Book Review: Gather God’s People, by Brian Croft and Jason Adkins

Review
06.30.2015

Brian Croft and Jason Adkins. Gather God’s People: Understand, Plan, and Lead Worship in Your Local Church. Zondervan, 2015. 144 pps. $12.99.

 

What should your church do when it gathers?

For some pastors, the answer feels like a moving target. Sure, there are some basic pieces that’ll always be there (music, sermon, offering), but each week begins with a blank whiteboard and brain storming session. To some, that sounds great! Like an artist with a blank canvas, they get to innovate! But for others, the need to come up with something new every Sunday is overwhelming, even crushing. Twitter attention spans and the appetites for something new makes service planning feel like feeding an insatiable beast.

Creativity is a wonderful gift. It reflects something of the Creator when accomplished by people made in his image. The problem is, creativity makes an awful god. After all, what we draw people with is what we draw them to. The goal of our gatherings is not entertainment, but to fix our eyes on God who is the perfection of beauty.

All that to say, what if Scripture has more to say about our gatherings than we thought?

In Gather God’s People, Brian Croft and Jason Adkins are tour guides leading us through the Bible on the topic of worship in the local church. The audience is wide, from young ministers entering pastoral ministry to experienced worship planners. The aim of the book as stated by the authors is threefold: to sharpen the reader’s understanding of Christian worship, to enrich pastors’ ability to plan worship gatherings, and to impress on all church leaders the need to shepherd God’s people in worship (117). Having read the book, I’m confident they’ve achieved what they set out to do. I’d happily recommend the book for pastors entering the ministry. I’d also read it with a service leader to better equip them in their task.

Gather God’s People is broken up into three parts: understanding, planning, and leading worship. I’ll highlight a few strengths and weaknesses if you’re thinking about picking it up.

STRENGTHS

Chapter 2 explains what the church should do when gathered. The authors clarify the elements of the gathering: reading the Bible, praying the Bible, singing the Bible, and preaching the Bible. Not all church services should look exactly the same, but while there may be a number of thoughtful and culturally-specific expressions, every Christian church should preach the same gospel and have the same elements. Far from being restrictive, the Bible’s teaching on this point frees the pastor from the tyranny of unlimited options.

One example of the book’s utility is in the section on a church’s singing the Word. Paul’s instruction for the church to be “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19) reveals the audiences of corporate worship. “Christians direct their singing upward to God, ‘making melody to the Lord.’ Yet Christians also sing outward to each other. . . . Christian worship is a vehicle for mutual edification instead of simply being an insular, emotional connection with God” (41). Many miss this aspect of corporate worship and emphasize the “audience of One.” Such clichés are well-intentioned but begin to shape a church’s singing in a way that misses the point. On the other hand, understanding that we sing not only to God but to each other has implications on how we think about special music, sound amplification, and content.

Another helpful emphasis in the book is on the spirituality of corporate worship. Teaching happens not just in the sermon, but in our songs, prayers, and readings. We teach people the truth about God, and we teach them how to feel (46). What do you sing when you’re miserable as a Christian? We recently had one pastor preach Psalm 88, one of the darkest psalms in the Bible. Those psalms are there because that’s often our experience and God in His kindness teaches us how to feel, think, pray, sing, complain, and rejoice in all of life’s experiences. If that’s true of the Bible, then our corporate gatherings should reflect such diversity.

Where then should pastors and worship leaders find songs and other elements that are rich in truth and helpful for leading the church? Part two of the book has practical instructions on Scripture reading, leading in prayer, and planning corporate singing. Chapter 6 lists a number of resources the authors recommend for song selection as well as suggestions for organizing a church’s calendar (there’s even a helpful appendix on introducing psalm singing).

Undergirding the book is the importance of shepherding God’s people when the church is gathered. The leader must shepherd by God’s grace according to God’s Word. We don’t entertain, we shepherd. Entertainment may draw a crowd, but it draws our attention to the wrong thing. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. . . . Try as one may to exclude it, the question ‘What on earth is he up to now?’ will intrude. It lays one’s devotion to waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.[1]’”

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

While Gather God’s People is a good introduction to understanding, planning, and leading worship, introductions can raise important questions they don’t have time to answer. For instance, chapter 1 covers the theology of worship and summarizes the Old Testament’s teaching as showing that God cares how he is worshipped while the New Testament gives specific instructions on how to worship him. Agreed, but what about Scripture’s teaching that worship involves all of life? Worship is more than singing (96), but the book says little about its comprehensive nature. For that the reader would need to other works such as Engaging with God or Worship: Adoration and Action.

What about the particulars or objections to the regulative principle? Much has to be assumed in an introductory book like this. To dig into the issue, the reader could look at works such as Give Praise to God or Christ Centered Worship.

There are other unanswered questions, but whatever weakness may appear to the one who wants more than an introduction, the book remains just that: a concise, helpful introduction for new pastors or church leaders to hone their skills and better their understanding of what the Bible teaches about their task.

[1] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 5.

By:
Zach Schlegel

Zach Schlegel is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church Upper Marlboro in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

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