quotations about worship
Performance worship is now the norm. I fear this is the case with practically all evangelical megachurches and their emulating congregations, which now includes a growing number of desperate mainline congregations, as well. We also see it in the hip, edgy, urban emergent congregations that tout their return to liturgy, but still find themselves enslaved to commercial entertainment forms. Yes, performance worship has killed worship.
JONATHAN ALGIER
"Performance Music: Worship?", Patheos, March 13, 2017
What matter whether the substance of worship is flesh or word, and what difference? The essential point is that it be godly beings lifting up that which is godly toward that which is God -- wondrous beings lifting up that which is wonder toward the Source of All Wonder.
JONAH C. STEINBERG
"The Cosmic Mystery of Sacrifice", The Huffington Post, March 31, 2017
The great end for which you are to worship here is, that you may worship everywhere.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
Perfect Life
Worship is the subjection of the personality of the worshipper to the object worshipped; it is therefore the affirmation of the relations the two personalities bear to one another.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Simply put, worship is an it-is-well-with-my-soul experience.
ROBERT WEBBER
Signs of Wonder: The Phenomenon of Convergence in Modern Liturgical and Charismatic Churches
Worship is man's highest end, for it is the employment of his highest faculties and affections on the sublimest subject.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
Perfect Life
Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.
MAHATMA GANDHI
The Story of My Experiments With Truth
Christian worship is not an act of self-achievement, an act in which we set out to impress a deity. Nor is worship an act of obeisance to placate a deity. Instead, worship is more like a personal covenantal encounter between the church and its Lord, all made possible through the work of the Spirit.
JOHN D. WITVLIET
"The Cumulative Power of Transformation in Public Worship: Cultivating Gratitude and Expectancy for the Holy Spirit's Work", Worship That Changes Lives
Worship may take many forms. Down through the centuries, Christians have worshiped by singing antiphonally in Greek, chanting in Latin, singing lustily in German, plaintively crooning Celtic melodies, shouting in the wild, primitive harmony of the "Sacred Harp" hymnal, clapping hands and swaying to a rhythmic spiritual, praying with hands raised and eyes lifted or with hands folded and eyes closed. Worship has taken many forms reflecting the complexity of human experience. The outward form of worship is not of primary importance. What matters in worship is whether God is pleased with the worship we offer him, and whether or not we focus our attention on Jesus' presence in our worship.
DAVID WICK
"What worship involves", Spencer Daily Reporter, March 9, 2017
Worship therefore manifests itself both in adoration and in action, both in the individual believer and in corporate worship, which is worship offered up in the context of the body of believers, who strive to align all the forms of their devout ascription of all worth to God with the panoply of new covenant mandates and examples that bring to fulfillment the glories of antecedent revelation and anticipate the consummation.
D. A. CARSON
Worship by the Book
Worship is essentially and radically eschatological. By singing new songs, we continue to anticipate the death of death, the coming kingdom, and the ultimate resurrection. By refusing to sing anything new, we symbolically forget about the forward trajectory of Christ's salvation.
JONATHAN AIGNER
"8 Reasons Churches Should Sing New Songs", Patheos, February 17, 2016
I've begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, and a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to 'God' are all answered at about the same 50% rate.
GEORGE CARLIN
Brain Droppings
It is the pleasing of God that is at the heart of worship. Therefore, our worship must be informed at every point by the Word of God as we seek God's own instructions for worship that is pleasing to Him.
R. C. SPROUL
A Taste of Heaven: Worship in the Light of Eternity
The purpose of worship is to get the gospel to someone.
DEVIN BACHMAN
"Battle of the Praise Bands", Georgia College Colonnade, February 25, 2016
It is very good for us to meet in this place for Public Worship. A peculiar blessing seems to be promised us, when we do so. Christ pledges Himself to be in the midst of us.
ASHTON OXENDEN
Sermons on the Christian Life
God is to be praised with the voice, and the heart should go therewith in holy exultation.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
The Treasury of David
In worship, man ascribes worth to God.
DAVID WICK
"What worship involves", Spencer Daily Reporter, March 9, 2017
By lifting our hands we symbolically receive everything God is doing in our lives.
BOB SORGE
Exploring Worship: A Practical Guide to Praise & Worship
Man always worships something; always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in something finite; and indeed can and must so see it in any finite thing, once tempt him well to fix his eyes thereon.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Essays
Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of the Eternal Word.
MADAME GUYON
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers