WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE WORSHIP (Review)

 What Happens When We Worship Book Review.

Jonathan Landry Cruse’s What happens When We Worship is choc full of practical illustrations which help to make it an enjoyable as well as an instructive read. Cruse supplies his own definition of the book’s premise: “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.” p. 1. He fulfills his book’s premise throughout with interesting elucidation.

I particularly liked that portion where he focusses on the “something happens between us and God.” Says Cruse, “Do you want to meet with God? Then go to worship. Don’t go on a hike. Don’t go searching for some thrilling, moving experience. Actually, God has promised to meet with us is some pretty ordinary ways: the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments, and prayer. The Westminster Confession of Faith 25.3 says that God has given these things to the church , and when they are rightly administered we are blessed ‘by [Jesus’s] own presence’ among us.” pgs, 43-44. Yes, God can meet with us anywhere at any time, but what’s wrong with the ordinary, such as Sunday congregational worship?

And I think it is apt for Cruse to remind us why we worship, “Perhaps the wonder of worship is that ordinary people like us could possibly give glory to such an extraordinary God. And this is the real reason we go to worship, after all. It is not primarily for what we can get out of it; that is a blessed consequence. Rather, it is what we give God: the glory that is due His name (Psa. 29:2).” p. 170. Yes, it’s all about God. And it’s when we make it all about God and His glory, then we are blessed and edified because we enjoy His presence.

Buy this book. You won’t be disappointed. And your sense of God and purpose for worship will increase.