Practical Theology / Worship

  • Glorifying God in Heaven

    Hebrews 12:18–29

    At issue in the worship wars is not old versus new but God-honoring worship versus irreverence. There are contemporary forms of worship that strive to keep God at the center, and there are traditional forms of worship that fail to ...Read More

  • Glorifying God in Worship

    Genesis 4:1–16

    In worship, we may say all the right things in our liturgies, but if our hearts are not in it, the Lord is displeased with our offering of praise. Similarly, our hearts may be fully into worshiping God, but if ...Read More

  • How to Worship

    John 4:1–45

    The best way to ensure that we are worshiping God in spirit and truth is to make sure that we are consciously working to have the right attitude toward worship. We must always think carefully about what goes into a ...Read More

  • How to Worship

    John 4:1–45

    Do you find Sunday morning worship to be a delight or dull and dreary? Do you spend the service thinking about all the things you could be doing if you were not at church? Take time today to repent for ...Read More

  • Invading the Human Soul

    Spend some quiet time in worship, asking God to set your heart aflame with His divine fire.Read More

  • Life Without Hope

    Ephesians 2:12b

    A generic confession of faith in God will not do for salvation but only belief in the one true living God, the covenant Lord of Israel and Father of Christ Jesus. Let us not fall into the cultural trap of ...Read More

  • Loving God by Loving Christ

    Matthew 10:37–39

    Adherents of other religions may do many good deeds in the name of God. They may even think that they are praying to Him when they beseech the Creator. But in doing all these things, they are really committing idolatry ...Read More

  • Sacrifice from the Heart

    Psalm 50

    Read Matthew 12:1–13. What was the major concern of the Pharisees? What was Jesus’ concern? What does Jesus mean by “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (see Hosea 6:6)? Examine your life and your practice of worship ...Read More

  • Seeking a Reformation of Worship

    Think about the sacraments and liturgy of the church you attend. Are they truly meaningful to you or have they become mere forms of ritual?Read More

  • Singing Praises to God

    Exodus 15:1–21

    Read the song of Moses out loud. Imagine what it would have been like to sing this on the shore of the Red Sea just after God divided the waters and then destroyed the Egyptian army. Do you sense the ...Read More

  • Stunting Worship

    Reflect on ways you might involve your physical senses in worshiping God in your private devotions.Read More

  • Surveying the Crisis of Worship

    Do you find worship boring and irrelevant? If so, pray for a renewed sense of God’s presence.Read More

  • The Beauty of Worship

    Exodus 25:1–9

    There are several ways that we can encourage beauty in worship. If we sit on planning committees for new church buildings, we can make it our aim to include visual beauty in the structures that are being designed. We can ...Read More

  • The Beauty of Worship

    Exodus 25:1–9

    Christians often argue about the propriety of artwork in the sanctuary. Whether or not visual images are used in our houses of worship, we can all agree that plainness can be elegant in some ways just as many works of ...Read More

  • The Foolishness of Idolatry

    Isaiah 44:6–20

    Every form of idolatry manifests our doubts that God really has the ability to save. Counselors have long understood, for instance, that one of the main reasons people become drug, alcohol, and sex addicts is because they are looking for ...Read More