Bob Kauflin > Quotes

“And remember, the goal of practice isn't doing something until you get it right. It's doing it until you can't get it wrong.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Worship is about what we love. What we live for. It's about who we are before God.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Worship is God's gift of grace to us before it's our offering to God. We simply benefit from the perfect offering of the Son to the Father through the power of the Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). Worship is our humble, constant, appropriate, glad response to God's self-revelation and his enabling invitation. Apart from this perspective, leading worship can become self-motivated and self-exalting. We can become burdened by the responsibility to lead others and can think that we might not be able to deliver the goods. We subtly take pride in our worship, our singing, our playing, our planning, our performance, our leadership. Ultimately we separate ourselves from the God who drew us to worship him in the first place. That's why biblical worship is God-focused (God is clearly seen), God-centered (God is clearly the priority), and God-exalting (God is clearly honored). Gathering to praise God can't be a means to some "greater" end, such as church growth, evangelism, or personal ministry. God isn't a genie we summon by rubbing the bottle called "worship." He doesn't exist to help us get where we really want to go. God is where we want to go. So God's glory is the end of our worship, and not simply a means to something else. In the midst of a culture that glorifies our pitiful accomplishments in countless ways, we gather each week to proclaim God's wondrous deeds and to glory in his supreme value. He is holy, holy, holy. There is no one, and nothing, like the Lord.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“But being moved emotionally is different from being changed spiritually.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“The better (i.e., the more accurately) we know God through his Word, the more genuine our worship will be. In fact, the moment we veer from what is true about God, we're engaging in idolatry. Regardless of what we think or feel, there is no authentic worship of God without a right knowledge of God.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Want to know what heaven is going to be like? Go to church.”
― Bob Kauflin

“We attempt to worship God apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. We trust in our own wisdom, plans, creativity, and skill. We forget that worship of the triune God includes the Holy Spirit.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Remember, God can use us, but he doesn't need us.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“A divine perspective on skill will both motivate us to develop skill and protect us from exalting it.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“The Great God values not the service of men, if the heart be not in it: The Lord sees and judges the heart; he has no regard to outward forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be employed therein. It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the whole heart engaged steadfastly for God.1”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Faithful leadership doesn't always result in being commended, applauded, or appreciated.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“God hasn't called us to be successful or popular-he's called us to be faithful.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Trying to lead worship without electrical power can be a humbling experience. Trying to lead without spiritual power is far more serious. But normally not as obvious.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Good theologians are increasingly humbled and amazed by the God they study.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“A worshiping community is made up of individuals whose lives are centered around the Savior they worship together each week. A worshiping community expects to encounter God's presence not only on Sunday morning but every day. A worshiping community recognizes that passionate times of singing God's praise flow from and lead to passionate lives lived for the glory of Jesus Christ.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“In Music Through the Eyes of Faith, Harold Best defines excellence as "the process of becoming better than I once was.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“None of us can claim credit for our abilities.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“We're helping people connect with the purpose for which they were created--to glorify the living God we're pointing their hearts toward the Sovereign One who is greater than their trials and kinder than they could ever imagine. We get to display the matchless Savior who died in our place, conquering sin, death, and hell in the process.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“I was striving to gain the approval of those whose approval was of no eternal significance. I'd failed to see that the only approval that matters--God's--is impossible to earn but is offered as a gift through the gospel.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“But if we could grasp God completely, he wouldn't be much of a god. We should anticipate that our minds will be stretched to their limits as we seek to take in God's revelation of himself and his universe.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Faithfulness means firmly adhering to the observance of a duty, keeping your word, fulfilling your obligations. It involves being loyal, constant, and reliable.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“No importa lo que pensemos o sintamos, no hay una adoración auténtica sin un conocimiento correcto de Dios.”
― Bob Kauflin, Nuestra adoración importa: Guiando a otros a encontrarse con Dios

“Worship leading is not a musical function, it’s a pastoral function.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Singing is the Christian’s way of saying: God is so great that thinking will not suffice, there must be deep feeling; and talking will not suffice, there must be singing.7”
― Bob Kauflin, True Worshipers: Seeking What Matters to God

“Aun si puedo tocar la más compleja progresión armónica, escribir las mejores canciones o tocar una pieza impecablemente, todavía necesito la obra redentora del Salvador para perfeccionar mi ofrenda de adoración (1 Ped. 2:5).”
― Bob Kauflin, Nuestra adoración importa: Guiando a otros a encontrarse con Dios

“La música debe servirle a la letra”
― Bob Kauflin, Nuestra adoración importa: Guiando a otros a encontrarse con Dios

“Every church or individual Christian who claims to be Spirit-led must be Word-fed. If we want to know more of the Spirit’s power in our lives, we would be wise to fill ourselves with the riches of his”
― Bob Kauflin, True Worshipers: Seeking What Matters to God

“Good theology helps us keep music in its proper place. We learn that music isn't an end in itself but rather a means of expressing the worship already present in our hearts through the new life we've received in Jesus Christ.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“What size does God appear to be when our mind is preoccupied with all the cares, worries, and concerns of life? Very small.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

“Gary smiled. "If you were really hopeless, you'd stop trusting in yourself and what you can do and start trusting in what Jesus accomplished for you at the cross.”
― Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God