Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts

Why another book on worship? Who should read this particular one, and why?

As to the first question, I want first to acknowledge the value of a growing body of work on the subject. Thanks to much of it, we have an impressive store of information and perspective that should significantly enhance certain particulars of the work of both ministry and laity in corporate worship. I admire the spirit, the passion and, in some instances, the nearly encyclopedic minds that have provided us with new material and newly considered older material.

Having said this, I find that throughout most of these works the subject of worship is limited to what happens in the corporate assembly in its assigned times and places. While it is currently popular to say that all of life is worship, there seems to be little thought given to a theology of worship that makes comprehensive sense out of this statement. Thus the significance of weekly worship continues as a separate subject. This carries the implication that time-and-place worship is the primary, if not only, venue for our worship, while the remainder of our living falls into another category. And it is on behalf of this time-place emphasis that we have the abundance of symposia, workshops, books, materials, methods and options. We have gotten used to referring to this heightened interest as a worship renewal, but I want to suggest that there is a difference between a renewal of interest regarding the corporate assembly and a comprehensive renewal that issues out of a radical shift in emphasis between time and place and day-by-day continuity.