Christian worship has often had a remarkably similar shape across traditions. Bryan Chapell showed in his work Christ-Centered Worship that corporate worship (sans communion) in… Read More »Pentecostal “Praise and Worship”: A Radical Departure from Historic Worship
An easy error for a historian to commit is to equate or link events or movements in history that are similar, while ignoring or underplaying… Read More »Early Beginnings of Pentecostal Worship
Every so often a book warrants the thought in my mind, “I wish I would have written this book.” Such is the case with What… Read More »Book Recommendation: What Happens When We Worship
A biblical understanding of the corporate importance of gathered worship should impact everything we do in corporate worship. First, although every church member is a… Read More »The Work of the People
The medieval church suffered from a kind of sacerdotalism that removed worship from the people and made it the worship of priests on behalf of… Read More »Sacerdotalism in Contemporary Worship
In the year 365 a council of church leadership met in the city of Laodicea to discuss various problems that had arisen in the churches… Read More »The Priesthood of All Believers
Over the past several weeks I have been developing the biblical idea of the dialogical structure of corporate worship. Historically, church worship services have been… Read More »Dialogue with God in Corporate Worship
Last week we noticed the dialogical structure of worship manifest in the terms “spirit” and “truth” in John 4. So let’s unpack this two-part, dialogical… Read More »God Speaks, We Respond
Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4 illustrates well the essence of worship with God as a relationship of communion with him. But where… Read More »Dialogue with God
For the past several weeks I have been building the case for a biblically-founded theology and practice of corporate worship. The first few posts established… Read More »Living Water
The understanding of the purpose of corporate worship that I have been exploring for the past couple of weeks is this: Corporate worship is communion… Read More »Covenant Renewal in Corporate Worship
Last week we examined two images Scripture uses to describe the Old Testament temple that should be applied equally to the New Testament Church has… Read More »Brought Near by the Blood of Christ
So far in this series I have established the importance of grounding our theology and practice of worship in the sufficient and authoritative Word of… Read More »The Church: God’s Temple
Last week I discussed implications of the doctrine of Scripture’s authority over our corporate worship, and I suggest that it involves at least three aspects:… Read More »The Authority of Scripture over the Order of Corporate Worship
If God’s beauty is perceived through correspondent, or ordinate love, we face a dilemma. Love is not merely a mental choice between options. One cannot… Read More »The Dilemma of Commanded Love
Jesus’s confrontation with the Pharisees during his earthly ministry highlights the fact that God rejects worship based on the traditions of men; rather, he insists… Read More »The Authority of Scripture over Worship
Ever since Cain and Abel, God’s people have been asking, “What is the proper way to worship God?” Uncertainty reigns today in churches over whether… Read More »The Traditions of Men
For a couple weeks I have been developing the idea that in order to disciple people through corporate worship, our corporate worship must be shaped… Read More »Aesthetic Correspondence
Our task as churches is to make disciples, and this happens when we use the Word of God to shape the minds and hearts of… Read More »Scripture-Formed Worship
Every church has as its mission the making of disciples, but how does that happen? Two weeks ago I made the point that while such… Read More »Disciple-Forming Corporate Worship