety of the reading and preaching of the Word of God in public worship, and of biblical meditation in private devotion. These things are not an intrusion into worship; they form the necessary foundation of it. God must speak to us before we have any liberty to speak to him. He must disclose to us who he is before we can offer him what we are in acceptable worship. The worship of God is always a response to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our worship."


"Now public worship is a vital part of the life of the local church. It is even essential to its identity. Yet in the interest of "spontaneity" worship services often lack both content and form . . . . Most churches could afford to give more time and trouble to the preparation of their worship. It is a mistake to imagine either that freedom and form exclude one another, or that the Holy Spirit is the friend of freedom in such a way as to be the enemy of form."
(THE GOSPEL AND THE END OF TIME, InterVarsity Press, 1991, page 124, as collected in AUTHENTIC CHRISTIANITY: FROM THE WRITINGS OF JOHN STOTT, compiled by Timothy Dudley-Smith, InterVarsity Press, 1995.)


"Instead of worshiping God "in spirit" (recognizing that he is spirit himself and asks for spiritual worship), idolaters become preoccupied with external, visible and tangible objects. Even the worship of the people of Israel had a constant tendency to degenerate into formalism and even blatant hypocrisy. The seventh and eighth century prophets were scathing in their denunciation of Israel's empty religion, and Jesus applied their criticism to the Pharisees of his own day: "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me'" (Isaiah 29:13; Mark 7:6). So whatever outward forms we may use in Christian worship (liturgies, processions, drama, ritual, kneeling or raising our arms), we need to ensure that they escape the charge of idolatry by passing the double test of being "in spirit and in truth."
(CHRISTIAN BASICS, Eerdmans, 1969, pages 94 and 95.)


Word and worship belong indissolubly to each other. All worship is an intelligent and loving response to the revelation of God, because it is the adoration of His name. Therefore, acceptable worship is impossible without preaching. For preaching is making known the name of the Lord, and worship is praising the name of the Lord made known.
John Stott, Between Two Worlds (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 82-83


A.H. Strong - "Worship is formal communion between God and his people – God speaks to man and man to God."


Charles Swindoll - "We are often so caught up in our activities that we tend to worship our work, work at our play and play at our worship."


"We are commanded to stop (literally)... rest, relax, let go, and make time for Him. The scene is one of stillness and quietness, listening and waiting before Him. Such foreign business in these busy times! Nevertheless, knowing God deeply and intimately requires such discipline. Silence is indispensable if we hope to add depth to our spiritual life."
(from Intimacy with the Almighty; Encoutering Christ in the secret places of your life, Word Publishing, 1996)


William Temple - "To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God."
William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, quoted in John MacArthur, The Ultimate Priority (Chicago: Moody Press, 1983), 147.


Mark Tittley - "The ministry of a worship leader is critical in creating an environment in which people will encounter and experience God. People are looking for a encounter with God – especially today where people want to connect with God. "


R.A. Torrey - "Worship is adoring contemplation of God."


A.W. Tozer - "We can express our worship to God in many ways. But if we love the Lord and are led by His Holy Spirit, our worship will always bring a delighted sense of admiring awe and a sincere humility on our part. "


"We have become so engrossed in the work of the Lord that we have forgotten the Lord of the work."


"Without worship, we go about miserable."


"We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God."


“Are we losing our ‘Oh!’?...When the heart on its knees moves into the awesome presence, and hears with fear and wonder things not lawful to utter, the mind falls flat, and words, previously its faithful servants, become weak and totally incapable of telling what the heart hears and sees. In that awful moment, the worship can only cry ‘Oh!’”


"It's not the art, but the heart"
("Worship - Rediscovering the Missing Jewel")


"I say that the greatest tragedy in the world today is that God has made man in His image and made him to worship Him, made him to play the harp of worship before the face of God day and night, but he has failed God and dropped his harp. It lies voiceless at man's feet".
('Whatever Happened to Worship?')


Graham Truscott - "When God's people begin to praise and worship Him using the Biblical methods He gives, the Power of His presence comes among His people in an even greater measure."


Carl Tuttle - "Worship is our first or foundational ministry. It is not our only ministry, but the one that all other spheres of ministry should be built upon. As one peruses Scripture the constant thread of worship runs through the lives of those who were intimate with their God and used mightily by Him."


"Worship is a desire to know God, to stand in his presence, to meet with God, an expectation of God to dwell among his people. Worship is coming before God with expectancy to see his manifest presence. Worship is to revere and pay homage to God, the act of profound adoration, to give God the glory due his name, to bow down before him, to fall at his feet, to be as a puppy at his masters feet, to turn towards and kiss, lifting up our hands in absolute surrender, drawing near to God, blessing and ministering to him, to be in fearful awe, giving ourselves over to him in loving affection and to do so in spirit and honesty."


W.E. Vine - "Worship is the direct acknowledgment to God, of his nature, attributes, ways and claims, whether by the outgoing of the heart in praise and thanksgiving or by deed done in such acknowledgment."


Tommy Walker - "How quickly we forget what it's all about. We can get so strategic that we worship so our church will grow, not because He is worthy. But we're doing all this because God is worthy and we want to worship Him."


Robert Wenz - "It is a subtle trap: whenever we insist or require that worship be ___________(fill in your own adjective), we are drawn into human-centered worship. It doesn't matter which adjective we choose, the mere process of evaluating worship on our terms makes it human-centered."
(in Room for God?, p. 34.--)


Warren W. Wiersbe - "Most Christians are too busy to worship, and many church services are so filled with man-made promotion that God is almost forgotten. People go to church to be spectators at a religious program, not participants in spiritual worship. They spend their time in counting, not weighing! As long as there are ‘results’ nobody cares whether or not God was pleased as His people gathered to honor Him and offer Him spiritual worship….the missing ingredient is worship….ascribing to God worth and not ‘using God’ to produce the results we have already planned."


"Worship is the believer's response of all that he is--mind, emotions, will, and body--to all that God is and says and does. This response has its mystical side in subjective experience, and its practical side in objective obedience to God's revealed truth. It is a loving response that is balanced by the fear of the Lord, and it is a deepening response as the believer comes to know God better."
(Real Worship (Nashville, Tenn.: Oliver Nelson, 1986), 27.)


John Wimber - " . . . what happens when we are alone with the Lord determines how intimate and deep the worship will be when we come together."


" . . . worship has a two-fold aspect: communication with God through the basic means of singing and praying, and communication from God through teaching and preaching the word, prophecy, exhortation, etc. We lift him up and exalt him, and as a result are drawn into his presence where he speaks to us.' "


"Worship is the love making expression between the bridge (body of Christ) and the groom (Jesus Christ). Worship is love freely given to God it is the expression of awe and respect to God."


John Witvliet - "All of our discussions of the style and mechanics of worship must be anchored in a deeply biblical and richly gospel-centered understanding of what worship is. We might be tempted at a worship conference to focus exclusively on the style and mechanics of worship. And these are important! But a larger challenge is to link how we approach the week-in, week-out task of planning and leading worship with our theological understanding of worship. Do our planning and leading habits, mechanics, and techniques enable people to experience worship in the deepest, most profound, most Christ-centered way? Does our work form our congregations in a deeply biblical faith? We need a high-octane theology of worship -- and one that is not simply articulated in writing, but enacted in our worship and lived out in our lives."
("Reflections on Worship’s Meaning and Purpose" - Thinking About Worship - Calvin Institute of Christian Worship)


Paul Woodburn - "Once you know what it is that you feel called and equipped to accomplish, remember that calling is a life calling.. not an "on stage" calling. In other words, if you are called to help develop/lead worship in your worshipping community – God has given you a "life-call" it does not start when you step onto the platform and end when you come off" If you are going to develop genuine, sincere worship then "on stage time" is not enough. "
(© 2000-01 Praise-Worship.Net - All Rights Reserved)


Chuck Woolley - "Worship is a lifestyle not an event!"


Darlene Zschech - "Worship is an act of obedience of the heart. It is a response that requires the very core of who you are, to love the Lord for who He is, not just for what He does."


"Worship is more than singing beautiful songs in church on a Sunday. It is more than instruments and music. As a true worshipper, your heart will long to worship Him at all times, in all ways and with all your life."


"You don't have to be the greatest singer or musician to be a great worshipper. Whether you are in the body or as an individual, open your heart and adore the Lord from the very core of your being. That's all that He's asking. "


"True worship is when your spirit adores and connects with the Spirit of God. When the very core of your being is found in LOVING HIM... lost IN HIM. It is not about the songs, it is not about how big the choir is. All of those are wonderful expressions of worship, but they are not the essence of it.


The essence of worship is when your heart and soul, all that is within you, adores and connects with the Spirit of God. In fact, regardless of how magnificent the musical moments are, unless your heart is fully engaged in the worship being expressed... it is still only music. The pure song of a heart that is yearning for more of God, and less of himself, is the music that holds the key to so many victories... and delights the heart of our King."



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Praise & Worship

Your Worship = Your View of God