Good Books on Worship

Having been involved in leading worship in some form of ministry for the past ten years, I have met a lot of people that are in different places in ministry now. Often I will get an email, facebook message, or text from these people all asking a similar question of a recommendation on a good worship book. Many times the recommendation is for a student that feels called to be a worship leader, but sometimes its just for personal use. Naturally the first book that we have on worship is the bible; containing examples of worship songs, and how people have worshiped God throughout time. The Bible is always a good place to start and to end up when reading about worship.

However throughout my time in school and leading worship I have collected a few favorites worship books that I would like to share with you if you're curious on what good books have been written on worship.

Matt Redman - The Unquenchable Worshipper: Coming Back to the Heart of Worship

Matt Redman has been a leader in the worship movement for the past ten years writing songs such as Better Is One Day, Blessed Be Your Name, You Never Let Go, and The Heart of Worship. This book is a perfect book to get for the youth that feels called to Worship/Music Ministry because of its readability and great insights.







Matt Redman - Facedown

This is also a great book to get for a youth that is called to Worship/Music Ministry as well as a great read for anyone who has lost the "facedown" fear that we should have of the Lord.







Gordon Borror - Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel

Dr. Borror was one of my main professors at SWBTS. His insight is priceless. Having lived a life of leading worship for over 60 years the wisdom that this book displays is amazing.






Bob Kauflin - Worship Matters

As one of the leading Reformed Worship Leaders and founder of Sovereign Grace Music, anything Bob Kauflin writes or says, you need to listen to it. Including this book.








Robert Webber - Worship Is A Verb

Robert Webber is one of the most well-known worship pioneers of our day. His writing has a learning curve to it and is not for the beginner; however it is worth taking the time to ponder upon and understand.










Robert Webber - Worship Old And New

Robert Webber in this book speaks of Historic Worship and its transition to Today's worship and what they have in common and how they are different. This book is for the person who wants to go a little deeper in understanding worship.





Segler/Bradley - Understanding, Preparing For, and Practicing Christian Worship

For the Person who is called to the ministry. I cannot tell you how many times I have pulled this book out for help in funeral orders, wedding orders, and just general day to day items that come up for the Music Minister.



Bradley - From Postlude to Prelude

What does a Music Minister do the other 6 days of the week? This will help you grasp a vision of that.





Herbert Bateman - Authentic Worship

Having had Dr. Bateman as a professor at SWBTS I know that he has forgotten more than I will ever learn. His book on worship is a must read for those who are looking to go deeper.






Segler/Bradley - Christian Worship

Eskew/McElrath - Sing With Understanding

Have you ever wondered where the songs come from that we sing each week. What is the history of how worship music evolved to what it is today? This book will help you learn that.






Music/Price - A Survey of Christian Hymnody

Beale - We Become What We Worship

One of the newest books that I have read. Not particularly a music worship book, but a great book in understanding Christian Worship.







Best - Unceasing Worship

Harold Best hits the mark with this book. It is a must read if you want to understand humanities necessity to worship.








I hope that hopefully this book list will help someone. If you have any to add that I missed feel free to leave a comment with it included.

Life and Death

Life and Death

This weekend has been interesting for me. The first part of the weekend I spent it by learning of the miracle of life. A child being born is truly one of the greatest miracles that everyone of us experiences (because we were all born). It is amazing to know that everything turns out just how it is meant to turn out while growing from a microscopic sperm and egg into a fully developed baby nine months later. The later part of my weekend, however, has been quite the opposite, filled with attending and planning funerals at the church that I work at for those who have died in the past week.

Eight months ago almost to the day we found out that Natalie was pregnant. It was such a shock and something that we were not expecting. A new life was beginning inside of Natalie and it was something that we were not ready for, nor was it something that we thought we could handle at the time, but God is gracious. When I went to my pastor to share my fears with him and sort of voice out my doubting my ability to be ready to be a father or to lead a family, he comforted me by reminding what I already knew that God is the giver and taker of life, and He had chosen to give us this baby even though we, as a young married couple, didn’t think we could handle it, He was entrusting this child and life in our hands so that He could receive the ultimate glory of how we reacted in raising our child and how our child reacted with the life that it was given.

Five months ago I experienced the first death of a person that I had been close to my entire life, my grandmother. It was not such a shock that my grandmother died because her health was fading quickly, but it was something that we were not expecting to happen as soon as it did. There was a life that had begun probably with shock as our daughters did inside of Natalie, it was a life that probably her parents were not ready for or might have been more than they could handle at the time. But God gave my grandmother her life and had a plan for her. God chose to give her life just as He chose to take it away at the very moment that he did.

Life and death are both joyous and stressful. A new life is stressful when we think we are not ready for it or don’t know how to provide for it; it is joyous because when you see the life that God has entrusted you with there is a joy in knowing that is your child. Death is stressful because it is a loss of someone that we are comfortable in having in our lives and someone that has quite possibly been there as long as we can remember; death is joyous because we realize that whatever a person prized the most on earth they will spend eternity worshiping that very thing. For my grandmother, the thing that she prized the most on this Earth was God and bringing God glory through her life. I know that she will spend eternity worshiping God and enjoying Him forever.

I realize that my life, my wife’s life, and my soon to be daughters life are all a gift that can be taken in an instant. I hope that in my life, my wife’s life, and my daughter’s life that it is evident that the thing I prize the most is worshiping the one who has given all to me.

Life is temporary and Death is approaching.

Does God Love Failures?

I am a failure. Do you ever feel like that? I try and I try, and then I try again to live a life that is fully and totally good, then I realize that I have failed once again. Another day, another sin, another wasted opportunity to make a choice was right and I failed. This leads me to wonder does God love failures?

For a person to be a failure there must be a standard. There must be a level that is considered perfection or either to be the right way for one to choose a wrong way. If there were no right or wrong then one would never be a failure, right? So who makes right and wrong? Who determined the standard? I would argue and insist that God is the one who has made the standard or right and wrong since the beginning of Creation as evidenced in the bible. If you would argue against that just take a look at the most well known and simplistic orders of the law which are the ten commandments. We could all agree that it is wrong to murder, to cheat on your spouse, to steal, or to lust after your neighbors wife or possessions right? Why is that wrong? I would argue it is because it is God's law and He is the author of right and wrong; He set the standard of How a person should live.

But what if we fail? What if we all fail? What if we see the new house of our neighbor, or the new car of our friend, and we lust after it? What if we stole a pencil as a child because it was cooler then the one we had? What if we thought about killing someone and wished they were dead out of anger? Have we fallen below the standard that God set? Yes, I think we have. So there is no hope for any of us right? We are all failures! Does God love the failures?

What's more God even knows we are failures (Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"). Would God love someone who He KNOWS is a failure? God is Creator and we as His creation are failures. God knows we are failures, and through anact of selfless love made a plan of redemption through the person of Jesus Christ, who was fully man and fully God, sent to Earth to die.

Jesus came to Earth and lived a life that was perfect. He lived up to the standard and was actually not a Failure. He was the only person who actually deserved to live forever; instead He died. God's word puts it better then I ever could :

( 1 Peter 2 - He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.)

Jesus lived a perfect life but yet He suffered on a Cross a gruesome death, dying for the sins that we commit today. We are all failures and have fallen short of the standard of living a perfect life. None of us are perfect, but Jesus came and made a way for us to have a perfect life that gives us life that lasts long after the life on this Earth.

Eternal life that sounds tempting and almost a little ridiculous at the same time right? I mean it sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie or almost to much of a stretch right? Really, who would believe this nonsense? I admit when compared with the truth of the world it sounds like a stretch and really simple - but if you take a step back and think about it, where did we come from? Is there a higher power or God? There has to be! There has to be something greater than we just appeared here or earth or chance. When you see how a baby is born, or when you see a sunset, or when you see spring flowers, this is not by chance; there has to be more.

Obviously at some point or time we have all felt like a failure - we all realize that there must be a standard of what is right and wrong or otherwise to one person murder would be fine and to another it would be wrong. There must be a standard. So if there is a God and We are Fallen and there is redemption How do we receive life that lasts forever?

This is the hard part, we must surrender everything and follow Him. We are a slave in life on earth: We are either slaves to sin and a life that never brings true pleasure but leads to hurt; or we are slaves to Christ in which we put aside everything that we think might bring us pleasure and we seek to live a life that Honors God. We're still failures, we still fail, but when we live a life of "following God" where we Love God and Others above ourselves; we have eternal life. We are forgiven of our sins by fully surrendering to live a life of following Christ.

Does God love failures? Absolutely. God loves failures so much that He has given His Creation Redemption from our failures.

If this post is confusing or you want to know more feel free to comment or email me with any questions you have.

Jonathan

Who Is In Control of Tragedy?

Who Is In Control of Tragedy?

Last Thursday when I made the drive from Fort Worth to Midlothian it was a beautiful day. After a few days of rain there were actually some blue skies. That quickly changed after lunch when Nathan and I noticed that the clouds were really dark. It wasn’t long after returning from lunch that someone notified us that there was a tornado coming toward the church and we needed to take shelter. Being wise in our old age, our first notion was to go outside and watch the tornado. Even though the tornado was not massive or causing severe damage, apart from movies I have never seen something capable of causing damage that close. I was amazed at how calm and blue the skies were behind the storm but yet there was a wall of about 75% of the sky that was black, it was eerily scary. It was a small storm that could have been disastrous had the tornado touched down a small distance in any direction other than it did.

Two weeks ago one of the first friends that I made when I moved to the Fort Worth area was killed in a car wreck. He had a summer job at Christian summer camp in south Texas and was headed there after a relaxing weekend back home. It was a beautiful day with blue skies so he had taken the top of his Jeep while riding down back roads when for some reason or another he lost control and his jeep flipped and he was killed. There were no dark clouds, no tornados, no signs of any danger in the air, yet His life was taken. It was a beautiful day that could have been a great day but yet tragedy occurred.

Who decides when tragedy will occur? It is obvious that we have no control over whether tragedy will occur when a tornado appears or when we take a drive down a country road on a beautiful day. We are not in charge of what tomorrow will bring, God is. Why then is it that we try to micromanage what tomorrow brings while forgetting where we are and what we are doing today? I know I am guilty of this. Focus on where you are today, and how in this very moment every fiber of your body can scream out “JESUS IS LORD!”.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

James 4:13-14