Real Worship: Playground, Battleground, or Holy Ground?, 2nd ed.
Overview
With 50,000 copies sold, the first edition of Real Worship helped many pastors and worship leaders make biblical sense in the controversy surrounding worship and worship styles. This second edition contains new chapters on taking worship seriously, planning balanced worship, and tradition in worship.
While many books deal with how to worship, they fail to give a definition of true worship. Warren Wiersbe defines what worship is and the four elements it involves: wonder, witness, warfare, and wisdom. As he discusses such controversial issues as art, liturgy, worship styles, and music, Wiersbe keeps the focus on God and demonstrates the balance of worship for which every church should strive.
Real Worship is both biblically based and autobiographical, containing personal testimony, anecdotes, and illustrations from Wiersbe’s pastoral experience.
In the Logos edition, Real Worship is enhanced by amazing functionality. Scripture citations link directly to English translations, and important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. Take the discussion with you using tablet and mobile apps. With Logos Bible Software, the most efficient and comprehensive research tools are in one place, so you get the most out of your study.
- Discusses the controversy surrounding worship
- Includes a question and answer section, along with a bibliography and Scripture index
- Examines the four elements involved in effective worship
- Part 1: Invitation to Worship
- In Which the Author Admits His Frustration
- In Which We Attempt to Define Worship
- In Which We Discuss Transformation and Discover How Dangerous It Can Be
- Part 2: Worship Involves Wonder
- In Which We Get Involved in the Wonder of Wonder
- In Which We Cautiously Attempt to Discuss the Wonder of God
- In Which We Think about Idolatry and Discover Why It Is so Hateful to God
- In Which We Meet Some Believers Who Met God and Worshiped Him
- In Which We Discover the Wonder of God’s Church
- Part 3: Worship Involves Witness
- In Which We Learn What It means to Witness to God
- In Which We Learn What It means to Witness to One Another
- In Which We Learn That Preaching Is an Act of Worship
- In Which We Try to Relate Worship and the Arts, Trusting to Enrich Both
- Part 4: Worship Involves Warfare
- In Which We Recover a Neglected Fact about Satan and Learn about Spiritual Warfare
- In Which We Discover That God’s Church Today Is a Spiritual Army
- In Which We Must Make a Difficult Decision
- Part 5: Worship Involves Wisdom
- In Which We Consider the Wisdom of Taking Worship Seriously
- In Which We Learn the Wisdom of Planning Balanced Worship
- In Which We Consider the Wisdom of Tradition in Worship
- Appendix: Answering Some Questions about Worship
Top Highlights
“Worship is the believers’ response of all that they are—mind, emotions, will, and body—to what God is and says and does. This response has its mystical side in subjective experience and its practical side in objective obedience to God’s revealed will. Worship is a loving response that’s balanced by the fear of the Lord, and it is a deepening response as the believer comes to know God better.” (Page 26)
“A. W. Tozer is right: ‘No one can know the true grace of God who has not first known the fear of God.’7” (Page 25)
“We worship God because He is worthy and not because we as worshipers get something out of it. If we look upon worship only as a means of getting something from God, rather than giving something to God, then we make God our servant instead of our Lord, and the elements of worship become a cheap formula for selfish gratification.” (Page 28)
“I am not worshiping Him because of what He will do for me, but because of what He is to me. When worship becomes commercial, it ceases to be worship. R. G. LeTourneau used to say, ‘If you give because it pays, it won’t pay.’ That principle also applies to worship: if you worship because it pays, it won’t pay. Our motive must be to please God and glorify Him alone.” (Page 17)
“I must admit that I tend to agree with Bishop Handley Moule, who said that he would rather tone down a fanatic than resurrect a corpse.” (Page 23)
Warren Wiersbe has done a masterful job of communicating our call to worship from the pages of Holy Scripture. His chapter on preaching as a sacrament is alone worth the price of the book. This is yet another prophetic voice calling modern evangelicalism back home to the priority of worship.
—Peter E. Gillquist, former American archpriest, Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America
With intelligence and insight, wit and wisdom, Warren Wiersbe reveals the transformation which honest worship can bring to each Christian and his church.
—Frank Boggs, retired choral director, The Westminster School, Atlanta
Rarely have I identified with an author in his perception and experience of worship as I have in this present volume. The reader will never be quite the same again after perusing these pages. He may not agree with everything, but he will have to acknowledge that ‘man’s chief end is to glorify God’ and to ‘worship Him in the beauty of holiness.’
—Stephen Olford, founder, Olford Ministries International
For long enough this matter of Christian worship has been begging for restudy and restatement, and an answer to that is just what we have in this new book from the mind and heart of one who is eminently fitted to talk to us about it. It has blessed my own heart. May it have wide acceptance and deep impact.
—J. Sidlow Baxter, author and theologian
In worship we declare what is really valuable to us, says Dr. Wiersbe. Convinced he is right, my mind devoured this book. Often in the reading of these pages I forgot this was a book about worship and became lost in the very act of worship. Wiersbe wakes us to the wonder of God. A solid and scholarly challenge threads substance throughout the piece.
—Calvin Miller, emeritus professor of preaching and pastoral ministry, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
Warren Wiersbe has done a wonderful service . . . by giving us this marvelous book. It is easily readable, thoroughly biblical, intensely practical, and sorely needed. With a happy heart, I commend it to all who wish to discover the joy of biblical worship.
—Adrian Rogers, former president, Southern Baptist Convention
- Title: Real Worship: Playground, Battleground, or Holy Ground?
- Author: Warren W. Wiersbe
- Edition: 2nd
- Publisher: Baker
- Publication Date: 2000
- Pages: 224
Warren W. Wiersbe (1929–2019) was an internationally known Bible teacher and pastor. He studied at Indiana University and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.
In 2002, Wiersbe was awarded the Jordon Lifetime Achievement Award by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. He was the former pastor of three churches, including The Moody Church.
For 10 years Wiersbe served as general director and Bible teacher for the Back to the Bible radio broadcast. He wrote more than 150 books, including the popular Old Testament "Be" Series and New Testament "Be" Series of expositional Bible studies, which has sold more than four million copies, and The Strategy of Satan.