SALIENT STATEMENTS ON WORSHIP
“Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.”
John Calvin
“Worship is a royal waste of time, but indeed it is royal, for it immerses us in the regal splendor of the King of the cosmos.” Marva Dawn
“. . . if we keep God as the center of our worship life and worship-full lives, then we will find countless possibilities, endless resources, innumerable ways to encounter and express God’s infinite presence.”
Marva Dawn
“Worship is the priestly labor of acknowledging the greatness of our covenant Lord.”
John Frame
“True worship is that exercise of human spirit that confronts us with the mystery and marvel of God in whose presence the most appropriate and salutary response is adoring love.” Ralph P. Martin
“The word ‘majesty,’ when applied to God, is always a declaration of His greatness and an invitation to worship. . . . The Christian’s instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God. But this is a knowledge which Christians today largely lack: and that is one reasons why our faith is so feeble and our worship so flabby.”From Knowing God J. I. Packer
“To meet God is a powerful study in contrasts. . . . Meeting Him personally may be our greatest trauma.” R. C. Sproul
“We evangelicals do not know much about worship. Evangelism is our specialty, not worship. We have little sense of the greatness of Almighty God. We tend to be cocky, flippant, and proud. And our worship services are often ill-prepared, slovenly, mechanical, perfunctory, and dull . . . Much of our public worship is ritual without reality, form without power, religion without God.” John R. W. Stott
“Worship is . . . to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will
to the purpose of God.” Anglican Archbishop William Temple
“Worship is a personal meeting with God in which we hymn, magnify, and glorify Him for His person and actions . . . We worship God simply because He is God.” Robert Webber