74 results found
Worship Service Liturgies for Your Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday Services
The Sing! Hymnal can help leaders design a theologically robust and spiritually enriching service. Here are a few examples of thoughtfully composed Holy Week services for your church.
God speaks in light of who he is and what he has done, and we respond back to God.
For twenty centuries the church has been singing. We sing a music that flows into every part of our lives, for the delight and honor of the Lord and our deepest well-being.
God saves people for a purpose. Salvation in Christ begins a life spent growing into being like him and serving him faithfully.
Why Do We Sing in Church? 5 Reasons
Why do we sing? Why do Christians, especially as we gather on Sundays for corporate worship, join our voices together and sing to God? Here are five reasons.
What Might Your Spiritual Life Look Like If You Stayed in Youth Group Forever?
What might worship and spiritual formation look like if our churches never ventured past the content or approach we use with our teens?
What Makes Our Worship Beautiful?
The apex of our fellowship and communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is holy worship. Worship of God originates with God, not man.
We need to zoom out and broaden our view of worship, like seeing the span of the ocean from the sky. Because whether or not we’re aware of it, we are women who worship—all day, every day.
It’s the Spirit who brings life to our spirits and enables us to know, love, and worship God the Father through Jesus Christ.
What Is the Aim of Our Singing in Church?
The aim of singing in Scripture is multifaceted. At the very top of that list, singing should be seen as an act of worship unto God. Psalm 96:1 says, “Sing to the Lord.”
What Does It Mean for Worship Music to Be “Good”?
We offer our music—like our finances—to God as we use it to build up his people. Goodness invites us to reframe every aspect of musical worship as an offering.
We’re a Modern Church, So Why Do We Need a Hymnal?
We live in a world of projection screens, band arrangements, Planning Center, and chord charts. Why should we care about a new hymnal?
We Must Worship God on His Terms
True worship is not possible unless God himself enables it, because human beings are unable to truly worship him without his enabling.
We Must Reframe Our Concept of Joy in Worship
The root word for joy is actually the word for grace. We often view joy as something that just sort of happens to us, and we have no control over it.
The Transition from Centripetal Worship to Centrifugal Worship
Continued from part 1 of Makoto Fujimura's chapel address at Crossway on January 21, 2011.
The Gospel in Worship: An Excerpt from 'Rhythms of Grace'
Designed to help Christians think more theologically about the nature of true biblical worship, Rhythms of Grace shows how the gospel is all about worship and worship is all about the gospel.
Spiritually Hungry? The Church Service Is Your Main Meal
We have a set-apart opportunity to breathe in God’s breathed-out words, to hear, and to believe. I want to encourage you: this matters!
Podcast: Why We Created a New Hymnal (Keith and Kristyn Getty)
Keith and Kristyn Getty discuss the new Sing! Hymnal and how a hymnal can shape the history of the church, form the life of a congregation, and contribute to family worship.
Podcast: What Worship in the Church Is Actually About (Ryanne Molinari)
Ryanne Molinari addresses how music shapes what we want, what we think about, and how we do things, and how this plays into the importance of the way worship is done in the church.
Podcast: What We Can Learn from the Prayers of Church History (Zach Carter and Jonathan Arnold)
Zach Carter and Jonathan Arnold help us understand and engage with written prayers throughout church history.
Podcast: What If I Don’t Feel Like Going to Church? (Gunner Gundersen)
What do we do when we just don't feel like gathering with God's people in corporate worship, and how has the pandemic affected us in this area?
Podcast: The Value of Singing in Church Whether You Like the Music or Not (Matt Boswell)
Matt Boswell discusses the benefits and theology of congregational singing and how to respond when you don’t like your church’s singing.
Podcast: The Most Important Thing Our Churches Have Forgotten to Do (Paul Miller)
Paul Miller deepens our understanding of prayer by highlighting why we need to pray with one another if we really want to experience the full blessing of prayer.
Podcast: The Gettys’ Favorite Christmas Hymns (Keith and Kristyn Getty)
Listen to the Gettys talk about their favorite Christmas hymns, and then listen to their performance of each one right here on The Crossway Podcast.
Podcast: Singing Is for Everyone and Every Day (Kristyn Getty)
Kristyn Getty talks about how singing together as a family gives children songs they will carry with them through their whole lives.
Podcast: Hymns and the Joy of Singing (Kristyn Getty)
What are hymns, and how are they still relevant in a Christian's life today? What are the benefits of learning hymns and congregational singing?
Podcast: How to Wait for Christmas in an Age of Instant Gratification (Jonathan Gibson)
Johnny Gibson discusses what it looks like to truly prepare our hearts for Christmas and talks about how and why the Advent season is meant to be a season of waiting.
Podcast: How to Lead God-Glorifying Worship (Bob Kauflin)
Bob Kauflin discusses his work as a songwriter and worship leader, reflecting on his process for writing songs for the church.
Podcast: How Reverence Changes the Way You Worship, Suffer, and Grow (Laura Story)
Laura Story discusses the importance of reverence towards God and how it helps us through suffering, changes our worship, and is the soil for spiritual growth.
Podcast: How Old Creeds Speak to New Problems (Carl Trueman)
Carl Trueman explains how historic creeds and confessions of the church can help to shape God’s people living in a culture consumed with individualism and identity.
Podcast: How Jesus Is Both the Singer and the Subject of the Psalms (Christopher Ash)
Christopher Ash discusses how we should understand the psalms in light of Christ and what role they should play in our lives today, both personally and corporately in the church.
My Suffering Savior Taught Me to Sing
My suffering Savior has taught me to always choose a song—a song that fortifies my faith against discouragement and breathes hope into my heart.
Consider the last book you read, the last song you sang, or the last prayer you prayed. What was the focus? Was it about God, his glory, his kingdom, and his purposes?
How to Worship When God Feels Distant
Worship is our heartfelt response to God’s character and works. We might immediately think of ‘worship’ as something we do on Sunday mornings, but it’s not limited to our time at church.
How to Worship in a Way That Speaks to Unbelievers
Though we don't want to cater only to the unbelievers in our congregations, we need to be aware of certain things we can do to help them encounter Jesus in a way they can understand.
How to Cultivate True Encouragement and Kindness as a Worship Leader
While society means that we must accept ourselves and cut ourselves slack, Christian kindness requires self-reflection and reliance on God’s kindness to us.
How the Psalms Teach Us to Sing
God’s people have always been a singing people. There must be a robust expression of our testimony to his grace, something not just seen in our lives but heard from our voices.
How Singing Can Strengthen Our Self-Control
It is not uncommon to hear spontaneous singing equated to Spirit-filled singing, the idea being that sudden praise must spring from a movement of the Holy Spirit.
How Should We Determine the Order of Worship in Our Church Services?
Our worship should be, among other things, God-fearing (Eccl. 5) and bibliocentric (Neh. 8). In other words, our worship should be God-revering and Scripture-saturated.
How Churches Can Bridge Generational and Stylistic Divides
A lot of churches operate without awareness of the divides within themselves over worship. Awareness and openness are the first steps. Be willing to ask people to try out the other service.
How Can We Worship in Spirit and in Truth?
Everyone in the world worships something. From the most religious to the most secular, all people value something high enough to build their lives around it.
How Believers Can Engage More Wholeheartedly in Congregational Singing
When we gather as the people of God, it’s more than just a people getting together in a room. It is a high and holy privilege to gather in the name of Jesus.
How (and How Not) to Keep the Sabbath
It is tempting to rush into discussions about what to do (and not to do) on the Sabbath. But before we get there, there are a couple of questions that we need to ask.
Help! My Daily Worship Feels Stale
When we experience a time when our quiet time becomes stale, it’s easy to become discouraged, especially if we don’t know where to look for help. However, help is at hand in two ways.
Help for Humanly Impossible Acts
The languishing come to drink at the fountain of God’s life-giving word. That too is worship. It magnifies the necessity and desirableness of God.
Each of Us Has a Singing Ministry
Engaging in the work of congregational singing is one way every believer builds up the body of Christ. Each of us who is in Christ can have an effective ministry edifying the church through song.
Don’t Neglect Worship to Enjoy the Earth
Our lives ought to be structured by regular rhythms of direct and indirect godwardness, moving back and forth between direct interaction with God himself and active engagement with the world.
Dear Pastor, You Are the Primary Worship Leader in Your Church
Pastors, you may not own an instrument or know how to play one. But your congregation looks to you to know what it means to be a worshiper. You are the primary worship leader in your church.
Cultivating Habits of Grace: A 5-Day Devotional
Start this 5 day video devotional on 3 life-giving habits that can act as channels of God's grace in your life.
Connecting Worship on Sunday to Work on Monday
Many of us are misguided when it comes to how my work connects to the Christian faith.
A Sample Worship Service Liturgy for the Christmas Season
Is your Advent worship service ready? We’ve carefully curated a complete, ready-to-use order of worship featuring hymns and readings from The Sing! Hymnal.
Are You Worshiping God in Vain?
Worship is bowing, lifting hands, praying, singing, reciting, preaching, performing rites of eating, cleansing, ordaining, and so on. But the startling fact is that all these things can be done in vain.
Are You Losing Your Gospel Mind?
I don’t know about you, but in the rush and press of life I can lose my mind. No, I’m talking about a subtle form of insanity that often inflicts me and a vast number of my Christian brothers and sisters.
Are We Meant to Enjoy Our Work?
The stories we tell reveal our understanding of the world, with our hopes and fears, and the songs we sing are reflective of the deep longings of our hearts.
A Pastor’s Guide to Celebrating Christmas as a Church
Christmas sermons and services should evoke the question, “What do these things mean?” to which the pastor then heralds the eternal answers.
An Interview with Jeff Vanderstelt
This is an interview with Jeff Vanderstelt, lead teaching pastor at Doxa Church in Bellevue, Washington. He is the author of Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life.
A Guide for Your Personal Worship Today
One day of structured content from the 31-day liturgical guide Be Thou My Vision to help you in your daily worship.
A Guide for Your Personal Worship Entering Holy Week
A sample day’s readings from O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, a 48-day devotional liturgy to help readers effectively prepare their hearts from Pascha (Easter) to Pentecost.
A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Using Creeds and Confessions in Your Church
Not long ago a friend asked what I’d say if I had thirty seconds with someone in an elevator and had to explain why I think Christian Confessions are so important. As you can see, I know what I’d say.
Music is a gift meant to bring glory to God; don't let it become an idol.
9 Ways Musical Worship Leads to Fruitfulness
When we sing together, it is not simply about what we are doing for God but what he is doing in and through us by the Holy Spirit.
7 Tips for Teaching Kids to Praise God with Their Heart and Voice
We are created, commanded, and compelled (by the gospel) to sing. Our children need to see singing to the Lord as being in the “for everybody” category and not simply a matter of taste or great ability.
7 Suggestions for When You’re Struggling to Worship Joyfully
We will not always brim over with delight on Sunday mornings. So, what are we to do when we find ourselves worshiping without joy?
Voddie Baucham Jr. offers seven steps to implement family worship in your home.
5 Things to Remember about Worship
Music can be a part of worship, but it was never meant to be the heart of it.
Given that liturgy concerns the order of worship elements in a church service, it’s not whether a church has a liturgy; it’s just which liturgy the church has.
5 Key Distinctives of Anglican Worship
Anglican worship is distinct because of the central contribution that the 1662 Book of Common Prayer has made to it.
5 Hymns to Sing at the End of Life
What is it about the singing of hymns that aids us in releasing grip on this earthly life and entering the eternal embrace of Jesus? How do songs comfort us in such sorrowful seasons?
4 Ways to Worship Beyond Singing
Words of praise shouldn’t be confined to a corporate worship service. Rather, they should spill over into our everyday lives as a genuine response out of our sincere enjoyment of and gratitude for God.
14 Notable Quotes from Habits of Grace
“Habits of grace” are the God-designed channels through which his glorious grace flows—making them life-giving practices for all Christians.
10 Things You Should Know about the Trinity
God wants us to learn about and consider the Trinity. Here are 10 things you should know.
10 Key Bible Verses on Worship
Whereas Old Testament worship focused on offering animal sacrifices in the temple, Paul says that spiritual worship in a broad sense now includes offering one’s whole life to God.
10 Key Bible Verses on Singing
Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the LORD.
Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!
Gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads
Gifts for Dads