Book Review: What Happens When We Worship By Jonathan Landry Cruse
Book Review: What Happens When We Worship By Jonathan Landry Cruse
14 September 2021
Why do we practise corporate worship? In this new book by Jonathan Landry Cruse, we explore the biblical significance of corporate church services.
This book is about going to church. And no, I don’t mean logging on to YouTube! In the era of online churches and Zoom meetings, going to church may be the most boring event in your week.
But as Jonathan Landry Cruse shows, going to church is only boring and mundane because “our eyes are blinded to the supernatural wonder that is taking place all around us”. He also argues that “worship is the most important thing you will ever do. Period”. After reading this book, I have to agree with him. This book makes going to church exciting again!
Starting with a brief theology of worship, Cruse gives an excellent survey on the importance of worship in the form of a church service. He argues that it is in the weekly worship service that God meets us. Also, in these meetings, we are shaped to be more like Christ.
Another important aspect of Sunday worship is that this is where God renews his covenant – weekly – because we are a forgetful creature. The weekly routine is not mundane. Instead, it is a form of God’s grace where we come to be reminded of his unfailing covenant with his people week after week.
In the second half of the book, Cruse gives us the anatomy of a worship service. Starting from the call to worship, the songs that we sing, corporate prayers, confessions, reading of the Bible, preaching, and the benediction, he dedicates each of these components with a well-presented chapter on what these practices mean biblically.
Overall, this is an excellent resource to recapture and reignite our hearts on the beauty and wonders of the Sunday worship service. Cruse brilliantly infuses biblical insights and gospel-centeredness into a boring and mundane topic – or so we thought. Now, I really can’t wait for Sunday!
What Happens When We Worship is available online and at Koorong.
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