I once heard Jim Hamilton of Southern Seminary say that our conceptions of worship in heaven are sometimes distractions: “Without God and the Lamb, heaven is nothing more than a gold-plated hell.” Yes and amen. His point is that Christians often think more about what is in heaven rather than who is in heaven. The same thing happens when present-day churches gather as well. Churches are sometimes hampered in their worship by petty arguments about styles, colors, choirs, and the like, all the while losing sight of the object of their worship—the Lord Jesus Christ. Churches sorely need to refocus their services around the central object of their worship.
In a new book, Gather God’s People: Understand, Plan, and Lead Worship in Your Local Church, Brian Croft and Jason Adkins offer a way forward—a way in which worship services can be biblical, engaging, and Christ-centered. God cares about how he is worshiped, and not everyone worships rightly. Thus, Croft and Adkins write to help pastors organize worship services that limit distractions and fail to focus on what Scripture prescribes: the greatness of God, the sinful plight of humanity, and our need for Christ.
Conducting Corporate Worship
Gather God’s People aims to “aid you in your biblical understanding of corporate worship, in how to best plan for it, and in how to effectively and faithfully conduct it so that God alone is passionately praised by his redeemed people” (15). The authors divide the book into three sections. In Part 1, they give us a theological understanding of biblical worship (19–56). Part 2 primes us on planning worship services—in particular, reading, praying, and singing the Word of God as the primary elements of corporate worship (57–84). Part 3 discusses leading worship services from the standpoint of the church’s elders (85–119). In other words, if Part 2 is about the elements that should be present, Part 3 is the “how-to” for leaders to implement them each Sunday.
Gather God’s People: Understand, Plan, and Lead Worship in Your Local Church
Brian Croft and Jason Adkins
Gather God’s People: Understand, Plan, and Lead Worship in Your Local Church
Brian Croft and Jason Adkins
The book has four appendices, two of which focus on psalm singing (though not exclusively) and how the psalms are essential for implementing biblical worship (120–31). Croft (senior pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church in Louisville) and Adkins (associate pastor at Auburndale Baptist) also provide a few examples of psalm texts set to familiar tunes (found primarily in the Trinity Psalter) along with hymn sheets of newer songs that can be sung with older melodies. They conclude with a hymn sheet for singing their church covenant, a practice they encourage.
Preparing for Sunday
Croft and Adkins believe God cares deeply about how he is worshiped, not simply that he is worshiped. This reassuring emphasis sets the content of Gather God’s People within the theological trajectory of the Bible. Further, Croft and Adkins adhere to the regulative principle (26). As a result, they emphasize leading services according to Scripture’s prescribed teaching on worship.
Croft and Adkins approach this issue as pastors working together to plan and execute services. Indeed, they encourage the use of more than one planner for worship services (30). While working directly with the preaching pastor may be foreign to many contemporary worship leaders, Croft and Adkins encourage it: “We commend coherence with the content of the sermon as a high priority for worship planning” (73). Such coherence can only be accomplished when the preacher works in tandem with the planner. This pastoral concern is warranted, especially since the tendency may be to deemphasize coherence and to think pastors and worship leaders do two entirely different tasks. Yet songs, prayers, sermons, and Scripture readings do not happen in isolation. Taken together, these elements communicate the truth of the gospel. They “preach” in a way similiar to how the sacraments proclaim the Lord’s death and resurrection (1 Cor. 11:26).
Worship leaders should think pastorally about their task because they teach the congregation, whether they realize it or not. And their task is a sobering one: they are putting words in the mouths of the church, teaching her to say and sing specific phrases, and to consider and grasp theological truths. Our services, then, should be scriptural from start to finish. In other words, “The whole service should prepare believers to hear, accept, believe, love, submit to, and obey the Scriptures” (74).
Gather God’s People also rightly highlights the role of the psalms and biblical spirituality. The psalms convey exuberance, exasperation, confession, and confidence (48–49). Should not our contemporary worship services reflect the same? Unfortunately, singing the psalms is sorely missing in many churches today. As John Calvin once noted, “When we sing them, we are certain that God puts in our mouths these, as if he himself were singing in us to exalt his glory.” Croft and Adkins echo Calvin’s wise exhortation.
Minor Misgivings
Nevertheless, Gather God’s People has shortcomings. One cannot expect to agree with every jot and tittle of any book, let alone a practical guidebook. First, Croft and Adkins limit the treatment of theology and practice to 140 pages. As part of the Practical Shepherding series, the volume leaves the writer wanting more, because it is geared for instruction in practice more than theology. Thus, I would suggest also reading a more robust theological work from seasoned scholars or pastors such as Alan Ross, David Peterson, Bob Kauflin, or Daniel Block [review] alongside Gather God’s People.
Second, Croft and Adkins too quickly endorse the use of historic hymns for worship at the expense of others. They don’t address what actually constitutes a “traditional, historic hymn” except to suggest hymns have richer lyrics than newer songs. A theologically rich hymn, though, doesn’t necessarily make that hymn appropriate for congregational singing. Many hymns are clumsy melodically and almost always reflect the style of the generation in which they were written.
Additionally, Gather God’s People lacks resource suggestions for song choices. Croft and Adkins acknowledge congregations have different musical emphases (arts-integrated, contemporary, expressionistic, jazz, Latino, Southern gospel, and so on) and that leaders “can thoughtfully adapt many of these planning practices into their settings” (77). They then suggest songs from the Baptist Hymnal (1991) and the Trinity Hymnal (1961). These resources may be helpful in certain settings, but neither accomodates the diverse settings mentioned above.
Perhaps a better way forward is to take their own advice on the matter of song selections and song types. No congregation is the same. Each exists in different contexts with different tastes. Therefore, we ought to remember the exhortation that “worship planners should prioritize the congregation’s needs and interests (Phil. 2:3–4) in their planning practices” when choosing songs (75). Worship planners implement what the Bible regulates for worship but should be adept at knowing their own contexts for other elements. Context should be a factor—not the factor—in determining the style and instrumentation of worship music. The New Testament doesn’t regulate historic hymns, so flexibility and creativity is warranted.
Croft and Adkins wrote this book “in the hope that young ministers would have a useful resource as they enter pastoral ministry” (117). In my view, they achieve this goal. We need the Spirit’s help, since planning worship is hard work. In Gather God’s People, Croft and Adkins provide a faithful guide for doing just that.