Thoughts on Worship from Kent Hughes

I've been reading a book, edited by D.A. Carson, called Worship by the Book. It's a collection of 4 essays by 4 different guys on church corporate worship. There's some really good stuff in the 3rd essay, by Kent Hughes, on church worship. I thought a few quotes from the essay would be helpful as we're thinking through what we're preparing for, and doing together on Sunday morning as the gathered church! Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"[I]f we have any desire for the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our corporate worship services, those services must be radically Word-centered. [...] This means that our corporate worship must be Word-centered from beginning to end. We do not meet for 'worship and the Word.' It is all a ministry of the Word. This means that the preaching must be wholly biblical -- in a word, expositional."

"God's Word must infuse everything. The careful reading of the Word must be central. Hymns and songs must be Word-saturated. Prayers must be biblically informed, redolent with biblical reality -- often reflecting the very language and structure of Scripture. The preaching of the Word of God must be the Word of God. Such a service requires principled, prayerful thought and hard work. [...] Corporate worship must be Word-centered if it is to glorify God as it ought."

"[T]here is no room for detached, laid-back worship or cold intellectualized formality. We must be engaged."

"If the church-gathered effectively worships God, then the church-scattered will better worship God in all of life."

In this last quote, it's important to point out again that by the "worship," Hughes is talking about the gathered church worshiping God together through music, but also through the hearing together of sound preaching, the reading of Scripture, etc. I love what he says there, that if the church-gathered is worshiping well through all of those things together, then their individual lives will worship effectively throughout the week as we're out engaging in our jobs, with our families and friends, etc.

Praise God that we're part of a local church that is very Word-centered, and that has expositional preaching (systematically explaining the text of Scripture)!