Worship Matters

I'm currently reading this book called Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin. Chuck and I are meeting weekly to discuss our thoughts on it and we're finding it to be a catalyst for some really good discussions.

This week I finished Chapters 11 and 12 and they blew me away. I think it would be easy (especially for worship pastors/leaders) to just breeze through a book like this looking for quick answers to common issues facing the local church today.

But I'm finding that Kauflin packs a lot of stuff into 2 sentence quotes. He'll launch something out there and you see that you still have plenty of chapter left to read. However, it usually makes me stop...I can't just do the holy "hmmmm" and move on. I have to dig deep into what he said. So, below are a few of the quotes from his book that are rocking me right now. They are causing me to evaluate, think more deeply, and realize that after 12 years of leading worship, I still have so much left to learn!

Quoting Gordon Fee - "Show me a church's songs and I'll show you their theology."

"When is the last time a non-Christian came to your church and fell down on his face, convicted and gloriously converted?"

"Given the biblical history, God's commands, and the immeasurable benefits we receive from Word-centered worship, it's worth asking why worship today is so often focused on sensory experiences, inward feelings, and subjective encounters."

"We need songs that have substantive, theologically rich, biblically faithful lyrics. A consistent diet of shallow, subjective worship songs tends to produce shallow, subjective Christians."

"Music can make shallow lyrics sound deep. A great rhythm section can make drivel sound profound and make you want to sing it again."

"The bottom line is: Sing God's Word. Lyrics matter more than music. Truth transcends tunes."