Worship is the right, fitting, and delightful response of moral beings — angelic and human — to God the Creator, Redeemer, and Consummator, for who he is as one eternal God in three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and for what he has done in creation and redemption, and for what he will do in the coming consummation, to whom be all praise and glory, now and forever, world without end. Amen
Jonathan Gibson, Reformation Worship, p. 2
The fuel of worship is a true vision of the greatness of God: the fire that makes the fuel burn white hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit; the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit: and the resulting heat of our affections is powerful worship, pushing its way out in confessions, longings, acclamations, tears, songs, shouts, bowed heads, lifted hands, and obedient lives.
John Piper. Desiring God, p. 82
Let us remember that this sacred feast is medicine to the sick, comfort to the sinner, and bounty to the poor; while to the healthy, the righteous, and the rich, if any such could be found, it would be of no value. For while Christ is therein given us for food, we perceive that without him we fail, pine, and waste away, just as hunger destroys the vigour of the body. Next, as he is given for life, we perceive that without him we are certainly dead. Wherefore, the best and only worthiness which we can bring to God, is to offer him our own vileness, and, if I may so speak, unworthiness, that his mercy may make us worthy; to despond in ourselves, that we may be consoled in him; to humble ourselves, that we may be elevated by him; to accuse ourselves, that we may be justified by him. [4.17.42]
John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 447.
“What if we started a band that started worshipping as a community before leading the church in worship?” This happens.
The next best thing to being there at the conference. 24 recordings of all the sessions. Great resource.
A short sharp post by C.J.Mahaney.
Corporate worship in the church is not music driven, it’s theology driven. Musical skill and style are both important, but they are clearly of secondary importance. The priority in corporate worship is the theological content of the songs.
Discussion with Don Caron and John Piper. Q&A Response 1.Starting at 19:58
Below is an attempted transcript of a section of the above Q& A. Some very important statements made about worship. I am personally very encouraged by what was shared and pray that God may use me for His Gospel’s sake in my ministry work in the local church that I’m serving in.
John Piper:
Just one more? I think that the explosion of… I don’t want to say just say contemporary worship or contemporary worship forms and our church will feel that way to most people. a very rock oriented. almost everywhere in the world that…we have the same songs…. Whether or not, the ethos, generally associated with that, on a Sunday morning, can sustain the gravitas of the glory of God over the long haul-whether it can hold it.
It is possible I mean, there are contemporary worship songs that draw our my heart into the bigness of God in a most marvelous way. But there is a kind of low brow, hip, cool, ya’ll come, family, chatty, way of doing worship today. The question is, if that becomes more and more prevalent, what becomes of the majesty of God in this book (Bible)?
It is very difficult to maintain a sense of the bigness and the majesty of God if everything about the service is calculated to be chummy and close and warm and touchy and feely and ya’ll come. So somethings got to break there. And I think, I pray what will happen is that, all the best of contemporary worship music and all the best of the weightiness of glory will move into just forms so that people your age, you look twenty somethings, will feel that sooner rather than later. And you won’t overreact against contemporary and say “We’re going go liturgical and only hymns and organ and trying to do it all old again.” But rather you’ll say “we got to find a way so that from the beginning to the end of this service, there’s a weightiness about it, a seriousness.” Cause’ that corresponds then, to what the Word will say and who He is, and what hell really signifies, and how glorious the Cross is. All those realities just don’t fit in talk shows! They don’t! If you try to do your little talk show down there, you welcome people and please make this as street like as possible, there are realities, most of them here (Bible) that just don’t fit there, they don’t! They get so dumbed down that the weight of hell, horror of judgement and the glory of the Cross, it’s just… people lost their capacity for awe.
Don Carson:
May I add a foot note? Even though you know, a sentence?
John Piper:
You asking me? Yes you may. I am 63 after all.
Don Carson:
Yea that’s right. You gotta respect your olders, what can you say?
I agree with that absolutely 100%. I think that practically in the local church one of the questions that those who are responsible for sung worship can ask themselves, is not just what is orthodox but what is best? There are lots and lots and lots of songs that are individually acceptable but learn to choose what’s best, not what passes a mere orthodoxy test. That will already change everything. And then start looking around for certain writers… Two weeks ago I was in England, I sat down again with both Stuart Townend and Keith Getty and his wife, they are friends. Keith and his wife believe or not spent part of their honeymoon in our home, I mean how stupid can you get? But nevertheless they did. And you know what these people do when some of us get together for some of these things? They sit down and ask questions like, what doctrines are we not hitting adequately in our hymns? What should the tone be? There are some people out there that are doing these… The Stuart Townends’ and Keith Gettys’ of this world are just a cut above almost all the other contemporary hymn writers. Pray for more of those. There are some people making the right moves and I’m encouraged by that.
John Piper:
May I encourage you (Dude who’s asking the questions) to exercise authority… over us?
Dude, who’s asking the questions:
Can we do one last question?
John Piper:
You may!
Don Caron looks at Piper and laughs! Hahaha!!!
Dude, who asked that question
I guess that wasn’t a good exercise of authority????
That was some important observations and edification for worship. And some really funny moments from these great theologians.
Reforming Roy 