Category Archives: Worship

Christ-Centred Worship

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Bryan Chapell, whose book Christ-Centred Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon has proven helpful to many, spoke a while ago to Christianity Today about his more recent book, Christ-Centred Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice.

What is Christ-Centred Worship?

Christ-centered worship is not just talking or singing about Jesus a lot. Christ-centered worship reflects the contours of the gospel…Opening moments offer recognition of the greatness and goodness of God that naturally folds into confession, assurance of pardon, thanksgiving, instruction, and a charge to serve God in response to his grace in Christ.

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Celebrating the Cross

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Reflection on the death of Christ and its achievement, so far from being a sombre experience, actually leads to a type and degree of celebration that can be found nowhere else.

For the cross brings us into a new relationship with God.  This relationship is marked by boldness, love and joy.  And these do not belong merely in the interior experience of the individual believers, but are to distinguish our public worship.

As W.M. Clow points out:-

‘There is no forgiveness in this world, or in that which is to come, except through the cross of Christ. …

Is church man enough?

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Is church man enough?

Dave Hopwood thinks that it is not, and offers some interesting thoughts about this in a recent article in Church Times.

Dave argues that Sunday-morning church worship, as conventionally experienced, simply doesn’t work for many men.  He urges us to a radical re-think of how we do church for men, based on the example of Jesus himself.

This is one of those articles that provokes excitement and alarm in me in roughly equal proportions.…

‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ – an ‘antihymn’?

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Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

This hymn, by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92), often features in the top two or three in polls of favourite hymns, both in the UK and in the US.

Its popularity is enhanced by Parry’s beautiful tune ‘Repton’, to which it is usually sung here in the UK.

Hearing the hymn sung again recently with the usual lusty enthusiasm caused me to reflect on how singularly unsuitable it is to be sung as a hymn at all.…

Stuart Townend in Norwich

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Holy Trinity, Norwich, was the venue last night for a concert from Stuart Townend and band.  Our church was packed, with tickets having sold out well in advance.

Stuart is, of course, one of the most celebrated contemporary Christian song-writers and worship leaders.

Special guest Mark Edwards on keyboard was supported by Mike Haughton on saxes and other wind instruments, Julian Ferraretto on violin, a superb bassist (and trumpeter!) whose name escapes me for the moment, and 18-year-old Joseph Townend doing sterling work on drums.…

A few thoughts on ‘modern words to old hymns’

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In addition to our plentiful resources of contemporary hymns and worship songs, we have a rich and varied heritage of traditional hymnody to draw on for our public worship.

The principle of modernising the language of older hymns is a sound one.  Such modernisation has the potential not only to improve comprehensibility but also to reflect important changes in language usage (including inclusive language, where this is compatible with our understanding of scriptural theology).  Modern language can also help to convey the important sense that God belongs to today as well as to yesterday.…