Quotes About Worship

Too often Jesus Christ was not my Master but a bystander I visited with at church occasionally.

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee."1

From the furnace of manifest presence, born of unashamed adoration and unapologetic preaching, comes an army of worshippers unafraid in their witness, determined to see others discover what they have found in the LORD.

No personal quiet time, no Christian book, no community or small group or service can substitute for the absence of God coming down to meet with His church corporately.

Eventually everyone vacates church where God is not obviously present and working. Getting people back to church is pointless unless God comes back first—that's what Vertical Church is all about! Ritual church, tradition church, felt-need church, emotional-hype church, rules church, Bible-boredom church, relevant church, and many other iterations are all horizontal substitutes for God come down, we all get rocked and radically altered, Vertical Church.

When you worship, you are saying, "This one is worth more." At the same time you are implying, "I am worth less." Worship is the magnification of God and the minimization of self. One of the most succinct expressions of a worshipper's heart in all the New Testament came from John the Baptist: "He must increase, but I must decrease."5

Worship is the actual act of ascribing worth directly to God. Worshipful actions may do this indirectly, but when the Bible commands and commends worship as our highest expression, it is not talking about anything other than direct, intentional, Vertical outpouring of adoration.

God shows up powerfully when our worship is sincere and fervent in spite of whatever difficult circumstance we might be experiencing.

We don't worship so that preaching will be more impactful for us; we preach so that worship will be more impactful for God.

John 5:44, Jesus continued, "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

All church activities that dilute, diminish, or detract from worship destroy Verticality, deny the priority of doxology, and forfeit what Vertical Church is all about—glory.

We preach so that people will be better worshippers, so that the nature and story of God proclaimed will result in an amplification of what provokes glory to come down. A church's ministry extends, of course, beyond the weekend worship service, but if we fail there, nothing else can succeed. That single service in a Vertical Church is like the wood-burning furnace in a factory or warehouse.

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.

basically, we pray because we love God. Father Barry writes, "The primary motive for prayer is love, first the love of God for us and then the arousal of our love for God."3 We pray to come

Jesus often says, "Follow me," but never "Worship me."5 It's a needed reminder to those who would focus only on his divinity.)

being spiritual and being religious are both part of being in relationship with God. Neither can be fully realized without the other.

When we play religion we find our minds and hearts emptied, for a moment, of secular images as we paint a world of angels, Gods and Saviors.

She was a church open only for him, with services in full operation twenty-four hours a day.

Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise.

Dear Jesus, he said, pressing thumb and forefinger into his tightly shut eyes. What a privilege it is to stand before you this day! What a blessing to pray with You! Let us be joyful, joyful, in Your presence! What's he talking about? thought Harriet, dazed. Her mosquito bites itched, but she didn't dare scratch them. Through half-closed eyes, she stared at her feet.

Judy told me all about you. You're the new guy who's studying Greek with those creepos. Judy? What do you mean, Judy told you about me? She ignored this. You had better watch out, she said. I have heard some weird shit about those people. Like what? Like they worship the fucking Devil. The Greeks have no Devil, I said pedantically.

15Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Taking the 'desert island challenge' which leads Christians to submit their family life to Sola Scriptura inevitably leads them to desire to submit their corporate worship to Sola Scriptura. (Excerpt from the forward of How God Wants Us to Worship Him by Joseph C. Morecraft)

Just as the medieval church cut off the congregation from participating in the sung worship of the service, today many well-meaning Christian leaders have reconstructed a sung worship wherein congregational participation does not matter.