Preaching and Worship: PRAW 100

Early Christian Worshipis a straightforward, readable introduction to worship in the first four centuries of the church's existence. How did early Christians see and understand their own worship? How did this interact with early Christian beliefs? The book has been brought up-to-date and revised, with some chapters rewritten and an updated bibliography.

This book connects the living realms of the church, the self, the neighbor and the world. Through these relations, we can connect worship with economy, preaching with raising a village, baptism with forms of citizenship, ecology and the market, Easter with immigration, liturgical knees with colonization, spirituality with minority voices, all uttering prayers that name racism, poverty and a liberation theology of glory.

This revised edition provides theological foundations for worship and explores the ways Christians have adapted worship to various cultures to help them live faithfully and to communicate the gospel to others. The author celebrates the many languages and cultural settings in which the gospel has been, and is, preached, sung, and prayed.

Pastors and others who lead Christian worship want to offer worship that is truthful and hopeful. They yearn to create worship that involves and includes everyone in their midst. To develop new approaches to planning, so that their worship can reflect and respond to the realities of the community.

This book will give you time-tested strategies for creating and sustaining sensory-rich worship that offers unforgettable messages each and every week. Insights from filmmakers: art directors, screenwriters, composers, cinematographers and directors, will attract and ignite volunteers as they gain skills for every worship art.