What’s What Happens When We Worship About?
…ultimately I want to recover worship from the doldrums. Let me rephrase that: I want to recover the perception of worship as being the doldrums. Worship is never dull, but we are sometimes. Churchgoing is monotonous and mundane only because our eyes are blinded to the supernatural wonder that is taking place all around us. The reality is that worship is an exhilarating experience. So we don’t need smoke machines, more lights, dramatic presentations, louder music, mystical theology, or entertaining speakers to make worship exciting. We simply need to understand what’s going on in the first place.
This is not a manual for the “how-to” aspects of worship, nor does it wade into the “style” debates and conflicts, he doesn’t look into the “why” we do certain things in worship (although he brushes against the idea). This is about the supernatural aspect to the ordinary, weekly event. This is something too few people think about when it comes to worship—we’re pretty focused on what we do for those few hours, but Cruse’s thesis is that this approach is backward.
Central Thesis
This book is written from a simple but important premise: something is happening when we worship. Something happens to us, Something happens between us and the people we worship with, and, most importantly, something happens between us and God.
Humans are not the primary actors in worship—we are primarily acted upon. We’re involved, we’re active, but only in the secondary sense. Something happens. Something happens at every stage, in every act or element of the service. This book sets out to survey this.
He does this by sketching out “A Brief Theology of Worship.” Focusing on what worship is, that the worshipper is being shaped by the event, meets with God as He renews His Covenant, the worshipper submits to God’s acts and call in this time and we do so while communing with the saints. This is about one-third of the book and it informs the rest.
The heart of the book focuses on “The Parts of the Service,” looking at what God does, what happens in each part. This has a distinctly Reformed flavoring and will include things not in typical Evangelical Protestant services, so some of these ideas may not be what the reader is used to.
The concluding chapters focus on the ordinariness of the extraordinary service (the extraordinariness of the ordinary service is probably how I should’ve put that)—how what we think of as usual, normal. ordinary is so much more and we ought to understand this. And part of that ordinary work ought to be preparing for the service, and he gives direction for that to end the book.
Highlights
I thought this was just an outstanding book, and could easily write a few paragraphs about why each chapter was so valuable and helpful. But I’m going to limit myself to a brief paragraph about two chapters that really stood out to me (on future readings, I fully expect other chapters to stand out in the same way)
In Chapter 12, “We Get a New Name,” Cruse spends a chapter on the Benediction. I’ve read and own at least a dozen books on Worship and I don’t think I’ve ever read more than a couple of paragraphs about the Benediction—much less a whole chapter. This was gold. I’d grasped and been taught about its importance before, but this kind of focus was new to me. He begins by describing it as:
God blesses His people by confirming that His name is on them for good in Christ, and thereby strengthens them to serve Him in the week ahead.
He expands that, reminding readers what having God’s name on them, ties it into Baptism and develops the idea into God sending His people into the world.
The chapter on singing was another stand-out, saying that it’s a gift of God as
a fitting way to praise Him for His work, pray to Him with our deepest needs, and proclaim to one another the sanctifigyin truths of the gospel.
It’s a measured, careful, and encouraging look at this often contentious topic. His approach ignores the controversy, focusing on weightier matters. Like so many things in the book, I found it refreshing.
Wait, Did I Miss Something?
I was thinking about this book a few days after finishing and stopped dead in my tracks when I had this thought. I don’t think that Cruse mentions the Regulative Principle of Worship by name. I could be wrong here, but if he does, he doesn’t make a big deal of it.
Typically, Confessional Presbyterians/Reformed Christian books on the subject are full of references to the RPW, many such books are defenses of, studies on, of that principle. For an entire book to be written for our camp without that is stunning.
Don’t get me wrong—this is a book about Regulated Worship. The RPW is reflected in the pages, but I don’t think it shows up by name. I find that refreshing.
So, what did I think about What Happens When We Worship?
Admittedly, we are just going to be scratching the surface here. There could easily be ten more chapters in this book, and each chapter could easily be ten times longer. But I’m not seeking to present a fully exhaustive treatment on the subject of worship. Rather, this is meant to be an important introduction to, or perhaps a gentle reminder of, the topic. My aim is to whet your appetite when it comes to worship. For indeed it is in corporate worship that we are able to “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Ps. 34:8).
Cruse writes crisply and clearly with an approachable and engaging style—there’s nothing daunting about the writing, some of the ideas might take a little work to understand if you are reading this as an introduction—but it won’t be because of the writing.
Cruse wrote my conclusion for me in his first chapter—that’s what the book sets out to be, and he accomplished that. Edifying, educational, orthodox, and even devotional—this book will introduce you to the vital topic or will gently remind you of the things you’ve been taken for granted. Either way, it’s something you should read.
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