Worship Library Essays & Blog
Explore over three hundred curated essays on the Christian year, ancient-future worship, sacramental practice, and sacred music.
A Worship Leader Must Be Someone Who Actually Leads Worship
A Worship Leader Must Be Someone Who Leads How do you lead worship? The Holy Spirit, as counselor and as guide, directs the worship through the worship leader. The leader acts…
History of the Church, Part 2: The Birth of Christianity
By the end of the first century, Christians had developed a clearly defined way of worshiping. The Church was growing fast and was becoming increasingly involved with the worl…
Praise: The Prelude to Worship
The phrase “praise and worship” is frequently used by Christians, and yet these two words are rarely mentioned together in the Bible. Is there a distinction between praise and…
Engaging Children in Worship
Any program of worship education will need to have several areas of focus. The content of worship can be taught to children in some manner regardless of age. The preschooler e…
What Was the Style of Ancient Israelite Music?
The crucial task in determining matters of style is one of identifying relationships that are found in available music and that can be shown also to have been present in music…
The Seven Styles of Morning Worship
Broadly speaking, the contemporary renewal of worship in the Western world can be classified as follows: (1) liturgical; (2) traditional Protestant; (3) creative; (4) charisma…
Understanding the Dismissal
The Dismissal consists of those acts of worship that send out people from the assembly to love and serve God and their neighbors in the world. It should retains the celebrativ…
Selecting Hymns for Worship
Choosing music for the worship service is both a privilege and a challenge. The first step is the selection of hymns that reflect the assigned Scriptures. Hymns are the “prope…
Building A United Worship Team
A key to building a united worship team is to have a clearly defined statement. This entry suggests ways to go about developing such a statement, including planning a retreat …
An Overview of Mennonite Worship
When I came to faith in Christ, I asked to be baptized into the Mennonite congregation in which I had grown up. In the preparation for church membership, we, the candidates fo…
Understanding the Call to Worship
A call to worship is directed to the people by God through the worship leader. It is an act that brings the worshiping community into being. The call to worship is directed to…
The Formative Power of Public Worship
Corporate worship forms a community into the body of Christ and has great influence in shaping the spirituality of its members. Every worshiping community has a great responsi…
Personal Preparation for Worship
A constant enemy of worship leaders is busyness, for it takes them away from the all-important time spent with God. Other aspects of personal preparation for worship leading i…
An Overview of Worship in the Reformed Church in America
The Reformed Church in America has been influenced by the liturgical movement, the renaissance in the arts, and the praise-and-worship movement. While most churches observe a …
An Overview of Worship in the United Methodist Church
UNITED METHODIST CHURCHES Worship in the United Methodist Church draws from both the Catholic and Protestant heritage. The denomination contains both strong liturgical and cha…
Ten Basic Needs Met By Worship
In worship a person gives to the Lord all of the conflicts, struggles, and disappointments that affect his or her life. Leaving them in the Father’s hands, the worshiper focus…
An Overview of Worship in the Evangelical Free Church
Ehe Evangelical Free Church does not dictate worship style to its congregations. For this reason, each community may respond to various trends. Some have been influenced by th…
Thoughts on Early Church Worship in a Modern Context
Christian worship from the beginning has been characterized by a variety of styles. Contemporary scholarship suggests that there was no single original style of worship, but r…