Return to Worship

A God-Centered Approach

Ron Owens, Jan McMurray

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9781433674549
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Rituales cristianos y práctica

Through "letters" addressed to the church and to worship leaders, Return to Worship looks at worship in light of what Scripture says and illustrates. It looks at the fundamentals necessary for the offering to God of that which is acceptable to Him. It gives help for the restoration of authentic worship to those churches that do a lot of celebrating but little true worshiping.

 

 

 

 

Foreword

I have often been asked what I felt was the most significant factor in God's consistent blessing of His people. I would always answer in one word: worship. As a pastor for almost thirty years, I sought most earnestly to be an authentic worshiper myself and taught God's people to worship as their first response to God.

To know God is to worship God; therefore our view of God will directly affect how we approach Him. In Return to Worship, Ron Owens attempts to lead God's people to see that the primary issue to be considered is not the “how” of worship, but rather the “Who” of worship. Who we see God to be will dictate how we approach Him. Much of the North American evangelical church worships a “lesser” God than the God Scripture reveals. If we were to spend less time debating which worship styles were best and more time getting to know God through His Word, we would be worshiping Him more acceptably. To worship God acceptably should be our goal. The sphere of our worship, however, must involve more than worshiping in church; it will involve the whole of our lives, twenty-four hours a day. As the apostle Paul urged the believers in Rome:

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service [acceptable worship]. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:1-2

Ron Owens and I have been colaborers for a number of years. On many occasions, both privately and publicly, we have earnestly attempted to adequately honor God in worship. This written work is the culmination of Ron's lifelong desire to help God's people experience Him deeply in true worship. I feel that this book very fairly and thoroughly addresses the issues God's people are facing today in this area. It is a very exciting and timely contribution to the whole field of worship and will be helpful to those who take worship seriously.

Henry T. Blackaby

 

 

 

 

Foreword

A. W. Tozer asserted that “worship is the missing Jewel in the Evangelical Church.” If that was true in his day, what shall we say of the life of the church in this critical hour of human history?

Someone who shares this profound concern is the author of this book, Return to Worship. The Reverend Ron Owens is a man of God, a preacher of the Word, a composer of hymns, a talented soloist, and, supremely, a leader of worship. He and his wife, Patricia, an accomplished pianist, have served the Lord around the world. Their abilities to lead God's people to express in worship, in “awesome wonder and overpowering love,” is a constant blessing to me and always a compelling motivation to praise our triune God.

The format that Ron has chosen for the writing of this book is both creative and challenging. It is creative in that it is unusual but not unprecedented. Like the apostle Paul and his contemporaries, Ron's chapters are “Letters to the Churches” dealing with specific issues relating to worship. The approach is not only creative but challenging. Church members are challenged with instructive truth, while church leaders are challenged with corrective tact! Before you disagree with anything that is written, weigh every word in the presence of God with an open Bible and on bended knees.

The purpose for this book is to call God's people back to true worship. So many of us are like the woman of Samaria. Jesus had to say to us: “You worship what you do not know.” Then He added one of the greatest sayings ever uttered on earth: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:22, 24). In essence, He insisted that we cannot worship until we live in the power of the ungrieved, unquenched Spirit and are willing to conform ourselves to absolute truth. Taken seriously and understood correctly, these words could revolutionize the religious thinking, living, and serving of evangelicals today. Jesus tells us that “the Father is seeking [present tense] such [as we are] to worship Him” (John 4:23). What a mind-boggling concept—the Father is seeking us! He seeks us in our totality. He wants our spirits in adoration; He wants our souls in contemplation; He wants our bodies in dedication; He wants our service in consecration. This is Christ in worship.

In New Testament times, Christian worship consisted of and included the preaching of the Word (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 14:19), the reading of Scripture (James 1:22; Col. 4:16), the offering of prayers (1 Cor. 14:14-16; 1 Tim. 2:1-5), the singing of praises (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16), the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper (Acts 2:41; 1 Cor. 11:18-34), the offering of gifts (1 Cor. 16:1-2), and most importantly, the dedication of lives to do God's good, acceptable, and perfect will (Rom. 12:1-2). Calvin Coolidge once observed: “It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.”

Return to Worship is the precursor to heaven-sent revival, spiritual awakening, and worldwide evangelization. I commend this book to church members and leaders everywhere—with the fervent prayer that God will use it to bring us back to the highest activity of which a redeemed person is capable, namely, the worship of God in spirit and in truth.

Stephen F. Olford

Founder of the Stephen Olford Center for Biblical Preaching

Memphis, Tennessee

 

 

 

 

Preface

I have always found it easier to express myself when writing a letter. I recall how, during my teenage years, I would climb the mountain behind my family's hotel in Switzerland, presumably to study. But when I reached my favorite spot, I would more often dream and write. The only sounds to invade the awesome silence were cowbells from a nearby pasture and the occasional “shush” of a bird's wings as it flew by.

The letters I wrote from that place high above the noise of life were sometimes to a Sunday School teacher in Canada, where I had lived until I was fourteen. He had taken time to be more than just a teacher of young boys; he had been a friend. My letters to him were never mailed because I did not have his address. It was good, however, to be able to express myself in that way. Sometimes I wrote letters to the Lord. I never mailed them either. I knew, though, that He read them, as He had read the others.

I wrote about the good and the bad of life during those years. I wrote about my frustrations, the exciting experiences, the changes that were taking place in me. I even wrote about the embarrassing moments. I asked a lot of questions in those letters, and as I wrote, I seemed to get some answers. Those were very private times, and I suppose they were therapeutic. I wish I still had the letters, but unfortunately they were lost. When I came to the States to go to college in 1956, I put them in a satchel, along with the money I was carrying with me onboard ship. The satchel was stolen. It's funny; at the time I thought only of the money. Now, I wish I had the letters.

I have returned to this way of expression for this book. It is nothing new, for this form of communication was used extensively in Scripture. In fact, most of the New Testament is made up of letters. The last message the Lord gave directly to the early church was given in the form of letters dictated through the beloved apostle John.

Though I have deep convictions on the subject of worship, convictions which I believe are grounded in Scripture, I am also writing as one who seeks to know the truth. I feel as though I am just a learner. There are those who have been labeled “experts” in the field of worship, but I am not one of them. Nor do I want to be. In fact, I wonder how anyone could be an expert on something as profound as worship. To say you know everything about worship is to say you know everything about God. I don't and never will. Seeking to understand true worship has been a lifelong quest and will continue to be so, I expect, throughout eternity.

In his first letter, the apostle John expressed his deep love and concern for the “children of God” and gave warnings against those who would deceive them. He used the phrase “I write to you” repeatedly in the second chapter as he wrote to specific groups and gave his purpose for writing them.

The letters in this book, too, have grown out of a heart of love and concern for the present-day church. Some of them are written to the church as a whole, some to specific groups, and some to individuals. Questions are raised, problems are addressed, instruction is offered, and sometimes warnings are given. All the letters are written with the hope that we will come to a fuller understanding of what worship is and fulfill in a more excellent way the highest call that is placed on the believer's life: to offer Almighty God acceptable worship.

And so, I begin. “Dear Church, I write to you…”

Ron Owens

Acknowledgments

To acknowledge all those whose lives have contributed to whatever insight the Lord has given me on the subject of this book would take many pages. The names I mention here are but a few to whom I ...