The gospel ought never to be entirely at home in any culture. If gospel and culture fit together as easily as hand-in-glove, then the likelihood is that the gospel has capitulated to the values of the culture… There must always be some tension between gospel and...
In the modern evangelical church, singing, praying, giving, and other congregational acts of worship are regarded at times as preamble to the sermon. Music, in particular, appears separate from elements of worship that seem to be more spiritual, such as praying and...
Modern-day individualism has diminished and diluted the communal emphasis in Scripture. Piety has become compartmentalized, relegated to a private personal pocket of life. The result is a religious consumerism which describes worship as “attending the church of your...
Corporate worship can become empty—it can turn into an abstraction—outside of each individual worship taking on full responsibility, for each person is the church, and it is the church that is to be at worship, individual by individual. In corporate worship, it is not...
I firmly believe that when Paul called the church the body of Christ he meant it. I don’t think that he meant we constitute the body of Christ when we gather 10 high school boys for a small group. The practice of worship and the celebration of the sacraments requires...
If the liturgy of the church in the United States is to continue to have spiritual vitality, then we must listen to new voices and incorporate them into the planning and presentation of the worship experience… The songs, prayers and confessions from the global...
Is there no real difference between worship and entertainment? I believe there is a world of difference, even though I have some inkling as to why today’s culture has confused the two… ENTERTAINMENT typically results from the WORK OF OTHERS, for my interest, pleasure,...
The corporate worship of the Church is not simply that of an assembly of individuals who believe the same things, and therefore unite in doing the same things. It is real in its own right; an action transcending and embracing all the separate souls taking part in it.
There are three ingredients that must be present in making healthy changes. First, you have to love the people, genuinely be on their side. Second, what you propose has to make sense. Something totally “off the wall” and foreign to a given tradition is not likely to...
Don’t trade authentic preaching for the kazoo of being contemporary, for the tin whistle of entertainment, for the turkey call of trying to get as many people as you can under one roof.