Worship Matters

Title: Worship Matters
Author: Bob Kauflin
Publisher: Crossway, 2008
Pages: 259
Begun: February 9, 2009
Completed: April 8, 2009

Bob Kauflin, director of worship development at Sovereign Grace, has penned his thoughts on worship and music for the 21st century church. Though I do not entirely agree with some of his applications, especially in the music realm, I appreciated his obvious passion for biblical worship. He writes some excellent chapters on biblical worship that made the reading well worth it. I would describe his approach in this book as being philosophically practical. He shares a number of illustrations from his personal life. Consider some compelling statements:

"The Great God values not the service of men, if the heart be not in it: The Lord sees and judges the heart; he has no regard to outward forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be employed therin. It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the whole heart engaged steadfastly for God." (26)(This is actually a quotation by Isaac Watts.)

"The better (i.e. the more accurately) we know God through his Word, the more genuine our worship will be. In fact, the moment we veer from what is true about God, we're engaging in idolatry. Regardless of what we think or feel, there is no authentic worship of God without a right knowledge." (28)

"There are many things we can proclaim during and after a time of corporate worship. God's glory is unending, and his perfections are infinite. But the fuel of our praise will always be the gospel of Christ who has redeemed us and brought us to God." (134)

All in all, this was a good read. A drawback for me personally was his wordy and rambling writing style. But that is a relatively minor thing compared to the core message of the book.