Quotes about Worship

Church was never intended to be a place where we serve God to the exclusion of meeting with Him.

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee."

true encounter with the God of the universe makes me feel gladly small, perfectly puny, and happily so, in my assigned place and actual size! A true experience of eternity leaves us feeling, as C. S. Lewis said, "the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life."28

From the furnace of manifest presence, born of unashamed adoration and unapologetic preaching, comes an army of worshippers unafraid in their witness, determined to see others discover what they have found in the LORD.

No personal quiet time, no Christian book, no community or small group or service can substitute for the absence of God coming down to meet with His church corporately.

When you worship, you are saying, "This one is worth more." At the same time you are implying, "I am worth less." Worship is the magnification of God and the minimization of self. One of the most succinct expressions of a worshipper's heart in all the New Testament came from John the Baptist: "He must increase, but I must decrease."5

Worship is the actual act of ascribing worth directly to God. Worshipful actions may do this indirectly, but when the Bible commands and commends worship as our highest expression, it is not talking about anything other than direct, intentional, Vertical outpouring of adoration.

God shows up powerfully when our worship is sincere and fervent in spite of whatever difficult circumstance we might be experiencing.

We don't worship so that preaching will be more impactful for us; we preach so that worship will be more impactful for God.

John 5:44, Jesus continued, "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

All church activities that dilute, diminish, or detract from worship destroy Verticality, deny the priority of doxology, and forfeit what Vertical Church is all about—glory.

We preach so that people will be better worshippers, so that the nature and story of God proclaimed will result in an amplification of what provokes glory to come down. A church's ministry extends, of course, beyond the weekend worship service, but if we fail there, nothing else can succeed. That single service in a Vertical Church is like the wood-burning furnace in a factory or warehouse.