"There are those who argue that worship does not - almost cannot! - take place in church because hymn-singing and listening require so little of us in respect to how we live. They argue that authentic worship takes place when we live obediently Monday through Saturday amidst a hostile world. Certainly they have a point. Worship cannot be separated from consecrated service to God. The notion that you can come to church on Sunday and bend your knee in worship when in fact you have not done so during the week is a delusion. Such "worship" is a spiritual impossibility. Certainly no liturgical exercise performed in a putative "sacred space" can presume to be worship apart from week-long service of God."
"To understand that worship is consecration means that the pastor must see to it that everything in gathered worship leads to Isaac Watts's conclusion: 'Love so amazing, so divine / demands my soul, my life, my all."
R. Kent Hughes, "Free Church Worship: The Challenge of Freedom," in Worship by the Book, ed. D.A.Carson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 159.
Soli Deo Gloria
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