Why the Distinction Between “Praise” and “Worship” Matters

In an earlier post entitled Defining Worship, I introduced Harold’s Best definition of worship as continuous outpouring. If worship encompasses all of our life, then “worship” is a much bigger concept than “praise”. In fact, we can think of “praise” as a subset of “worship”. Robert Webber once said that “worship is a verb”, but […]

What Type of Worship Leader Are You?

Years ago, I came across John de Jong’s catalogue of different types of worship leaders (from his book Riding the Storm), which I thought was rather amusing. It’s tongue-in-cheek, but in the process, he makes some quite incisive observations about worship leading methodology. So here are the categories, but I want to just make the […]

The Art of Midflight Song Changes

This post (like the previous one) was also inspired by my emerging worship leader friend whilst unwinding after a game of tennis. He made the remark that he really doesn’t like it when worship leaders make a habit out of changing songs at the last minute (e.g. on the morning of the worship service). I […]

Worship Leaders Who Talk Too Much

I had just finished a couple of hours of tennis with some friends of mine, some of whom actively serve in church worship. One of the guys (a young, upcoming worship leader) made the observation that sometimes, worship leaders spend too much time talking at the start of the service. In fact, he said, at […]

Worship is the Fuel and Goal of Missions

I’m reading John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad at the moment and have really been challenged by the depth of his thinking, particularly around the topic of God’s glory. If you ever need a clearer statement about the intersection of worship and missions, go no further than the first paragraph of Piper’s treatise, where […]

Defining Worship

I expect that this will not be the only post I write on this subject because “worship” is one of those words which we all understand in some way or another, but find extremely difficult to pin down. Depending on the context, its meaning expands and contracts. Also, a lot our understanding will also be […]

Nations Worship

Converge 2012 is going to culminate in an evening of “Nations Worship”. I was just thinking about what that night might look like. Could it look like this? Except of course, it would be representative of the church of Perth with worship leaders and singers from the Indigenous church, Korean church, African church, Indonesian church […]

Worship and the Marketplace Part 2

When I wrote yesterday’s post, I was led to Ezekiel’s vision of the river flowing from the temple in Ezekiel 47. As I read that passage, I had more thoughts about the connection between worship in the temple and transformation in the marketplace. To fully appreciate the connection, we have to get an understanding of […]

Heart First

I have just finished reading Wayne Cordeiro’s The Irresistible Church. It’s a great book and particularly relevant to me as I had spent several months looking for an “irresistible church”. Here, I extract Cordeiro’s third trait of an irresistible church: The third trait of an irresistible church, a church God loves to bless, is living […]

Worship Leader’s Hand Signals

Today, I want to look at the hand signals that worship leaders use. Having visited a number of churches, I have noticed that worship leaders (depending on how they were trained) approach hand signals very differently. I am not talking about the core shapes, because it seems that worship leaders around the world have somehow […]