Worship Evaluation Quotes

“Comparing our worship to the worship of another congregation means we are trying to measure up to a standard God has called them to, not the one God has called us to.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“No matter how large or small, every church should be developing distinctly and becoming uniquely the congregation God has called them to be. Loving the Lord with heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves are never contingent on congregational size or abilities.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“It is true that congregations often need to make and should be making regular worship adjustments, including the latest songs, styles, or technological tools. But instead of always being early adopters and jumping without considering circumstances and the potential consequences, those congregations should instead be discerning and determining their worship practices by praying together, reading Scripture together, coming to the Lord’s Table together, mourning together, rejoicing together, sharing ministry together, playing together, and then finally singing their song sets together.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“If our church services convey that worship starts when we start it and ends when we end it, if all worship resources and energies are spent preparing for and presenting a single hour on Sunday, if we aren’t exhorting our congregation and modeling for them how to worship not only when we gather but also when we disperse, then we are enabling mindless worshippers.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Worship is always easier when things are going our way, when we have a job, a healthy family, a lovely home, and financial security. But what about when the daily events of life threaten to consume us? If worship is continuous, why wouldn’t you also worship then?”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“How can congregations expect to have healthy intergenerational worship when they segregate by age in all of their other ministries during the week? The only time various generations connect is during an hour on Sunday around songs one generation or the other doesn’t particularly like. If congregations are depending on the music of that one hour to be the solitary driver of intergenerational worship, then music can’t help but get the solitary blame when conflict arises.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Intergenerational worship is only possible if our common ground is deference instead of preference.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Remembering the Resurrection only on Easter is like remembering your marriage only on your anniversary.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“We spend so much time leading church services as an act of worship that we often neglect to lead the church in service as an act of worship too.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“If we are waiting on a feeling for worship to occur, then it may never occur. Worship contingent on a musical experience that just stirs the emotions may not be worship, but instead nostalgia or novelty.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“When congregations gather for worship they may be hooked on a feeling stirred by nostalgia or novelty instead of spirit and truth worship. So if those feelings are not elicited because they don’t know or don’t particularly like the songs, they can even leave the worship service believing that worship couldn’t and didn’t occur.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“It doesn’t matter how good our worship is in here; it is still incomplete until it also includes how we treat our neighbors out there.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“If we create worship just to accommodate our needs, then the god we worship looks a lot like us.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Worship leaders and the songs they sing can’t light a fire in us or usher us into the presence of God; the death and resurrection of Jesus already has.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Instead of seeing worship as a new fire to start each week, what if we saw it as a flame or light that can be taken with us? Then it could continue as we leave the service. It could happen in our homes, at our schools, through our work, and in our culture. It couldn’t be contained in a single location, context, culture, style, artistic expression, or vehicle of communication. Consequently, instead of depending on our worship leaders to start the fire from scratch when we gather each week, they could just help us fan those flames that already exist.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“If idolatry is extreme devotion to anyone or anything that isn’t God, then replacing the cross with our mothers, fathers, graduates, or the flag as the primary symbol of our worship on any given Sunday could cause us to stray into idol territory. God’s story and our response to that story transcends cultural and denominational calendars.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Why couldn’t we celebrate Mother’s Day, Graduation Sunday, and Memorial Day in the same seasons as Ascension Day and Pentecost? Without ignoring one or the other, it is possible to converge holidays significant to our civic and denominational calendars with those Christian holidays significant to the kingdom.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“By limiting Scripture to a single reading prior to the pastoral exhortation, we may be unwittingly implying that we are placing a higher level of credibility in the exhortation than in the Word itself. It may then convey a lack of trust in the very Word professed to be foundational to our faith, doctrines, and practices. If Scripture can’t stand on its own, then we can’t possibly prop it up with our own words.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Scripture must be foundational to our songs, sermons, prayers, verbal transitions, and even ministry announcements. It must be frequently, variously, generationally, and culturally read and allowed to stand on its own. When that occurs, our congregations will leave in-here worship, with the text in their hearts and on their lips, for nonstop worship out there.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Some of us can imagine our worship services filled with people of multiple colors, nationalities, economic levels, and political beliefs all worshipping God together. The only problem with that scenario is that most of us imagine how great that vision would be as long as those various cultures, tribes, and tongues are willing to adjust their worship to worship just like we do.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“We believe music is a universal language just as long as everyone else lives in our universe. It’s impossible for intercultural worship to begin with a common musical style, so it must instead begin with a common biblical content. And when it does, music won’t get the blame for what only theology can fix.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“How can we expect to have inter- cultural worship on Sunday when we segregate monoculturally in everything else during the week?”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“Hymns and modern worship songs aren’t mutually exclusive. As long as we are filtering them according to theology instead of partiality, they can both live in harmony and compatibility as worship allies instead of adversaries.”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

“If worshippers habitually practiced the presence of God throughout the week, then what could occur when they got to practice God’s presence together on Sunday?”
― David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship