What makes for a successful worship service? In this book, the authors consider variables that make a worship service successful or unsuccessful. They explore how moods, settings and procedures can effect the worship experience, despite the purpose for worship's true aim: Òa heartfelt celebration of God and His worthiness.Ó

We are living in a time when worship has become a distinct priority for the Christian community. For years the church has emphasized evangelism, teaching, fellowship, missions, and service while neglecting the very source of its power" worship. Recently, however, many churches are experiencing a Spirit-led renewal in their understanding and practice of the praise and worship of God. "Rediscovering the Missing Jewel" is a small-group course of study designed around thirteen easy-to-understand sessions. Part One, "The Biblical foundations of Christian Worship," explores worship in two sessions" one for the Old Testament and one for the New. Part Two, "Worship from the Time of the Early Church through the Nineteenth Century," consists of six sessions that trace important developments from Justin Martyr to the congregations of African-American slaves in North America. Along the way, sessions are devoted to Eastern Orthodox, medieval Catholic, Reformation, and Protestant free church worship. Part Three, "Worship Renewal in the Twentieth Century," traces strands of Christian experience that directly influenced worship in many congregations today: Pentecostalism and the charismatic renewal, liturgical renewal stemming from Vatican II, the "praise and worship" movement, and a more recent approach that deliberately blends newer and older elements of the Christian worship tradition.

In discussions of worship, the term ’participation’ covers a lot of ground. It refers not only to concrete acts in gathered liturgy, but also to some of the loftiest claims of Christian theology. In this book, Alan Rathe probes the ways in which North American evangelicals have in recent years regarded the landscape of participation. Rathe presents a broad review of evangelical worship literature through a lens borrowed from medieval theology. This brings into surprising focus not only evangelical understandings but also evangelical identities and the historical traditions they reflect, and offers fresh perspectives on such current theological concerns as God’s triunity, missio Dei, and the practical theology of participation. Offering a fresh contribution to a young but important discipline, the liturgically-informed study of evangelical worship practice, this book reconnects the evangelical tradition to the ’Great Tradition’ and in the process re-appropriates classic concepts that are full of promise for contemporary ecumenical dialogue.

This book probes the ways in which turn-of-the-millennium evangelicals in North America have regarded the landscape of participation. Rathe views relevant evangelical literature by looking through a surprising lens borrowed from medieval theology, bringing into focus not only evangelical understandings, but also the identities and historical traditions they reflect. One of the broadest reviews yet made of evangelical worship literature, this book reconnects evangelical tradition to the “Great Tradition” and in the process re-appropriates classic concepts that are full of promise for contemporary ecumenical dialogue.

An authoritative new look at one of the most contentious and potentially divisive areas of church planning--worship styles and preferences.

Enthroned in Our Praise studies God's revelation of Himself in the Old Testament and what exactly He desires from believers in times of worship.

Anxious that current interest in and discussion of worship are too much preoccupied with mere mechanics, Dr. Carson joined with an international group of scholars to produce this final volume of the five Tyndale Consultations. First, a biblical theology of worship is explored by the Japanese, Yoshiaki Hattori, and the Australian, David Peterson. From this foundation, there follow reflections upon the practice of worship in nine different contexts: denominational (including Anglicanism and Lutheranism), cultural (South America and the Two Thirds World), and also the charismatic movement and student groups. In the final part, the Croat theologian Miroslav Volf concludes that worship is "the outworking of God-centredness in individual and corporate experience'. The opinions expressed, although at times in disagreement with one another, are an indication of the wealth of diversity within the worldwide church.