"Worship by the Book", Don Carson

I’d like to recommend a book that I read over the Christmas holidays entitled "Worship by the Book", published in 2002 by Zondervan. Edited by Don Carson, he is one of four authors who each write an equal length chapter on the subject of worship and more specifically – corporate worship‘ i.e. what the church does when they meet together on Sunday. Each of the writers provide a biblical understanding of worship and then give guidelines and templates for how to apply this understanding into corporate worship within three different traditions (Mark Ashton - Anglican, R. Kent Hughes – Free Church and Timothy J. Keller – Presbyterian).

Don Carson sets the scene with the first 52 pages entitled "Worship under the Word". On the issue of how we are to worship God as a New Testament people, i.e. a proper response (giving God his worth-ship), Carson writes: "What this means for members of the new covenant is that our response to God in worship should begin by carefully and reflectively examining what God requires of us under the terms of this covenant. We should not be asking whether or not we enjoy "worship", but asking, "What is it that God expects of us?" That will frame our response."

Below are further choice quotes from the various contributors:

Carson
· In an age increasingly suspicious of (linear) thought, there is much more respect for the "feeling" of things-whether a film or a church service. It is disturbingly easy to plot surveys of people, especially young people, drifting from a church of excellent preaching and teaching to one with excellent music because, it is alleged, there is "better worship” there.

· Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God.

· There are far too few choruses and services and sermons that expand our vision of God-his attributes, his works, his character, and his words.

· What we must strive for is growing knowledge of God and delight in him – not delight in worship per se, but delight in God.

Ashton
· John Wesley’s verdict on the Prayer Book was: "I know of no liturgy in the world, ancient or modern, which breathes more of solid, scriptural piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England." But it would not have been Cranmer’s wish to freeze Anglican liturgy for centuries to come so that it lost its cultural relevance and reintroduced into church services the obscurity that he laboured so hard to remove.

· A vicar may well feel that the responsibility for deciding what passages his congregation should hear is his alone; it is too important to be left to anyone else, but he will need to beware of his own hobby-horses. Aiming to work systematically through all the major Bible books, passage by passage, Sunday by Sunday, over a ten-year period provides a balance between freedom and system so that the present needs of the church can be weighed against the long-term responsibility to teach the whole counsel of God. All too few churches today benefit from regular teaching by the same pastor from the same book of the Bible, carefully and faithfully expounded week by week. Those that do are often the most healthy.

· Any clothes worn by the minister and not by the congregation will communicate a clericalism that sits ill with "the priesthood of all believers."

Hughes
· For some time I have been in implicit agreement with Don Carson’s assertion that New Testament worship encompasses all of life and that it is misleading to imagine it as only a corporate activity of the assembled church.

· Because worship is a way of life, you cannot worship corporately on the Lord’s Day if you haven’t been worshiping throughout the week – apart from repentance! Christians don’t have a Sunday "worship switch," despite what is sometimes portrayed on television.

· Musicians must see themselves as fellow labourers in the Word and must lead with understanding and an engaged heart. Those who minister in worship services must be healthy Christians who have confessed their sins and by God’s grace are living their lives consistently with the music they lead. The sobering fact is that over time the congregation tends to become like those who lead.

Keller

· Do we really want to assume that the Sixteenth-century northern European approach to emotional expression and music (incarnate in the Reformation tradition) was completely biblically informed and must be preserved?

· If worship only "happens" in the "big event," then we will be overly concerned to give people a huge emotional or aesthetic experience.

· ...if we have a sense of humility before God’s grace, we won’t be pompous, authoritarian, severe, or "ministerial." Instead of pomposity, there should be authenticity and humility.

This book will be very helpful to Pastors, elders and those who are involved in corporate worship both as musicians or vocalists.