Return to Worship

Return to Worship is a great volume by Ron Owens.  With 37 short yet specific chapters and 4 detailed appendices, anyone involved in leading worship can read through the entire book and be edified or select a specific topic and be informed.

Favorite Quotes

  1. Sometimes it seems we have completely lost sight of Who God is – His might, His majesty, His justice, His mercy, His Holiness.  Instead, we seem to imagine Him as being on our level, yet nothing could be further from the truth (7).
  2. The church today is being shaped more by our culture than by the cross (21).
  3. They are not satisfied with a God who does not continuously reveal Himself in some kind of tangible, visible form, so they create an “image” of what they think He may be like (24).
  4. In today’s church it sometimes looks as though the way we sound is more important than the way we serve (72).
  5. Worship is not something you get; it is something you give (80)!
  6. The “go to them” of the New Testament has become the “come to us” of today’s church (88).
  7. It seems that over the years more and more time has been given to programs, leaving less time for prayer (92).
  8. As important as it is for them to have time to express themselves to God, it is more important that they hear God express Himself to them; that they be fed from His Word; that they be instructed in the ways of God’s kingdom; that they be effectively strengthened by His might in their inner beings to be salt and light to the world in which God has placed them (103).
  9. As worship leaders, we are there to assist the people, through the medium of music, to encounter God (105).
  10. …it is often among us singers and musicians that God is “used” to display man’s talent, rather than man’s talent used to display God (137).
  11. Worship is the natural, normal response to God the Creator from the heart of a grateful creature (155).
  12. Remember that there is a significant difference between responding to an individual in appreciation for what he has done and responding to the Lord for what He has done through them (158).
  13. If the cross has really touched your life, it has put you out of joint with this world, out of joint with any desire to seek the applause and acclamation of men (177).
  14. Audiovisual Ministers, how important it is that you “breathe” with us.  How important it is that nothing is allowed to distract the people from the business at hand (183).

Book Overview

Through “letters” addressed to the church and to worship leaders, Return to Worship looks at worship in light of what Scripture says and illustrates. It looks at the fundamentals necessary for the offering to God of that which is acceptable to Him. It gives help for the restoration of authentic worship to those churches that do a lot of celebrating but little true worshiping.