The Dangerous Act of Worship
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
What’s at stake in our worship? Everything.
Worship is the dangerous act of waking up to God and God’s purposes in the world. But something has gone wrong with our worship. Too often worship has become a place of safety and complacency, a narrowly private experience in which solitary individuals only express their personal adoration. Even when we gather corporately, we often close our eyes to those around us, focusing on God but ignoring our neighbor. But true biblical worship does not merely point us upward--it should turn us outward as well.
In this prophetic wake-up call for the contemporary church, pastor Mark Labberton reconnects Christian worship with biblical justice. From beginning to end, worship must pursue justice and seek righteousness, translating into transformed lives that care for the poor and the oppressed. Labberton shows how to move beyond the comfort of safe worship to authentic worship that is awake to the needs of the world.
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- Reconnects Christian worship with biblical justice.
- Shows how to move beyond the comfort of safe worship to authentic worship.
- Restores our vision of God's ancient call to the church to do justice.
May the Lord use The Dangerous Act of Worship to help call a Western, often self-indulgent church beyond its commitments to just the ‘arts’ (contemporary, emergent, etc.) and awaken it to its true calling--being a prophetic voice and compassionate model of life transformed by and lived ‘into’ the gospel of a resurrected Lord.
--Dr. Pete Sanchez Jr., director of worship studies, Integrity Worship Institute, and assistant professor of church music and worship renewal, University of Mobile
Few topics arouse such emotion and passion in the church as the place of justice and worship. Mark dares to bring them together, and does it masterfully. Neither a critic of the church--standing aloof and pointing a finger--nor a comforter--standing alongside and holding in an embrace--rather Mark is a prophetic pastor. He compassionately discloses the will and the way of God and invites us to walk together in the way of God’s kingdom. This book is discomforting. And well it should be. Mark restores our vision of God’s ancient call to the church to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. The book opens the windows so God’s Spirit can blow fresh joy and power into our lives. Rather than worship being a weekly separation from the world, Mark leads us into worship as a daily, transforming engagement with it.
--Tim Dearborn, Associate Director, Christian Commitments/Faith and Development, World Vision International
The Dangerous Act of Worship is extraordinary because it is so concretely helpful. It offers American church leaders a way out from the disappointments of dead-end worship, and does so with tangible stories and examples that are inspiring, convicting, clear and practical. Every so often, a book comes along that, for the brave of heart, actually has the potential to transform a leader’s whole mindset about what they are doing and leading. This is such a book.
--Gary A. Haugen, President, International Justice Mission, and author of Good News About Injustice
- Title: The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice
- Author: Mark Labberton
- Publisher: IVP
- Print Publication Date: 2009
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Pages: 200
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- Subjects: Worship; Christian life; Social justice › Religious aspects--Christianity
- ISBNs: 9780830877171, 9780830834143, 0830834141, 0830877177
- Resource ID: LLS:9780830877171
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-06T21:03:49Z
Mark Labberton is president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Prior to that Labberton served for a number of years as senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California. He has also served as chair of John Stott Ministries. Today he continues to contribute to the mission of the global church as a senior fellow of the International Justice Mission. He is the author of Called, The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor and The Dangerous Act of Worship.