This book is of less than two hundred pages and is one of a series intended to promote reflection on the history, theology and practice of Christian worship and to stimulate worship renewal in the congregations of God’s people. It does seem that the ‘worship wars’ are drawing to an end, at least in North American churches and now we have the terms ‘contemporary worship’, ‘traditional worship’, ‘charismatic worship’ and various others to describe what is taking place. Personal preference dominates the choices believers are making as to what church they attend and that can never be a right basis of choice. This book looks carefully from a solid theological basis at contemporary worship practices. Its intention is to encourage continued debate over worship forms and styles and teaches that we should argue in love and be discerning without judgmental attitudes. From the doctrine of the Trinity the writers argue for a ‘hospitality’ of diversity in worship styles and that such would enrich the local gatherings if used wisely.
Discernment is one of the manifestations of wisdom, the ability to notice differences between things but also the connections between them. There is that which God joins together and that which He puts asunder. The ability to separate the gold from the brass and the brass from the iron is applied to issues of worship and proceeding from a discussion of “The Things of the Spirit”( Chapter 1) we are introduced in this book to a short history of the rise of contemporary worship ( Chapter 2) and then an examination of where the churchly and the worldly things intersect in ‘culture’. This is chapter three and is stimulating in its reasoning. Chapter four takes up the inward life of the Trinity and uses this as a pattern for a peaceful bond of diversity in church worship and then the final chapter handles the subject of worship being the church entering into continuing narrative with God. The great value of the book is its irenic tone and its theological rooting of all the church’s life in worship back into God. As such it necessarily enlarges our perspectives of the great living diversity which worship should contain as the church lives in the Spirit and worships in the Spirit. There are many books on the subject of worship available nowadays but this one, though a challenging read to some of us will be rewarding to leaders of churches especially.
