The Privilege of Worship: Keys to Engaging Worship

By Stewart Holloway

There is no such thing as a worship war. We arent fighting over worship; were fighting over preferences. For decades, centuries really, churches have been fighting preference wars over worship methodologies. Whether it was singing psalms or hymns, using screens or hymnals, playing organs or guitars, or using a choir or praise team, if there has been a method to fight over, weve gone to battle. Unfortunately, the only things weve gained from our warring are church splits, declining rolls, and frustrated members. Is that what we most desire from our worship?

What would happen in our churches if we went to war for worship or in worship instead of going to war over worship? What if we got so serious about worship that we put our preferences aside and focused on engaging God? Worship is not about songs and sermons anyway. Worship is about a privileged conversation with God!

Discover how you and your church can get serious about worship as you delve into the heart of worship. Study who is involved in worship, what you can expect from worship, and how you can get the most out of worship.

If we want to see God do great things in our churches and bring awakening to our nation, we must get serious about worship. Lets stop fighting over methodologies and return to the core of worship. Take some time to explore the privilege of worship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512755978

Stewart Holloway

Stewart Holloway is the pastor of First Baptist Church, Pineville, LA, a founder of the E4 Preaching Conference, and an adjunct professor for Louisiana College. He holds a Ph.D. in Preaching from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX. Before coming to Pineville, Stewart served in various capacities, including Minister of Music, in churches in Louisiana and Texas. Stewart and his wife, Rebecca, live in Pineville with their two sons Zachary and Evan.

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Copyright © 2016 Stewart Holloway.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-5596-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5597-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016914994

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/16/2016

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Introduction My Worship Journey

Chapter 1 The Privilege of Worship

Chapter 2 The Priority of Worship

Chapter 3 The Persons of Worship

Chapter 4 The Promise of Worship

Chapter 5 The Postures of Worship

Chapter 6 The Power of Worship

Chapter 7 The Prospect of Worship

Chapter 8 The Preventers of Worship

Chapter 9 The Praise of Worship

Chapter 10 The Preaching in Worship

Chapter 11 The Prayers of Worship

Chapter 12 The Preparation for Worship

Endnotes

DEDICATION

To my wife Rebecca

who knows what it means to worship.

To Sherry Pody

whom God used in my formative years to teach me the power of worship.

PREFACE

Christians need to get serious about worship.

The statement above implies that we are not serious. I dare say that is true for most people in the Church. Our problem is that we worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship.¹

If we ever expect our churches to be effective, Christians must get serious about worship. C. Welton Gaddy challenges, The worship of God is the most important activity of the people of God. Worship is the source of the church’s power to carry out its mission in the world. Worship is the only activity of the church that will persist beyond history. Worship can exist apart from a church, but a church cannot exist apart from worship.²

If we want to see God do great things in our churches, perhaps like He never has before, we must get serious about worship. If we want to see God bring awakening to our nation, we must get serious about worship.

This book is the result of twenty years of ministry in five churches. The truths have been tested in the trenches of music and pastoral ministry in a small town church, country church, suburban church, rural church, and downtown church. My prayer is that this book will help you move beyond the petty preferences surrounding worship and penetrate deep into the true power of worship that is available to us all. Let’s get serious about worship and watch God do something great!

This book is designed to be read either by an individual or used in a group setting. The questions for reflection at the end of each chapter are beneficial for individual or small group study. Consider using them during your personal devotional time or as the guide for discussion in a small group.

I am grateful to those who have made this book possible. My wife Rebecca is a constant encouragement to me in my writing ministry and served as a sounding board for ideas for this book. I am forever indebted to my assistant and friend Melinda Langford whose daily support allows me to be obedient to God in all areas of ministry to which He has called me.

This book was born out of a series of messages first preached at First Baptist Church Pineville. I am grateful for people like Adrienne Martin, our Associate Pastor’s wife, and Carroll Lowe, a respected elder church musician and former head of the state music department for Louisiana Baptists, for their words of encouragement. Adrienne was the first to agree the messages should be a book. Mr. Lowe affirmed me saying, This is good stuff.

I am further grateful for the group that attended the repeat of the messages on Wednesday nights as I walked back through the concepts. Their feedback helped enrich the work.

Finally, this book was completed during a sabbatical our church granted us. Our family benefited greatly from the time together and the focused time I had to write. Larry and Bev Lau, members of our former church in Forestburg, TX, allowed us to use their Colorado home for part of the sabbatical. It’s fairly easy to write about worship while overlooking the Rio Grande River and the mountains of South Fork, Colorado!

It is my desire that this book will enrich your worship. Come, let us experience the privilege of worship!

Stewart Holloway

Pineville, Louisiana

July 2016

INTRODUCTION

My Worship Journey

Stewart, let’s do a worship survey. My pastor was suggesting we get a grasp on what our congregation thought about our worship services. The year was 1996, and I had been serving as Minister of Music at my home church for about five months.

I loved my church. We were in the middle of a building campaign, and God had been doing great things. I didn’t realize, however, that I was about to have my first experience of a preference war, otherwise known as a worship war.

I was nineteen years old, a sophomore in college, and still trying to figure out my own philosophy of worship. My pastor encouraged me to work toward a blended service with hymns and praise songs. Hymns included anything that came out of the hymnal, even if not technically a hymn¹. Those songs were safe because anyone would sing them because they were in the hymnal. For some people, the hymnal represented the sacred canon of church music. Praise songs included anything that wasn’t in the hymnal, which, in the 1990s, were typically choruses. These songs were especially popular among our younger generations because they had been learned at church camps, retreats, or heard on Christian radio. Our instrumentation in the church was simple – piano, organ, and an electronic keyboard. We had a small, gifted choir that was a benefit to our worship.

When the survey results were returned, I was both encouraged and discouraged. Many people loved what we were doing. Others did not like it at all.

I threw away the majority of the surveys years ago, but I kept two. I kept those two because they were especially frustrating to me, but they captured the deepest sentiments of some members of the church. I suppose I should have thrown them away and kept the positive ones, but, even as a 19 year old, I knew something was not right about the attitude conveyed in the responses.

At the end of the survey, we asked about the person’s favorite and least favorite part of the services. The new Minister of Music got hammered:

Survey #1: The praise hymns. They become monotonous when repeated over and over. I oppose lifting of hands. I oppose clapping during morning or evening service. It turns me off and I should go ahead and leave.

Survey #2: All of the praise songs. … Please don’t practically force people to raise their hands, etc. I miss the more traditional form of worship of several years ago. We’re putting too much emphasis on emotion and not enough emphasis on the God behind those emotions. Bro. Stew running down the aisle and saying, ‘Let’s just sing it to Jesus’ is ridiculous. We need to call people to repentance and depend on the Holy Spirit for worship.

I could spend several pages replying to these comments, but let me say just two things. First, there may have been three people in the entire congregation raising their hands, and, second, I stepped off the platform once, but I never ran down the aisle practically forcing people to raise their hands. You can see from the statements that these individuals were opposed and not moving from their stance. One was even thinking about changing churches.

The people who wrote these surveys were people I knew and loved very much. This was my home church. These two people may have changed my diapers! But they did not like change in worship. I should have known that. Back in the 1980s one lady wore fuzzy ear muffs every night to a revival because the music evangelists brought drums into the church!

As I look back at the survey questions now, however, I realize something important: our survey was flawed. We didn’t ask a single question about true worship. Instead, we asked a lot of questions about preferences: How often do you enjoy the service? Should the pastor wear a coat and tie? The number of praise songs is too many, too few, or just right? There were thirty-seven questions. Only four questions dealt with God speaking in the service, and they sought opinions as well. The rest of the questions were all about preferences.

To our credit, we genuinely wanted to know what our people thought, and we certainly got that! But the survey taught me something as a young minister: we are far too concerned about our preferences when it comes to worship. I was too concerned about my preferences, and our members were too concerned about their preferences.

Even then this book began resonating in my heart. I was a college student who was still working out his philosophy of worship, but something settled in my heart – Worship is not about my preferences or your preferences. Worship is about meeting with God; however, whenever, wherever. Worship is a distinct privilege. When we meet with God we experience power in worship.

Encountering Worship

During my formative years, I experienced power in worship several times in different places. All of these experiences converged to shape my understanding of worship.

I grew up in a home that was Southern Baptist to the core. Both my parents were active in the First Baptist Church of Lecompte, Louisiana. My dad was a deacon, and my mom was a Sunday School teacher. They both also served in various other capacities in the church. If something was happening at the church, we were there. Our church was relatively small (about 75-100 in attendance) and basic when it came to programming and worship planning. We benefited musically, however, for two reasons. First, due to our proximity to Louisiana College, our state’s Baptist school, we were privileged to have capable college students as Ministers of Music and their professors as interims in between. Ministers of Music like Robert Irwin and Barry Benefield poured themselves into me as a child and middle-school student, helping me develop my love for music and worship. Second, Rapides High School, our local high school, possessed a fantastic choral program for some twenty-five years under the leadership of choral teacher James Addison. The high school’s program afforded our church with a choir that could read music and had more than its share of talented soloists. I