Worship

Worship explores what it means to honor God with heart, mind, and life—both personally and as the gathered church. Discover Bible-based articles on worship in Scripture, singing and liturgy, the role of preaching and prayer in worship, and leading services that are Christ-centered and spiritually formative. You’ll also find practical guidance for worship leaders and ministry teams on planning gatherings, cultivating congregational participation, and keeping worship rooted in the gospel rather than performance. These resources help believers worship God in spirit and truth.

August 2, 2017

Christian Standard

A Vision of Otherness

By Jackina Stark I once had a vision. It was not as glorious as Isaiah”s””I can”t imagine one more glorious than that””but for me, what I saw one morning during a worship service was profoundly important. We were singing a medley of songs that ended with a beautifully melodic chorus that repeated the word holy over and over and over. I closed my eyes and got lost in the word and found, quite unexpectedly, a new understanding of who Jesus is and what holy means. Twice in the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy,” God is perceptively called merciful and mighty. These

June 20, 2017

Christian Standard

3 Things that Make a Worship Leader Great

By Chuck Dennie It was a beautiful spring day when I pulled into the long driveway of a church that had a large property. The pastor had asked me to spend time with the church”s worship leader. As I approached the building, I saw beautiful landscaping, a well-manicured pond, and someone mowing the grass. I was about an hour early, and the pastor greeted me at the offices. I asked if we could get started early and if he would introduce me to his worship leader. He pointed outside to the guy mowing the grass and said, “There is my worship

January 22, 2017

Christian Standard

A Comprehensive Review

By Becky Ahlberg “When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.” Isaac Watts penned those words in 1707. He was a masterful preacher and poet and was known for writing hymns as part of his sermons. This particular hymn has lasted more than 300 years precisely because it captures the ethos of the cross for each of us personally. Watts was known to have three “rules” for writing: make it personal, make it sensuous (as in appealing to the senses), and

December 1, 2016

Michael C. Mack

Christmas Best Practices

By Michael C. Mack Pre-invite: Christmas Movie Celebration Host a Christmas film fest, featuring family-friendly Christmas movies, at the church building or another community gathering place. Serve seasonal foods and refreshments, and encourage church attendees to invite their friends. This may be a great way to “pre-invite” people and help them get to know others before your Christmas services. Invite Friends to Christmas Services. According to a recent LifeWay Research study, 61 percent of Americans attend church services at Christmastime. Which means, of course, that 4 out of 10 people do not attend. Yet, among those who don”t attend church

June 8, 2016

Christian Standard

“˜American Idol” Comes to Church

By Jim Tune The tension was almost unbearable. Fourteen anxious people awaited their turn to perform. The audition would be rigorous. Most of them had been through tryouts before. Nearly all of them were young, fit, and attractive. Every single one of them could sing or play an instrument proficiently, but only one would make the cut. After all, this was the church and only the exceptionally gifted would be chosen to perform on Sundays with the worship team. I think our contemporary culture has developed an unhealthy obsession with discovering talent. From youth sports to spectacular TV shows like

May 1, 2016

Michael C. Mack

Real Men Sing Real Loud

By Michael C. Mack “Don”t tell me men don”t sing,” says Greg Atkinson, a pastor, author, speaker, consultant, and the founder of Worship Impressions, a secret shopper service for churches. “If someone (male of female) has had a genuine encounter with the living God””they sing, sometimes loud,” says Atkinson on his blog, www.gregatkinson.com. Atkinson says he”s seen this firsthand in his 22 years of ministry, particularly in prison ministry. “I”ve been in prisons with a room full of tattooed, hardcore men (some with teardrop tattoos signifying they”ve killed someone) that are singing to the top of their lungs,” he says.

February 25, 2016

Christian Standard

The Upright

By Daniel Schantz It was a covert invasion of the world. Pianos began showing up everywhere, beginning in the 1920s, quietly infiltrating homes and schools, churches and clubs, theaters and malls, bars and restaurants. Even wilderness camps, remote mission fields, and sod huts on the prairie soon had pianos. Little wonder the 20th century was called “the golden age of the piano,” and the piano was dubbed “the most popular musical instrument in the world.” Learning to play the piano was a rite of passage for many American children back then, a part of fine breeding, before our children were seduced by soccer and

January 12, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Should Musicians Plan Our Worship Services?

By Mark A. Taylor Here”s why a church should recruit excellent musicians to lead worship: The people we”re serving as well as those we hope to reach are hearing professionally produced music everywhere they go. Many of them love music, and they listen to “their music” in their car, at the gym, when they walk, and sometimes at work. But even nonmusical people encounter music every day. Music creates the emotion and signals the mood in everything from Star Wars to sitcoms. The most memorable TV and radio ads include music. (I heard an interview the other day with a

December 12, 2015

Christian Standard

The Art Effect

By Jennifer Johnson Many churches look at summer as a time to coast; attendance is down, staff members are vacationing, and everyone is tempted to take it easy. Not The Crossing Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year the creative arts team developed Art Effect, a seven-week emphasis on the arts tied into senior pastor Shane Philip”s sermon series on the book of Proverbs. From hip-hop music to paintings by children, The Crossing used summer 2015 to stretch its people””and themselves””with new expressions of worship. A Variety of Approaches The Crossing”s creative arts team includes several staff members, including Lee

December 11, 2015

Christian Standard

Beyond Information

By Tom Lawson We”re still living with the aftermath of the Protestant Reformers who cleansed worship spaces of every piece of art. But doesn”t the Bible give us examples and a mandate to use all the arts in worship? In 1524, the great Grossmünster cathedral in Zürich was just a shell of its former glory. The statues had been smashed and all the artwork had been removed. Initially, even congregational singing had been discarded, along with the statues and frescoes. What was left was a nearly empty room, except for a towering pulpit, for plain and unadorned Christian worship. In

December 10, 2015

Christian Standard

Art in the Worship of the Church

By Paul M. Blowers Worship in the church”s context has never been artless, any more than it was artless in Israel”s ancient temple. Worship is already, in one sense, a ritual “performance.” The biblical revelation is our ultimate “script,” and Christian believers are both the “actors” and “spectators” who, through various formal actions””such as singing, proclaiming, praying, confessing, offering, blessing, and eating””remember and replay the mighty deeds of God. Indeed, we join ourselves to a “cast of thousands,” the “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) who have come before us as players in the living drama that is the Christian faith.

December 8, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

The Greatest Impact

By Mark A. Taylor How should we worship? Maybe we can take some comfort in the fact that throughout church history, Christians have answered that question in wildly differing ways. As both Paul Blowers and Tom Lawson point out this month, lavish artistic expressions of worship centuries ago eventually gave way to abandonment and even destruction of them by Protestant reformers. The motivation for each approach was the desire to please and praise God. Across Christendom today, we find everything from formal liturgy in classic settings to simple, quiet contemplative gatherings in smaller groups to exuberant, loud, guitar-driven, drum-syncopated megachurch

December 7, 2015

Christian Standard

Storytellers: Worship Beyond Music

By Laura Dingman Everyone loves a good story. We live for the intrigue, the action, the surprise, the mystery. We love a valiant hero, a triumphant underdog, a liberated prisoner, a conquered villain. Hearing good stories never grows old. God wired us to love story. He reveals his character in the stories of the patriarchs and moves the plot forward in the books of history. He discloses his compassionate and just nature in words contained in the poetry of the Psalms. Jesus, a masterful storyteller, taught in parables, explaining new truths to his listeners in accessible, everyday forms. God authored

December 6, 2015

Christian Standard

An Interview with Randy Gill

By Jennifer Johnson Randy Gill is the worship and creative arts minister at Otter Creek Church, a noninstrumental church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also a songwriter and arranger for the ZOE Group. He talked with us about worship as spiritual formation, why exuberant worship experiences aren”t enough, and how the use of instruments makes worship planning more difficult. Let”s start by talking about some big-picture values for corporate worship before diving into the specifics of different artistic forms. You”ve said that worship is not about emotional catharsis or having an “experience”; it”s actually about spiritual formation. There

June 26, 2015

Christian Standard

Three Ways to Sing a Common Song

By Mandy Smith For many Christians, singing hymns in a group is still a meaningful experience. An a cappella version of “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” can induce goose bumps, especially when those harmonies chime in on the “A-men.” While we don”t usually dissect the meaning of this practice, there are reasons why singing as a group is powerful. The simple act of singing old songs about God to God with each other reinforces three things that are central to our faith: We are devoted to God through Christ, We are devoted to him together, and We are

June 20, 2015

Christian Standard

Fail Safe

By Karl Schad After months of seeking God in prayer, we prepared to launch three worship services designed to better reach all the generations in our community. We would offer blended traditional, contemporary, and modern services on Sunday mornings, each designed with a specific demographic in mind. Every service would include elements handpicked to engage the generational diversity of our community as we identified the distinct needs of the different age groups and planned to meet them. Three service styles would allow our community to express their worship to God in the way that best connected them to the Lord.

April 15, 2015

Christian Standard

Attracted to the Mystery, Amazed by the Beauty

By Jim Tune It was just another busy lunch hour in the food court. Then a young woman with a cell phone pressed to her ear stood up and began to sing “hallelujah.” While shoppers were trying to figure out what was going on, the first singer was joined by a man who, moments earlier, had been eating his Arby”s sandwich. Then a mall custodian joined the chorus. Suddenly all 80 voices of the Chorus Niagara were performing a magnificent rendition of George Frederic Handel”s masterpiece, the “Hallelujah Chorus.” The shoppers in the food court at Seaway Mall November 13,

March 9, 2015

Christian Standard

A New Ancient Rhythm

By Jason Yeatts “Yes, we do have one, and it starts at 7 p.m. in the south worship center.” Our receptionist must have repeated that statement 20 times that day. The calls started early and went through the afternoon. The weekend before, Gary Johnson, our senior minister, had announced that The Creek would observe the season of Lent, starting with a worship service on Ash Wednesday. The announcement spread quickly, and on that first day of Lent we received a barrage of calls from people wanting to confirm that we, indeed, were having an Ash Wednesday service. The idea to

March 7, 2015

Christian Standard

Building Easter Expectation with Our Church

By Ethan Magness People tend to prepare for what”s important to them. And they tend to experience what they expect. This is why our church invests so much energy in a variety of ways to help people get ready for a meaningful Easter celebration. I am writing this article by the glow of a Christmas tree. It is barely December, and already I am seeing stockings and lights, candles and manger scenes. Our shopping is not done, our travel plans are uncertain, but we have begun to prepare. If you visited our home you would see that Christmas matters to

October 31, 2014

Christian Standard

A Universal Language

By C. Robert Wetzel Have you ever found yourself worshipping in a congregation in a country where you did not know the language? Perhaps occasionally you recognized a melody of a hymn and tried to sing the words that you associated with that tune. Or saw Scripture was being read, but could only guess what it might be by looking to see how the Bible was opened. Was it about halfway? Then maybe it was a Psalm. Was it near the back? Probably a New Testament reading. But what? It becomes even worse during the sermon. Why is the preacher

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